Unleash (U)nconventional, (S)ustainable (L)eaders...(N)ot (G)amblers

What's a bigger risk to your company and your industry:

A) Settling for conventional, generic, uninspiring management tips and tricks that follow the stale script of some supposed leadership guru who has little to no idea what you actually do; or

B) Embracing unconventional, differentiated, proven approaches designed to address the unique challenges that you, your team, your company, and your industry face?

Regardless of your answer, this episode of The Energy Detox will boost your odds of becoming a more conscious, trusted, and effective leader by laying out a set of tools inspired the #UnleashUSLNG campaign that EQT’s Toby Rice will be discussing at this week's PIOGA Spring Meeting, during which PIOGA may very well stand for (P)roducers (I)lluminating (O)fficials' (G)ambling (A)dditions (...with regard to energy policy).

That being said—and no matter what the future of Liquified Natural Gas looks like here in the United States—remember that you have a duty to Unleash (U)nconventional, (S)ustainable (L)eaders...(N)ot (G)amblers.

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“Should Assist King John Stockton be Named US LNG Ambassador?” (The Energy Detox, Episode 68)

Transcript

(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)

Hello and welcome to the energy detox coming to you today from outside Pittsburgh's Rivers Casino where tomorrow I and a number of attendees will be at a PIOGA meeting where PIOGA generally stands for the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association. But given the setting of tomorrow's meeting, given the topics of tomorrow's meeting, I'm proposing a different acronym that being (P)roducers (I)lluminating (O)fficials' (G)ambling (A)ddictions, a different P-I-O-G-A, and why do I share that? Well, again, not just because of the obvious gambling tie ins, but because many of the conversations will likely be about our elected officials who are wittingly or unwittingly gambling with energy security, energy, affordability, energy availability, and, of course, the environmental impacts of our energy decisions right here in Pennsylvania.

00:56

And while again, many of those conversations will undoubtedly be interesting, maybe a little heated, that's not the point of today's episode of the energy detox, we're not going to dive into all of the ways that again, our officials may be gambling with our energy that is right below our feet here in Pennsylvania. No, what I'm going to do is shift gears as we usually do to leadership, leadership in energy. And for that, I'm going to take a page I'm going to steal, if you will, some themes that you're likely to hear from one of the producers that will be speaking tomorrow, that being Toby Rice of EQT and his themes undoubtedly will touch at least a little bit, if not a lot on U.S. LNG, in particular his Unleash USLNG campaign, which again, for those of you who are not aware of stands for unleashing United States liquefied natural gas. Now, again, the point of today's episode of the energy detox is not to rehash all of the various talking points and arguments that Toby will make tomorrow and has been making for Well, I don't know about two years now regarding the positive impacts of US LNG when it comes to the environment and energy security and availability and affordability for our allies around the world. But no, what I'm going to do is take that and again, forcing another alternative acronym for us LNG that ties to you as a leader in the energy industry. And with our remaining time here on this episode, we're going to step through some practical tools that you can use so that you can unleash unconventional, sustainable leaders, not gamblers. So again, let's spell that out there unleash US LNG leadership version, Unleash (U)nconventional, (S)ustainable (L)eaders... (N)ot (G)amblers.

02:52

And how are we going to do that? Well, again, we're going to pull in some gambling themes. Here, we're going to turn our attention to a topic to a theme to a book that we've discussed on several episodes of the energy detox about that bear repeating again, for no other reason than the pyro go meeting tomorrow here at Rivers Casino. And that book, that theme is thinking in bets. It's a book written by former or current professional poker player, Annie Duke. And her whole theme. Her whole thesis is essentially that we as human beings, and especially as leaders need to embrace the reality that life is governed by statistics by probabilities. And we fail as leaders when we look at things as black or white, when we allow fear and worry to enter our decision making process and believe that our decisions are strictly governed by the results that they lead to. Now, of course, when you're looking at 1000s of decisions over the course of a career, or in fact, the 1000s, the 10s of 1000s discrete decisions that you actually make in any given day, which is a topic for another episode. The reality is if you're making a high percentage of those decisions, and they lead to a high percentage of bad results, then yes, you're probably making a number of bad decisions. But if you're following best practices, if you're being thoughtful, and conscious, and making good decisions that because of the rules of probability and statistics sometimes lead to bad results. Well, again, that doesn't make you a bad decision maker that doesn't make you a bad leader. That simply means that again, the rules around probabilities is entering into your life and into your decision making. And again, as leaders, it's up to you to make sure that the culture that you're embracing and that you're sharing with others reflects that reflects the fact that sometimes good decisions, lead to bad results. And sometimes, of course, bad decisions, just through the laws of happenstance, lead to positive results. So what can we do with that information?

04:44

Again, what practical tools mindsets questions can you deploy to take that thinking in bets theme and become a more effective, sustainable, unconventional leader? Well, we're gonna go through three of those and we're going to steal three games that again, you can play in there. starting of course with poker again, Annie Duke, the genesis of this thinking in bets idea she was a professional poker player. And one thing that isn't explicit in her book, but that I certainly see now in my role as an executive coach is, of course, the importance of feedback. Everybody knows how important feedback is. But what can you do when it comes to feedback to make you unconventional? To give you the tools and the insights that make you sustainable as a leader? Well, it's to ask those around you what tells you have, what are you doing to signal to others that you're bluffing or that you have one heck of a good hand or whatever it is that they think you have a think is inside? What can you do to make sure that they don't create a false narrative, or if it's a true narrative that they don't run without, without you having a chance to interject? And share your piece? And of course, the simplest thing to do is ask, ask them. What is it that is a leader and doing that is either upsetting you? What is it that I'm doing as a leader that makes you think I'm full of crap? And we're not gonna talk about craps as an aside, but maybe for another episode.

