Are You Polishing a Cannonball?
In what ways are you or your team unwittingly polishing a cannonball?
To help you answer that question, check out Episode 108 of The Energy Detox, recorded outside Pittsburgh's PNC park, home of the Polish Cannonball (a new food item introduced for the 2025 season) and home to a 14-foot bronze statue of Bill Mazeroski, the Polish-American Pirate who launched a cannonball that won the 1960 World Series.
ADDITIONAL CONTENT
RELATED EPISODES
“Steal Like a Pirate. Lead Like a Champ.” (Episode 78)
Do you spend enough time encouraging your employees to steal?
If not, check out this episode of The Energy Detox, where you'll hear:
1) how a theft-based culture can actually be the key to sustained success; and
2) why it's up to you as a leader to implement rules that make it easier for your employees to steal.
Curious where the inspiration for this unconventional leadership advice comes from?
Well, look no further than the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have used every tool (sword?) at their disposal—including roster construction, data analytics, and MLB's bigger bases—to lead the majors in steals at the start of the 2023 season and, more importantly, to lead the National League in wins (…for a brief period of time).
“Energy & Environment: The Yin and Yang of MVP-Level Leadership” (Episode 79)
As 2013 NL MVP Andrew McCutchen was closing in on career hit number 2,000, another MVP (Mountain Valley Pipeline) was finally closing in on completion of its ongoing construction/permitting saga that will took over 2,000 days from start to TIL.
So, what can these 2 MVP milestones tell you about sustainable leadership and, more specifically, the importance of striking a balance between energy & environment?
To find out, check out Episode 79 of The Energy Detox.
“Pitch Framing Principles to Keep Your Leadership Performance Above the Mendoza Line” (Episode 81)
Find out in this West Coast edition of The Energy Detox podcast, where you’ll explore the parallels between the skills necessary to be an effective catcher in Major League Baseball and the skills necessary to be an effective leader in the oil and gas industry. Drawing inspiration from baseball's best pitch framer, Austin Hedges, we reveal four essential leadership lessons:
1) Positioning for Success: Just as a catcher's positioning impacts pitch framing, effective leadership hinges on strategic positioning in meetings and day-to-day interactions. Being in the right place at the right time empowers leaders to seize opportunities and influence outcomes.
2) Giving (and Getting) Credit Where Credit is Due: Framing pitches goes beyond turning balls into strikes; it involves ensuring recognition for pitches that should be strikes. As leaders, taking the time to highlight and celebrate your team's accomplishments fosters a motivated and successful workforce.
3) Exhibiting Executive Presence: Like a catcher's finesse behind the plate, leaders should strike a balance between exerting effort and demonstrating control. Executive presence is about projecting confidence and authority without appearing overwhelmed.
4) Building Trust: Trust between a pitcher and catcher is paramount in baseball. Similarly, trust within an organization is essential for effective leadership. Transparency, clarity on targets, and mentorship create an environment where trust flourishes, leading to better results and a lasting impact.
By adopting pitch framing principles, energy leaders can elevate their performance, steer their teams to success, and create a positive ripple effect throughout their organizations. Embrace these insights, step up to the plate, and lead with clarity, confidence, and authenticity in the ever-evolving landscape of the oil and gas industry.
Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Did you hear that the Pittsburgh Pirates are being sold? Did you hear that long suffering pirates fans are finally getting their wish that is a brand new owner? Well, if you did hear those things, then I got some bad news for you, because you may well have been the victim of an April Fool's joke, because to the best of my knowledge, the pirates are not being sold, which means that pirates leadership will continue polishing a cannonball. And if you're not familiar with the term polishing a cannonball, well, it essentially means to continue doing things, making investments, spending time energy money on things that really don't make a difference.
00:36
And in the case of the Pirates, they will continue making investments and spending time and energy on things that may make small tweaks to the organization, to the team, to the ballpark, but at the end of the day, likely won't make a difference in their on field performance. And so today, on the energy detox, we're going to take that term, that idea of polishing a cannonball, and pose a couple questions for you as a leader in the energy industry to ask, how often are you or your teams or your colleagues polishing a cannonball? But before we do that, to set the stage a little bit, the term polishing a cannonball obviously has plenty of pirates themes, but I want to set the stage a little bit more, because the real inspiration comes from a Polish cannonball. Again, a little fun with the English language here, where the word polish and polish can be spelled the same way, because the Polish Cannonball is one example of the pirates polishing a cannonball. Because, as they do every year, they've introduced some new cuisine to the ballpark, and one of those is the Polish cannonball. And what is that? Well, it's a deep fried ball of egg noodles, kielbasa, cabbage, bacon cheese and with a side of herb dipping sauce. Anyway, again, I'd be remiss if I didn't shed a little bit of light on that inspiration. But also, and probably more importantly, the gentleman behind me, Bill Mazeroski, a Polish American pirate who launched what some might say is the most famous and certainly the greatest cannonball in major league baseball history, that being the game winning home run the 1960 World Series the bottom of the ninth against the mighty New York Yankees to win That game seven and again, launch his place in Pirates infamy, in the Hall of Fame, and including the Polish American Hall Sports Hall of Fame, in addition to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
02:31
Anyway. So with all of those Polish themes and polishing themes and cannonball themes, here, let's get to the crux of today's episode, and that is, in what ways are you polishing a cannonball? And to start, let's go with one item here that I see quite often, and I've seen it throughout my career and certainly now as a coach, and that is the constant polishing of PowerPoint presentations. How much time and energy have you spent and have your colleagues spent polishing figurative cannon balls that go to some audience that likely doesn't even care how well polished your presentation is. And again, the point of this episode is to not spend time talking about how to improve your approach to presentations and how to actually put forth effort that will make a difference, but instead to simply have you asking that question. Are you polishing a cannonball when it comes to presentations? Are you spending so much time on details and fluff and polish when at the end of the day, all your audience likely wants is some bottom line suggestion, answer or question posed to them, so that they can make a decision? And if you have more details, great, but you probably don't need to load them up front. Now, in some cases, you do right. Maybe you're presenting to a technical team about the design of some sort of facility. Maybe they need all those details up front to try to catch things. That's fine. But again, I think it goes without saying that your approach to presentation should not be one size fits all. Yet, I think every organization, at least, that I have witnessed, is susceptible to the polishing of a cannonball when it comes to presentations.
