Should Expand Energy Join the Thunder at the White House?
Which Oklahoma City team is more deserving of a White House invite:
🏀 The Thunder for winning the NBA Championship; or
🔥 Expand Energy for drilling a record-setting Marcellus well?
As you ponder that, check out Episode 114 of The Energy Detox for some unconventional recognition tools to help you lead more effectively.
…then give a read to this article by Jason Spiess of The Crude Life as he lays out the case for an Expand Energy White House invite.
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Thanks to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s victory over the Indiana Pacers last night in game seven of the NBA Finals, the Thunder will presumably be getting an invitation to the White House to celebrate their championship, but here on the energy detox, we're going to focus on a different team that's also based in Oklahoma City, and that is arguably more worthy of an invitation to the White House for something that they achieved recently, and that team is the Expand energy drilling team and its various service providers who helped drill a record setting Marcellus well down in West Virginia recently. And that well reached out over five miles, setting us land records for length of well, length of lateral, longest BIT TRIP, longest 24 hour and 48 hour footage, all kinds of tremendous records that, again, you could argue, is probably more impactful for your average American than the thunders victory last night, notwithstanding the millions of people, of course, who enjoy watching the NBA and enjoyed watching the thunder beat the Pacers last night. All that being said, what expand energy has done and continues to do, has tremendous impact on Americans from an energy standpoint, obviously, especially here, as we navigate a pretty intense heat wave in much of America and as we navigate energy security matters thanks to the events that occurred this past weekend. That being said, are we doing enough to celebrate natural gas? And I'll let you answer that question, because here on the energy detox, we're not, again, going to spend all of our time talking about natural gas either, and all of its benefits and how, again, it makes America stronger because of, again, types of things that expand energy is doing no today on the energy detox, we're going to come back to our mission that being helping you as a leader in the oil and gas industry, be more effective, be more conscious, and in turn, help yourself and help your team continue building upon the successes that you've had, much like the success that the thunder had and that expand energy has had. But before we do that, I need to give full credit to Jason Spiess host of the crude life, because a couple days ago, I happened to be a guest on the crude life, and we were talking about expand energies record setting well. And ultimately, Jason said, Hey, wait a second. You know, we we celebrate at the White House all kinds of sports teams after they win championships. Why doesn't President Trump invite expand energy to again, tout this achievement. So this idea that we're talking about today, again, is not unique to me. Again, I need to give full credit to Jason Spiess there. And I also need to add one final point, and that is expand energy's Well, which, again, was on the order of five plus miles. If you were to drill a well on the White House lawn, down and out five miles in any direction, you essentially could reach any part of Washington DC, or at least under Washington DC, and in essence, figuratively, you know, drain the swamp, if you will, underneath Washington DC, just as a five mile lateral can drain the reservoir the Marcellus natural gas from underneath a vast area, and in turn have a very small environmental footprint, which, of course, is one of the many benefits of drilling these extended laterals. So again, that being said, setting aside the operational matters, the political matters, the sports matters. What's the point today? Well, the point is to use this whole concept of inviting people and celebrating achievements to help make sure that you are more effective when it you know, when it comes time for you to acknowledge other folks. And to do that, we're going to start first with this concept of the microphone. Because, you know, no doubt, if you've seen any of those, you know, short videos, when teams are invited to the White House, it's all about who gets the microphone right. You know, people passing around, saying silly things, maybe cracking a couple jokes, but it's always interesting to see who, again, who gets that microphone, who gets to speak. And from an expand energy standpoint, it was interesting to see who got to speak, figuratively speaking, at least in their press release, or at least who was quoted, because there was no mention in expands press release about this record setting well of the COO or a VP, no, it was all about a drilling engineer. It's a drilling engineer who's quoted there, and it's a drilling engineer who essentially has the microphone and is giving thanks to all of the third parties who helped make this well possible, and who's giving thanks to upper management and certainly other folks at expand for making this record setting well possible. And so think about that in your own world, in your own company, how often when it comes time to celebrate something, do you go with the default? And that is, you know, the highest person available is there to do what they do and take the microphone, hand out some praise, some thanks, maybe a bonus, you know, maybe a gift card, maybe something like that. But typically, again, it's the highest person, because that seems like the right thing to do. But what expanded is really something that I encourage you to think about, which is, who else can be the person with the microphone offering thanks? It doesn't have to be somebody from the top. In fact, maybe the person on the top needs to get a little thanks from from somebody who's more on the front lines. You know, that's differentiated leadership, and when I see that in action again, it's, it's amazing how often now, again, this isn't forever. Buddy. Not everybody likes the spotlight, but it's amazing how you might get different insights, different color, if you allow