How Can Leadership Mercaptan Help You Catch Communication Problems Before They Explode?
Your breath may seem odorless to you...but those around you know it stinks.
Which is why a bit of "leadership mercaptan" can help alert you to toxic things that are unwittingly flowing from your mouth...before they become a problem.
That being said, celebrate today's "National Fresh Breath Day" (celebrated every August 6th) by checking out Episode 117 of The Energy Detox.
RELATED EPISODES
Are You Unwittingly Dumping Toxic Waste Into Corporate Waterways?
You may not have soaked your audience in human waste today...but there's a good chance your words & actions have unwittingly made a few of your stakeholders nauseous in the last 24 hours.
So take a moment to check out Episode 82 of The Energy Detox, which dives into this conversation about the "Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident" of August 8, 2004 (2 days after the annual celebration of “National Fresh Breath Day” on August 6) and apply 5 tips from this vomit-inducing event that will help you shift your leadership style from nauseating to energizing:
1) Avoid Toxic Communication Dumps: From late-night, non-urgent email requests to evasive-sounding conversations filled with hollow "corporate-sounding" clichés, the easiest way to mitigate the impact of toxic communication releases is to avoid them in the first place
2) Lay Proper Containment: If you don't stop the ripple effect of toxic rumors among your gossiping front-line leaders, it can cause far more damage than a leaking pipeline or an overflowing tank
3) Filter and Rate Your Communications: Revisit your recent emails, meetings, phone calls, etc. and give them an emoji-based "nausea rating" from 1 to 5, where 1 nauseated face (🤢) represents minimal vomit-inducing language; and 5 nauseated faces (🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢) is on par with dumping 800 pounds of human waste on an unsuspecting group of tourists.
4) Translate Toxic Messages: transform corporate fluff into relevant and actionable messages BEFORE your audience starts coming up with their own (mis-)translations
5) Clean Up Your Messes: Whether it's a band who dumps human waste into a river, an oil and gas company who has an inadvertent release, or a manager who suffers a flare-up of foot-in-mouth disease, owning up to mishaps and rectifying them swiftly gives you a chance to avoid leaving a permanently bad taste in stakeholders' mouths.
Tapping the Stra-cheese-ic Reserve for Stinky Employee Christmas Presents
What's one Christmas "gift" you've received that turned out to be nothing but trouble?
🎁 A new puppy...that immediately ate all the other presents?
🎁 A promotion...that destroyed a career?
🎁 Free cheese...that harmed the health of its lactose intolerant recipients?
🎁 Renewable energy...that led to a cold, dark Christmas?
During Episode 54 of The Energy Detox, the following topics are strung together to help you be a more conscious leader...and gift-giver:
📰 The 40 year anniversary of the "Government Cheese" Program
📰 Ongoing Strategic Petroleum Reserve headlines
📰 The unintended consequences of renewable energy
You’ll also be gifted with 3 questions to help you (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success:
💡 Are you unwittingly growing a stockpile of moldy, smelly, and over-processed leadership gimmicks?
💡 In what ways might the "gifts" you're giving your employees actually be inflicting harm?
💡 What's one gift you can give your team that they'll actually still use a year from now?
Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
August 6 is National Fresh Breath Day. And so what better time than National Fresh Breath Day to acknowledge the fact that you, as a leader in the oil and gas industry, quite often have bad breath. And now we're not talking just the literal bad breath, which, of course, happens to all of us on occasion, but more the figurative bad breath, the words that are coming out of your mouth, the comments that you make, the questions that you ask that might be interpreted as stinky or off putting or not toxic.
00:28
And so today, on The Energy Detox, we're going to step through a couple of scenarios, a couple tools that you can use to become more aware of those times when you might have bad breath. And of course, some things that you can do to well solve that problem and freshen up the language, the words that are coming out of your mouth. But before we do that, of course, we want to talk through the analogy that we're going to force in today, because, again, focusing primarily on oil and natural gas, we do have one key way, at least in the natural gas industry, to make sure that when things are going wrong, when there is some danger, some damage, we're aware of it.
