Pragmatic Pittsburgh People and a New Twist on the Triple Bottom Line
A quarter century before the ESG craze swept through the corporate world, the "Triple Bottom Line"—People, Planet, Profit—demanded that companies focus more on an audience of diverse "stakeholders" instead of merely their "shareholders."
And if you were part of the audience yesterday at Hart Energy's DUG East conference in Pittsburgh, you saw examples of leaders who clarified who their primary audience is, what that audience actually cares about, and how that audience can impact their bottom line.
You may have also witnessed how similar companies can—and should—focus on DIFFERENT audiences as they refine, communicate, and execute upon their strategies.
That being said, in this live episode of The Energy Detox, we discuss how the messages delivered by 3 leaders at DUG East and the 3 related headlines below can all help you avoid wasting time, energy, and money crafting the wrong story for the wrong audience.
The headlines:
📰 US Shale Gas Could Become ‘Biggest Green Initiative on Planet,’ EQT CEO Says (by Faiza Rizvi of Hart Energy):
📰 Olympus Energy reaches methane monitoring deal with Project Canary (by Paul J. Gough of the Pittsburgh Business Times):
📰 CNX CEO Nick DeIuliis suggests reworking of 10-year-old impact fee (by Paul J. Gough of the Pittsburgh Business Times):
The goal: to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
💡 In what ways have you grown your audience at the expense of your mission?
💡 Which members of your audience are most likely to impact your social license to operate?
💡 Are you spending more time building a solid (and sustainable) foundation or a bigger (and weaker) platform?
Related Content
“Keep It Sustainable, Stupid” (The Energy Detox)
“CNX Unveils Appalachia-Focused Vision for the Future” (cnx.com)
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to another Live episode of the energy detox petroleum based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal output by flushing away the hidden and often toxic barriers to peak performance. I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach and 16 year energy industry veteran, helping you tap into the same resources fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders. And today, we're going to talk about how those leaders get crystal clear about their audience and in turn, cater their message and their strategy to that audience, recognizing why that audience is important, how that audience can impact their bottom line. And quite frankly, how that audience is more important than all of the other distractions and all of the other stakeholders, if you will, that have some influence on their company, but aren't as important as that key audience who's in front of them at any given moment, and to drive this conversation. And quite frankly, that the inspiration for this conversation comes from yesterday's Doug East Conference where I sat through a number of presentations from a number of industry leaders here in Pittsburgh, who talked about their company, they talked about their strategy, they talked about, of course, how they're generating positive results, and all of the things that you would expect leaders of companies to talk about. But what was interesting about those conversations is that they all had a slightly different audience, at least if you were sitting there again in the audience as I was. But clearly they had different people in mind as they shared their story as they shared their their message as they shared their remarks. And as they answered questions, and well, I won't dive into all the specifics of those because I was not a member of the media yesterday, all that hard energy, share all of that. And we'll have some links to some articles about that. I was there. And I'm happy to share some of the public information that's there that, quite frankly, supports the different approaches that these different leaders take for their different companies. And so today, again, we're gonna step through three of those leaders in three of those companies. The first of which we'll talk about is Toby rice and EQ T. Then we'll talk about Tim Dougan and Olympus energy. And finally, we'll wrap up with Nick Julius, who's the CEO of CN X. And again, we'll have all the articles linked will point you in the direction if you wish to dig further, of course, and as always, if you happen to be watching live, I welcome your feedback, your questions, and certainly happy to to chime in and opine based on again, my observations and my opinions from not just listening to those conversations yesterday, but from having other conversations with, you know, many people at the conference. The other item of note today, and the other theme that we'll talk about is the idea of the triple bottom line. And if you're familiar with the triple bottom line from about 25 or 30 years ago, that was the idea that people, planet and profit should all kind of blend together and and serve as some ultimate goal, right? Not one of those pillars should dictate how a company operates. And that was part of the idea of shifting away from your shareholders, which again, you tend to think of just profit and moving towards again, this this