What Do People Think When They Hear Your Name?
When you hear the name Expand Energy, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
A) "If you're talking about the company HQ'd in OKC, then I'll always call them Chesapeake."
B) "They're the largest natural gas producer."
C) "That's Aubrey McClendon's company."
D) "Didn't they rise from massive debt and bankruptcy to dominance like some kinda phoenix?"
E) "They are expanding critical energy to markets in need, addressing one of the greatest threats to human prosperity."
Regardless of your answer, the real question to ask yourself today is:
"When people hear MY name, what's the first thing I want them to think?
And once you've answered that, ask yourself:
"What am I doing to make sure people actually DO think what I want them to when they hear my name—or the name of my team, department, or company?"
To help you answer those questions, Episode 95 of The Energy Detox weaves together a few Pittsburgh-related headlines:
💡 Today’s CHK/SWN consummation, which just made Pittsburgh-based EQT the "former largest natural gas producer in the U.S."
💡 Yesterday's death of Pete Rose, who earned the first of his 4,256 hits against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1963
💡 Today's announced $16 Billion deal between ADNOC and Covestro, which has its North American HQ in the Pittsburgh region.
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Heck, even an average day at an average O&G company that isn't dealing with M&A—but is dealing with the inescapable demands and uncertainty of the energy industry—can feel like Armageddon.
But as Jason Spiess and Joe Sinnott discuss in this episode of The Crude Life inspired by the “CHK + SWN = Expand Energy” transaction and the movie Armageddon, your ability to show steadiness, creativity, and confidence at times when it seems like the is sky falling can set you—and those you lead—apart from the pack:
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When it comes to the question of how people react to names, nothing in recent Pittsburgh history tops the reaction of Pittsburghers when they hear “Acrisure Stadium,” which will forever be “Heinz Field” to countless locals.
So, what do Heinz Field and another household name—Ben Roethlisberger—have to do with energy industry leadership?
Find out in this live, Monday morning quarterback episode of The Energy Detox:
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to the energy detox coming to you for the second episode in a row from on top of a parking garage in western Pennsylvania. Now, unlike last episode where I Joe Sinnott was standing in Erie, Pennsylvania, today, I'm standing on a parking garage in downtown Pittsburgh, and I'm here on october 1 2024 for a couple of reasons. First, because the building behind me used to be called EQT Plaza, until a couple of months ago when EQT was literally taken down from on top of that building.
00:32
And here on october 1, there was a figurative takedown of EQT just a couple of hours ago when Chesapeake Energy consummated its deal with Southwestern to become expand energy, which is now the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, taking down EQT, which had held that title for almost seven years. But again, I'm not standing here because that's any sort of new news. It was announced last week that Chesapeake would be having this new name expand energy, and it was announced that this week, at some point, the deal would be closing, and of course, it's been months in the works that deal, so none of this is a surprise, and certainly here on the energy detox, we're not a big fan of having messages that aren't timely. So why am I standing here today? Well, it's because just in the last 24 hours, there were two other headlines that have some connections, either to Pittsburgh and or the energy industry, that made me think, all right, well, what's in a name? Obviously, a lot of people now are asking, all right, well, how long will it take for people to actually be comfortable saying, expand energy instead of Chesapeake Energy? It's a logical question that occurs any time there's some sort of rebranding.
01:37
Heck, 15 years ago, when equitable resources became EQT. It took some time for people to, if they were employees like myself, say, EQT, instead of equitable resources, it took even more time for people to say, Oh, you work for equitable the gas company, right? And say, Well, no, actually, they no longer have the gas company, the utility, the distribution company, and oh, by the way, they're not equitable resources anymore. They're EQT. It takes time, and certainly it will take time with the employees of the former Chesapeake and southwestern and the new employees of expand energy and all of its various stakeholders. But those other two headlines that made me asking, start asking basically the same question. Was one, the headline about the death of Pete Rose because you want to talk about somebody where you hear his name, Pete Rose, and think of all of the different things that could come to mind. What do you think when you hear pit rose? Do you think hit King? Do you think gambler who is snubbed by the Baseball Hall of Fame? Do you think Charlie hustle his nickname? What do you think of Well, again, that depends on your perspective. That depends on maybe what you've heard or think you've heard about Pete Rose.
02:47
The moral of the story is a name like that conjures up a very individual response to you when you hear it. Similarly. Another headline made me think of head different names, if you will. And that's because ad knock the Abu Dhabi national oil company announced just a couple of hours ago that it would be acquiring covestro, which, for those of you in the Pittsburgh area, know has deep Pittsburgh ties. And I'll spare you all the details about that acquisition and about the death of Pete Rose and about the Chesapeake Southwestern deal, because that's not the point here on the energy detox, you can get that anywhere else. The point today that you can't get everywhere else is how all of those various headlines and acquisitions and deaths of famous baseball players can help you become a more effective leader. That's the point here, to connect headlines, energy, themes and leadership to help you, the listener or viewer of the energy detox, and very simply, the question is, when people hear your name, what do you want them to think? What do you want them to say? And if this sounds like a very similar message from the last episode of the energy detox, where we talked about the stickiness of your message, well, it's because it is, but it also bears repeating, because you could spend countless hours, if not days, months, years, trying to become a more effective leader.