01:05
And so what is that tool that we add to the natural gas stream to make sure that people are aware when, again, there's some sort of threat? Ultima captain, right? It's the chemical that we add to natural gas to make sure that, especially in a residential setting, if there's a leak, people are immediately aware of what would otherwise be an odorless problem. And so today, we're going to essentially step through some things that you could argue is leadership or captain, things that you can use to become more aware of when you have bad breath, and then obviously some things that you can use to deal with it. And as far as those things, again, as a reminder, we're not talking literal bad breath, although, if you step into the sheets behind me, there's no shortage of tools like these Tic Tacs here to help alleviate, or at least to help freshen up your breath. But no, we're talking about figurative things that you can deploy, that you can do to freshen up your language, freshen up your words.
01:55
And we're going to do it by focusing on three specific scenarios that, again, you encounter all the time, especially if you're part of the energy industry. One of those is the realities of mergers and acquisition. The second of those is the world of safety, a primary focus of the oil and gas industry. And the third is sort of a catch all category, and that is all of the things that could be interpreted as well, bad breath, all those things that are negative, that are trade offs, but that are realities for you, for your team, for your industry, that sometimes go unaddressed, or at least that you might be slow to address.
02:28
So that being said, let's loop back to the first of those M and A and the realities of M and A because, for no other reason, over the last week or so, I know at least I have been getting lots of comments, lots of requests for people that have been caught up in the chevron Hess merger or acquisition, if you will. Lots of people who are saying, hey, look, you know, I'm now unemployed, and I really haven't had to go through the period of looking for a job and updating a resume, and they're looking for some assistance, some guidance, which is completely understandable, but it also points to some missed opportunities for leaders to have fresher breath around the topic of M and A, because how many leaders perhaps yourself find yourself dancing around it, maybe saying, hey, look, you know, M and A is a reality people you know should always be prepared for it, and kind of leaving it at that, instead of taking a fresher approach and doing something that we've talked about in the past here on the energy detox, but I Think bears repeating, and that is going above and beyond and saying, Hey, how can I actually help you prepare for the realities of an M and A? How can I prepare for the realities of you potentially losing your job or perhaps wanting to go elsewhere? And how can you do that at a time when there is no immediate threat of M and A, although, again, you might argue that there's always an immediate threat of being caught up in M and A, what language can you use to show that you genuinely want to help people prepare for some future next step, that you genuinely want people to be seen as employable beyond their current role, beyond their current company, because to just again take that same stale, stinky, if not toxic approach of saying, hey, you know, should probably always have your resume ready. Hey, you should go out and network more. Hey, you should always do these things that are going to make you more again, employable, if you will, if not desirable by other companies. What can you do to actually back that up?
04:17
Can you take a fresh approach that again would be uncommon among many of your peers, and that is to say, Hey, bring up your resume. Let's update it on the fly here, not because I'm worried about you walking out the door, quite the opposite. I want to make sure you know that at any given time you can walk out the door and be 100% okay, why not do that? Well, one because it's uncommon. But How refreshing would that be? How nice would that be to again encounter a leader who is speaking in such a way, who's acting in such a way to help make sure that when the inevitable happens, you're ready. And now the counter to that, of course, is, well, hey, you know, we're all grown adults here in the industry. Can't we just take that upon ourselves at any given time to keep our resumeupdated, to keep our LinkedIn updated.
05:02
And true as that might be, you have an opportunity as a leader to again inject a bit of freshness, if you will, to make sure that you're not unwittingly just touting and spouting the same stale response to the realities that hey, at any given time there might be some uncertainty in your career.
05:20
That being said, let's move on to the second area where, again, leaders miss opportunities to share some fresh language instead of the normal, stale, if not stinky, language, and that is around safety. Now when it comes to safety, of course, again, I think we can all agree that it is understandably a top priority of all the energy industry, and I would argue, many other industries. But how you respond as a leader, of course, can be anywhere on the spectrum from completely toxic and counterproductive to understanding and forward looking and well positive. And so today, again, as part of a leadership mercaptum, if you will. It's a simple question of you to say, look, what is your default response when there is a safety incident, or even beyond safety, when there's any sort of incident that occurs, whether it's environmental, whether it's a financial miss, whether it's an operational hiccup, how do you respond to respond in a fresh way that's positive, that acknowledges that any incident of any sort, no matter how bad it might be in the moment, can bear fruit, or again, do you reflexively have that stale, stinky, if not toxic, response?