stakeholder centered leadership, if you will, this stakeholder centered capitalism, where again, you recognize that there are lots of people who are impacted by your decisions, not just the people who are invested in your company. And again, revisiting that idea. And of course, that's evolved over the years. But But thinking about it yesterday, it was very clear when I was intent on the different audiences that these leaders were focused on that in many ways that that Triple P right, the three P not to be confused, of course, with the PPP program early on in COVID. But those three P's in many ways boiled down to just people, people, people, people instead of just people, planet and profit, because at the end of the day, it's people that you're influencing people are your audience, you're not talking to some artificial intelligence algorithm, you're not talking to the planet, you're not talking to, you know, dollars and, and bank accounts. You're talking with people. And obviously, there are different people, there's different audience members, if you will, whether they're investors, whether they're community members, whether they're employees, they're all people, and as cliche as that sounds, and quite frankly, that's the world I'm in right now. As a coach, I work on leaders, improving their communication with people, many cases with either individuals or with again with their employee base and, and to a lesser extent with the outside world. And in all of those cases, the first step is to clarify who it is you're talking to, because obviously there is no one size fits all message. And again, this was abundantly clear yesterday at Doug east and so we'll step through some examples of, again, different leaders with different messages targeted to different audiences to help You better understand and better ask questions about who your audience is at any given moment. And quite frankly, whether or not that audience is where you should be devoting your time, your attention, your your energy, and in some cases, your money. So the first profile that we'll look at the first story we'll look at, again comes from EQ T's CEO, Toby rice. And Toby was in the news yesterday morning, even before he stepped on stage because he and his EQ T team crafted a response to Elizabeth Warren. And again, we won't go into all the details of the response, you can see that link in the show notes there, if you if you so desire to dig through that. But the key is, he had a very clear audience member, if you will, in Senator Elizabeth Warren. And again, we won't beat that topic to death, you can go back to last week, one of the energy detox conversations we had, of course, about her curious letter to the top 11 or 12 Natural Gas Producers. But what's interesting about Toby Rice's message is that it was very much a global centered message yesterday. In fact, you can see the headline here, US shale gas could become biggest green initiative on the planet. This is a global story, as it should be. Because as we're focused on global climate change, and as that has become a priority for virtually every public entity out there, the reality is, when you have a company like EA Qt, and quite frankly, all of the natural gas producers, and in turn pipeline companies and suppliers in Appalachia, the reality is, we can make a difference. And one of the ways that that difference can be made is through LNG. Now, again, coming back to you and your audience, you're likely not talking to a global audience on a daily basis, you're not likely talking about the impact that you and your company and your peers are having on the world stage. Yes, as a member of the energy industry, I think you take pride in the fact that what we do each and every day helps again, lift people out of poverty and improve lives. But at the end of the day, the stakeholders that you're interested are typically not the 8 billion people on the planet, typically a handful of people, whether they're investors, employees, or whatever is whoever's lighting the biggest fire at any given moment, of course. But what is interesting, though, about this is you didn't hear as much about the global conversation, the global impact on natural gas at this conference, except for from Toby who again, represents the largest natural gas producer is defending LNG exports to help support our allies, and really anyone around the world. But what's interesting, again, if you're not in Pittsburgh, but you happen to be down in Houston, at the World Petroleum forum, or conference, or whatever they call it, again, you're going to hear a lot more of this global talk, which can dilute some messages if that's really not what your focus is. And in fact, you know, from the looks of things, Alex Epstein today, who again, talks about coming back to the triple bottom line talks about the focus on people, people, people, people more so than planet more so than profit, because, again, that should be your audience, the people on this planet, and Toby did an excellent job of talking about how natural gas through the powers of LNG can make life better for people. But that comes with a big caveat. And this isn't a caveat, necessarily for Toby and for EQ T. But his message was great.