04:05
The next item on the list is rewarding firefighting again, especially in an industry like oil and gas well, employees are often rewarded for fighting fires to jumping into action when they're called upon, and that's not a bad thing, except when leaders unwittingly reward firefighters and not reward fire preventers. So again, ask yourself, in what ways are you unwittingly rewarding firefighters at the expense of people who are actually out there trying to prevent these fires from occurring in the first place, and to throw in or force in a baseball metaphor, let's go back to that game seven of the 1960 World Series. It was great. You know, the ultimate hero coming through in the clutch, Bill Mazeroski, but in your organization, are you basically relying on constant game sevens instead of saying, hey, how could we potentially win this series in five or six games? Instead of having to find ourselves constantly in this high pressure situation.
05:02
That being said, let's move on to the third example of polishing a cannonball, and that is not firing, well, figurative cannonballs, if you will, not firing employees when they need to be let go, when employees are not a good fit for the organization. And again, that goes both ways. Are you continuing to, again, sort of polish their existence and keep them along because it's either easier or it feels like the right thing to do, when, in fact, in many cases, you are unwittingly harming them in the long term, and you're certainly harming your team and you're potentially harming your own reputation. How often do you have an employee who, again, is not a good fit, but you continue pouring resources into them in the hopes that they might turn things around, when, in reality, again, what's best for them is to say, look, this isn't working out. Here are some feedback on how perhaps you can use your strengths at another organization. But it doesn't need to be here. And again, it's common. It's human nature and and quite frankly, it's a good example of and again, this is not an insight that I dreamed up myself, but I've heard before for people that say, You know what, when companies refer to their employees as family, that's not necessarily a good thing, because in a family, you know what, you're not going to fire a family member, right? You are going to hold on. You are going to pour all kinds of extra energy and effort, even if sometimes that means, you know, time and energy is not going to be allocated to other members of the family. And again, you know, pick your favorite analogy or biblical story like the prodigal son that was read at Catholic Masses this past weekend, right? Sometimes it's good to let people walk away and come back, if you will. But by and large, when it comes to family, no, you keep them close. So again, some people will point out that, you know, when it comes to business, what's best for all parties is so again, let that cannonball fire away, let that person walk away. And again, everybody can move on in a much more conscious and effective manner.
06:57
That being said, the fourth example of polishing a cannonball that I have seen quite often is obsessing and polishing metrics that really don't matter. Again, you can pause right now and think of your favorite dashboard that you're tasked with updating on a regular basis that honestly doesn't tell as full of a story or as complete of a story as it should, or, more importantly, it doesn't impact the bottom line as much as it should. And if we go back to the game seven of the World Series, or actually the entire 1960 World Series, if you looked at the metrics in terms of offensive production, you will have seen that the Yankees dominated the pirates. Think they scored about twice as many runs as the pirates if you look at all seven games of that series. But of course, that metric is not what mattered at the end of the day, it was the fact that the pirates won four games and the Yankees only won three. So again, with that in mind, ask yourself, in what ways are you looking at run production, when in reality, you should be looking at something else that points to the ultimate goal, which is long term Series victory, if you will.
07:59
And finally, the fifth example for this episode, at least, of polishing a cannonball is meetings. Again, a topic that has come up on many of the other 107 episodes of the energy detox. But again, how often are you or others polishing a meeting, tweaking a meeting, tweaking the attendees, tweaking the agenda, tweaking the timing of the meeting, instead of taking a step back and asking, hey, does this meeting even need to exist again? It's human nature to say, hey, well, you know, before we give up on this meeting, let's at least try to improve it. And I get that. But by and large, I would argue that the time and energy spent polishing that meeting, so to speak, is not necessarily worth it. So as a leader, ask yourself, does it make sense to simply again fire that cannonball, get rid of that meeting and start from scratch, instead of spending all kinds of time and energy polishing something that really is not having the impact that you or others expect it to have.
08:54
So that being said, those were only five examples of polishing a cannonball. No doubt there are dozens that I'm sure you could call to mind. And so with that, I welcome your feedback. I'd love you to comment with whatever examples of polishing a cannonball that come to your mind, and as another call to action, what one example of polishing a cannonball can you commit to not polishing what one example of polishing a cannonball do you think will have the most impact on you? Heck today, if not this week, certainly going through the rest of this quarter here as we kick off quarter number one. And so with that being said, I guess the last call to action, if you will, is if you happen to be one of those people who will be welcoming the currently one in four pirates back here to PNC Park for their home opener against the Yankees, who, of course, were vanquished by Bill Mazeroski on that famous home run 65 years ago. Yikes.
09:52
Well, question for you is, if you try one of those Polish Cannonballs here at the ballpark, please do provide your feedback and your comments on on. How good that cuisine was. So with that being said, and again, in honor of Bill Mazeroski and his walk off win and as we stand here a couple days away from welcoming the Pittsburgh Pirates who have suffered three walk off losses in their first five games, I'd be remiss not to end this episode by offering a Go Bucs and a go forth to you to become a more conscious leader who does not spend time polishing cannonballs.