06:27
And again, there's plenty of books and programs and everything that goes beyond a simple couple minute podcast here, but today's goal is again, to kind of inject some leadership, mercaptum, if you will, and make sure that you right now ask yourself, are you the type of person that responds in a fresh manner, that acknowledges that when something goes wrong, it's an opportunity to grow and again, it's an opportunity to build and move forward, or again, do you default to that same stinky knee jerk reaction, which is to find blame, to cast blame? Well, that's the question for you today.
07:00
And the third and final scenario that I mentioned at the beginning was a bit of a catch all, and that is the question of whether you acknowledge when you do have bad breath, or when, again, the situation that you or your team might find yourself in, well stinks. And again, this might be related to the last item that being safety or perhaps environmental or operational hiccups. But more generally speaking, when you need to deliver harsh news, when you need to talk to people about the realities, again, of a potential merger and acquisition and the implications on you and your team and your company, when you need to deliver bad news about somebody's performance, do you acknowledge the elephant in the room? Do you acknowledge things that you know you've done wrong, or the fears that the other person might have, again, that that stink, if you will, that's there. Or do you dance around it? Or do you again, just try to ignore the realities and the trade offs of any situation. Do you ignore the realities and the trade offs of the industry that you work for? Do you ignore the realities and the impacts that you know might be had on people in the community that might not be 100% positive, even though the net impact might be positive. Are you quick to say, hey, you know what it seems like you're upset by X, Y and Z? Hey, you know what it seems like I personally, or at least my team, may have done something that is again causing you grief or anxiety.
08:15
Do you acknowledge the bad breath so that you can then actually look for solutions and have a fruitful conversation? Or again, are you operating in a scared, toxic, stinky, stale way that, unfortunately, is the default of so many individuals. How many people around you throughout your career Have you encountered that? Again, love to jump in with all the positives and then maybe slip in some negatives, if at all, start with that negative. And again, this is not a new concept.
08:37
This isn't something that we haven't talked about before on The Energy Detox. There's plenty of books and conversations and Ted Talks that you can listen to. Perhaps the best one around this concept is, what is it never split the difference again, an enjoyable book that really dives into the importance of diffusing situations. And how do you diffuse the situation by acknowledging that, hey, you know what? I might stink. My breath might stink. I may have had sardines for lunch, or maybe I just had a very onion forward dish an hour or so ago. Acknowledge it. Why dance around it? Why have people have that enter into their mind and be a distraction and a filter that they're viewing everything through? Acknowledge that you have bad breath and then move on.
09:18
So that being said today, ask yourself, how are you more aware? How can you gain more awareness of when your breath is bad? How can you inject some figurative mercaptan into your leadership approach or communication approach to be sure that you're more aware of when your breath is you know, less than ideal, because once you have that awareness, once you know what's going on, you know, just below your nose there, even if you would have missed it otherwise, then you can do something about it. And you can pop a, again, a figurative tic tac, if you will. But again, it starts with that awareness. It starts with that mercaptan. It starts with you being alerted to those situations where, again, your breath might stink and you don't realize it. So ask for feedback. Share that question of, Hey, is what I'm saying, stale, stinky, or is it making sense? And then move forward, then make decisions.
10:06
Because, again, the realization is that what, certainly myself, maybe even this message, it might not seem to be stinky. In fact, it might be odorless. Because maybe I'm not getting any feedback, but your team might smell it, your audience might smell it, and if they're smelling it, then I'm pretty sure you want to do something about it. So that being said, thanks for tuning in to this potentially stinky episode, or hopefully an anti stinky episode of The Energy Detox. And I hope you have a great rest of National Fresh Breath Day.