04:07
But if you aren't crystal clear about what that headline is and what you want other people to say about you, well there's a good chance that all those investments that you're making are not going to have the most bang for their buck, because at the end of the day, it's very simple, what do you want other people to think of when they hear your name, if you were Pete Rose? What do you want people to think of when they hear your name? Do you want to think about Charlie hustle, which, again, he wears a badge of honor, even though some of the origin stories for that nickname, and again, it isn't universal how he got that nickname. There's two main competing stories that, again, I'll spare you the details of right now, but the moral of the story is it likely started as something that was not really positive. It was somewhat derogatory, and he worked as a badge of honor. He probably liked being known as Charlie hustle. Certainly, I would imagine he liked being known as the hit king. And my guess is he probably wasn't a big fan of being known as the guy that gambled on baseball and received a. Of time ban.
05:01
Similarly, if you're EQT now that you're no longer the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, if that had been the thing that you had hoped other people would think of when they heard your name, and I'm not saying that was necessarily the case for anybody, but if it were, well, what do you want to be known as now? Not the company that was formerly the largest producer of natural gas in the United States? No. Probably something about innovation. Probably something about the many public initiatives that they share, whether it's their digital work environment, whether it's their unleash us, LNG campaign, whatever that is. What do you want other people to say about you? And similarly, when it comes to Chesapeake again, do you want people to simply say that you are now the largest producer of natural gas in the United States, or is it something deeper? Is it something bigger? Certainly, with their new rebranding, with their name, they're looking for something bigger, something more expansive, something that speaks to their global impact. But are people going to say that?
05:53
Which leads us to the next question for you, once you know what you want other people to say about you, what once you know what you want other people to have come to mind when they hear your name. The next question is, well, what are you doing about it? Again, we talked about this on episode 94 of the energy detox, and we're going to talk about it again today, which is, what actions are you taking? What discrete steps can you take to boost the odds that when people hear your name, they're going to say what you want them to say. And for everybody out there that's made it this far and says, Well, Joe, this is just a bunch of BS. Quite frankly, I got thick skin. I don't care what other people say about me. I don't care what other people say about my team. We're here to just get the job done and move forward. And to you, I say, fantastic, that thick skin will serve you well. But think about how that thick skin that not caring if you will, could be impacting your ability to actually get stuff done. Sure. You might not care if people are casting stones at you. Don't like how you operate, don't like how you speak, that's fine, but the bigger question is, if you're in a leadership position, how is that negatively impacting your team? How is it making their jobs just a little bit more difficult, because you simply don't care. So that being said, it's even more important for you to say, Well, if you could control the narrative, what would people say when they hear your name, when they hear your team name, your department's name, or your company name? And then again, what are you doing to shape that narrative?
07:20
What are you doing to go out and speak with people and say, hey, if this is not what you think of when you hear my name, what can I do to get you there again? That could be a very uncomfortable question, but also a very efficient and important one. So that being said, might as well shed a little bit of light on the ad knock. Deal for people who aren't familiar. So again. Ad knock again, oil company taking over covestro. Why did that inspire me in parked to stand here on this parking garage in Pittsburgh? Well, a couple of different reasons. Because covestro, if you know the history of it, is basically the material science arm of what used to be Bayer.
07:57
So Bayer, which split off covestro A number of years ago, basically, Baer maintained the sort of the pharmaceutical end of things, and covestro became the Muriel material science thing. And when you think about a name like Bayer, a bit of a classic name, what do you think of? Is it aspirin? Maybe it's probably not such a bad thing. Or is it the fact that Baer bought Monsanto a couple of years ago? And again, when people hear Monsanto, they have a lot of different things that come to mind in particular, I would say probably Roundup. So what do you think of when you hear bear? Do you jump to covestro, which is now going to be part of ad knock? Do you think of aspirin? Do you think of Monsanto? How many of you think about Pittsburgh? How many think about the signage that has changed along the parkway on the way to the airport from here in downtown Pittsburgh.
08:44
Again, pretty big questions, but bring it back to you, if you're the bears of the world, the covestros of the world, the ad knocks of the world, the eqts of the world, the chesapeakes or expands or southwesterns of the world. What do you want people to say? Can people follow the bouncing ball, if you will. Of different positions, you've had titles, you've had influences. You've had, whether it's the title of hit king or natural gas king in the case of EQT and now expand energy. What do you want them to think of if you've had some black eyes in your career, whether it's something that got you fired from a job or got you in trouble or again, got you banned for life from the Hall of Fame baseball in general. What do you want people to say about you? That's the question. With the follow up being what are you doing about it?
09:31
And so with that, as always, thank you for joining me on this second episode in a row from atop a parking garage in western Pennsylvania. And of course, as always, regardless of who you are or who you want to be, I hope you have a great rest of the week.