06:04

But anyway, what is it? What is it that you're doing? And yes, you can go down the path of having an executive coach, go around and have lots of 360 degree conversations, which I do, yes, you can send out all kinds of 360 degree surveys to people to get that information. And maybe they share some of it, but nothing, nothing is more impactful than going up to them and saying, Hey, what do I do? What do I say? How do I act? When you think I'm maybe not telling the truth? What do I do? What do I say? What am I tells when you think I'm holding on to some information that I can't quite share for some reason. Because if again, you know that information about yourself, you can deploy it, you can use it to your advantage to win to help your team win, just as you can use knowledge about your personal tells in a game of poker to win. So again, this first tip is very practical tip is to not wait for somebody else to get feedback that then has to get filtered and relayed and that you might question and may not believe no, ask them point blank. What is it that I do or say that makes you think you know what's going on inside my head? You do that enough, you encourage other people to do it. And again, now you have a culture where people are not just on guard against some of their again, unwitting tells unwitting signaling regarding something but they're in control of that narrative, you can be in control of the perception that you are creating and that you want to have in your team and in your organization.

07:31

With that next game, second game, second tip roulette, focus on roulette. And what are we gonna say about roulette? Well, if there's one thing about roulette, more so than perhaps any other game, it's that the odds are very, very straightforward. They are right in front of you, there's no mystery, you're not pulling the handle on a slot machine. That's not craps, which again, we'll talk about another episode, which, again, can get confusing for players who aren't aware. It's not like poker, where again, you're dealing with that human element. And it's not like blackjack, which we'll talk about as our third tip or third inspiration, where again, some people maybe possess some tools, which can tilt the odds in their favor, or at least closer to being in their favor. No Roulette is front and center, the odds are there. And so the question for you, the tip for you from a leadership standpoint, is that if you want to be an unconventional leader, you use those odds, you use odds in your daily language, in your vernacular, when you're sharing, you don't allow other people unnecessarily to fall into that trap that we talked about a couple minutes ago, of thinking only in black and white terms. When you're asking somebody whether or not some new initiative, some new projects, some new vendor, some new approach, some new completion design, some new drilling technique is going to work or not, don't be the leader who says, Is this going to work? Or do you think this is going to work? demand that the people on the other side who you're asking that question of shear, hey, this is the odds, these are the odds of this working? I think there's an 80% chance that this is going to work. And if it doesn't, this is what it's going to cost us. That's a fruitful conversation. But it's got to be driven by you as a leader, because conventional leadership and understandable leadership, but certainly not sustainable leadership means that you're saying, hey, is this going to work? Yes or no? What do you think you're pinning people down, you're creating fear. And when you do that, again, you're not going to get the best results. You're not going to get innovation, you're not going to get free flowing thinking. You're gonna get short sighted decisions, fearful responses, fearful answers that limit the odds of you innovating, making progress and growing. So again, channel, your inner roulette wheel, be as transparent as possible about the odds. Don't leave it a mystery. Trust that your people both from a gut standpoint and certainly from their knowledge and experience can come up with some statistical guide on whether they think something is going to work or not. And again, you will have a less fear for full, more open and innovative culture, I promise you.

09:57

Third, final tool, third final game and that is blackjack. What's the lesson when it comes to blackjack? Well, as we just said a couple minutes ago, with Blackjack, you have a game where if you can count cards, or at least pay attention and and remember what cards you've already seen, you can start to tilt the odds in your favor, at least a little bit closer to being in your favor. And so what's the lesson from a corporate standpoint, if you as an energy leader, can take one lesson from Blackjack, it's to empower your people to look for those little things that of course, tilt the odds in your favor, to focus on the things that you need to focus on. If you don't have to worry anymore about a two or five or seven, showing up because they've already been shown you as a leader, you can make sure that people set those aside, they ignore them, instead of continuing to march through all of the distractions, all of the odds, all of the potential things that can go wrong when you've already eliminated a number of cards, if you will, that aren't going to pop up. But again, from a leadership standpoint, you need to be the one saying hey, what do we not need to worry about? It's very easy from a safety conscious culture, which, again, we have here in the energy industry, which is good to always focus on all the things that could go wrong, all of the things that can happen. But ask the opposite question. That's what unconventional leaders do. That's what sustainable leaders do, who don't waste time on things that no longer matter. They say, hey, what do we no longer have to worry about? Because once you ask that question, the next follow up is, well, who might still be worrying about it, who's still spending money, time energy worrying about things that we've already seen, we've already done. That helps you focus that helps your team focus. But again, it's very easy to miss in a fast paced industry that is governed, again, for good reason, by safety. So take some lessons from Blackjack, and tilt the odds in your favor by eliminating the things you've already seen, that you don't need to worry about. So that you can focus on those things that are actually going to make a difference. So that again, you and your team can win.

11:55

So with that, hope you take these three lessons, I hope these three questions or filters help you I think at a higher level, you continue to think and that's again, a message that you'll continue to hear here on the energy detox and that you don't fall into the trap of conventional leadership, where everything is black and white, where you instill fear in your people, and you don't help them think probabilistically think statistically and think in bets. So with that, if you look forward to continuing this conversation on leadership, or some of the conversations about the ways in which producers are or should be illuminating the officials, gambling addictions, if you will, then happy to have that conversation at the PI yoga meeting this week, and always happy to talk about how you as a leader can help unleash unconventional, sustainable leaders, not gamblers. With that, I hope you join me Joe Sinnott, on a future episode of the energy detox and in the meantime, I wish you the very best of luck

Leadership, Management, Coaching, Energy, Envronment, ESG, SustainabilityJoe SinnottLeadership, CoachingComment