somebody else to give thanks. So ask yourself again. You know, no doubt, I would hope here in short order, you'll have something to thank somebody for, whether it's a third party, whether it's somebody internally, and if you have an opportunity to give somebody else the opportunity to say thanks before you do well, take advantage of that opportunity. Give them the microphone. You know, again, that that is a win, win, win, win, all kinds of people winning when you take that responsibility and hand it off to somebody else. So take a page from expand ask you can give that microphone to next time you need to give praise for some sort of internal or external accomplishment. Item number two here in terms of practical things that you could do from a leadership standpoint, under this umbrella of invitations and and making sure that the praise and the spotlight is is as effective as possible. And that is, of course, to lean into this concept of, hey, you know what we're not done yet. How often when a team wins and they say, Hey, you know what? We're not done yet. We're ready for next year, right? We're ready to repeat or repeat in some cases, and certainly in the world of sports, I think that's common, right? To say we are not done yet. Oil and gas, same thing. I have no doubt that expand energy is out there saying, Hey, we are not done yet. We're going to keep setting records. I have no doubt about that. Again, given the industry that I've been privileged to serve here in multiple capacities for the last 20 years. But here's where I am concerned, and here's where people do miss the boat a little bit, and where I don't want you to miss the boat. It's the fact that other parties are not done yet. Other teams are not done yet. It's very easy. When you're on cloud nine. You're getting all these accolades to say, hey, we're gonna keep working hard. We're gonna work harder than ever. We're not going to rest on our laurels. But what that also needs to mean is we're not going to forget that there's other parties who are trying to do similar things as us. You know, the thunder obviously thinking, hey, you know the Pacers are going to be, you know, even more
06:54
agitated, but more motivated to come at us next year and emerge victorious. So again, I think, make sure you're asking yourself that, but in an oil and gas context, especially, ask yourself, hey, in what ways are we resting on our laurels and saying, Look, you know what, we've proven once again, that we are the best. And from an industry wide standpoint, not just the company wide standpoint, from an industry wide standpoint, how often do you hear leaders in the industry talk about the fact that, well, renewables, you know, they can't compete. From a from a, you know, math standpoint, from an energy standpoint, from a cost standpoint, you know, wind and solar in particular, they just can't compete. But how often do you hear that same leader express confidence in what he's saying or she's saying by throwing the words yet in there? They can't compete yet. Now are they ever going to be able to compete at the same level that oil and gas can again, from a reliability standpoint, from an affordability standpoint, I don't know, but a leader, a coach, an owner who doesn't firmly believe that there's other industries, there's other companies, there's other teams out there that are gunning for you at all times, if you don't believe that they're gonna find a way to try and win, well again, you're obviously setting yourself up for long term failure. You're setting yourself up for not being able to build on your current successes if you're not focused on the fact that other people are also not done yet. That being said, the third and final energy Sports Leadership note for today revolves around this idea of false hurdles. And this is a concept again, I gotta give full credit where it's due. This morning on the radio, folks talking about the thunder victory. You know, they talked about how often in sports teams use these, these false hurdles, these false chips on their shoulders, to make it seem like they overcame something that they really didn't overcome. Now, how often you hear a team say, You know what, everybody counted us out, or nobody believed in us. Nobody thought that we could emerge victorious, when the reality is they were a favorite. They should have won. You know, the betting markets, you know, had them again as the odds on favorite for months. Well, in the case of the thunder, I did not hear any examples? Have not heard any examples of them throwing out these false hurdles. And then on the radio again this morning, they weren't either, but they were talking about the fact that so often you do hear that though, right? You know how often? Again, like a like a Travis Kelsey after Kansas City wins, you know, one or two championships, yeah, you know, nobody counted on us, or they didn't think we could do it. And people say, Well, are you crazy? Like, of course, everybody thought you could do it. So make sure again, when you have achievements and you've done well, you know, don't undercut what people are, you know, understandably applauding, but making it sound like, you know, you achieved more than you really did, or you overcame some sort of hurdle that really wasn't there. So that being said, ask yourself, what else can you do when it comes to this idea of inviting others and giving praise and making sure that you know the right folks are in the conversation about the accomplishments that had been achieved and, of course, more significantly, the future accomplishments that you hope. To achieve, and with that again, I guess the final sort of call to action today is, well, ask yourself, what kind of praise and feedback can you give to somebody else here that maybe they might not be expecting? Certainly the thunder expecting this, I think expand energy undoubtedly would expect plenty of accolades for their accomplishment. But you know who in your sphere of influence on your personal life and your professional life is out there that you know make maybe could use a little bit of recognition today. Go forth, give them that recognition. And with that, congrats to expand energy. Congrats to the Oklahoma City Thunder and thank you, as always, for tuning in to the energy detox.