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I thought the conversation was great. But the question again, bringing it back to you, what's what's in this for you? Why why are you listening to the energy detox? Well, it's because you might unnecessarily have a global focus and be building up a global audience when you don't need to. So ask yourself, in what ways have you grown your audience at the expense of your mission? Now for a company like eat UT, who again, is the largest producer of natural gas in the United States? It makes sense that they would speak from a global standpoint, because they are producing, you know, most molecules of methane here in the United States. But are you unconsciously unwittingly growing your audience and trying to reach too many people, and certainly having conversations yesterday with lots of suppliers and vendors who are providing services, it's very clear those suppliers who know exactly what their target audiences, their specific their differentiated it's enjoyable, at least for me is just sort of a you know, observer and someone who's curious about different technology and different approaches. It's more curious when I'm talking to somebody who has a specific focus, who has a specific, you know, item that they're they're selling, or they're offering or service that is differentiated from everyone else from some of the more popular companies for some, some of the bigger companies. And it's really fun to hear how that story how you know, being in a niche market, in many cases, makes them more interesting makes them more engaging. And of course, if you're a speaker, whether you're on stage like those who were on stage yesterday at Doug east or again, whether you're simply having a team meeting with six or seven people, what's the key is to hold attention so that your message can get out there. But if you don't recognize who your audience is, and really what they're looking for, and what they want, and ultimately what your core mission is not some deluded mission that has grown and grown and grown without you, even being aware of it. You're asking for trouble. So today ask yourself, are you trying to communicate to too many people and to too wide of an audience? And is it diluting your message? And if so, what is your core message today? Who do you want to communicate with? And what do you want to share? And through those two decisions, if you will, what is it that you hope to do that will influence your bottom line? With all that being said, we'll move on to the next question today, which
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is related to Olympus energy here in Pittsburgh. Now, Olympus energy on a much different scale from Qt certainly doing the same things as EQ, T drilling and producing natural gas and, and in turn, moving it through pipelines. But again, at a much smaller scale, I think they're on the order of maybe 19, producing wells. So what was interesting there and listening to their CEO, Tim Duggan, was that their focus and their audience isn't necessarily the big, you know, investors out there because they are a private company. And Tim Duggan was very clear, saying that, look, you know, the things that they're doing is not because of Wall Street, again, you can you can go to the article that's that's in the that is that is linked. And again, he talks about, I think the quote is, we're not doing this because Wall Street is demanding it, we're doing it, because it's the right thing to do. We want to grow and develop properly. And the issue that he was talking about is the certification that Olympus energy will be seeking for all of their natural gas, both the gas that's produced and coming out of the ground and their their drilling and completion exercise, and also their midstream assets, they are going to certify that all of that gas is being produced responsibly. So their whole system, they're doing it but they're not doing it to check the box necessarily from an ESG standpoint, because quite frankly, they're not a public company. So they're not under the same scrutiny. Yes, they have obviously investors and backers that that, you know, they want to show they're doing the right thing, but they're able to do things because it makes sense for them and their audiences a little bit different. But the other big message from yesterday from Tim Duggan is that their focus as a company is very much very much on the local community. And again, that's not to say that all the other operators in southwestern pa aren't focused on the local community, quite the opposite. But for Olympus, they are operating in much denser areas in you know, much more politically sensitive areas, you know, here in Allegheny County, and often in Westmoreland County. And again, it's a different animal, so they need to put extra effort. And the beauty of what Tim shared yesterday, again, without divulging all of the details, all that hard energy share all of that, but in essence, and again, this is stuff that Olympus has out there publicly already. But in essence, Tim and Olympus make it very clear that they have to focus on the community, they have to focus on building a solid foundation, they have to focus on protecting their social licence to operate, if you will. Which brings us to today's second question, which is, which members of your audience are most likely to impact your social licence to operate, because in reality, for bigger companies that have bigger targets like an EQ T, they're going to attract the attention of different audience members, they're going to attract the attention of bigger regulators, for example, or senators as the case might be. And someone like Toby rice obviously has to spend time addressing that and building a story around that and making sure that, again, they protect their message and then keep moving forward. Even though at the end of the day, some of those audience members might not have as much influence as, as one might think. But in the world of Tim Dougan, and Olympus energy, there is no doubt that any individual stakeholder within their operating footprint can derail their mission can impact their social licence to operate. If you mess up with, you know, one landowner or one stakeholder, if you will, to the point where you're attracting attention that you don't want. Well, again, in the case of Olympus, given their size, and given their operating area, they're done. And what was refreshing from Tim yesterday's,
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you know, the fact that they can take their time, they can lay that foundation, they can do what is necessary to build a foundation upon which they can continue to grow. They don't have to go go go, they don't have to rush. They don't have to, you know, meet the normal quarterly demands and the normal, you know, nice sounding headlines will say that public companies have to, and again, because he has a different audience. So the question for you is bringing this back to you, regardless of what kind of leader you are and what kind of company you're leading and what kind of team you might have and what kind of stakeholders you have. The question for you is, which members of your audience are most likely to impact your ability to function as a leader? Again, from a company standpoint, we talk about social licenses to operate, but who in your audience is the most likely to derail you? And are you focused on them? Or are you distracted by other things? And it's also important to keep in mind that sometimes the person who might be able to impact your social licence to operate can be a positive, right? I intentionally worded this question this morning to not just say to remove your social licence to operate but to impact it and to impact it positively. Do you have allies? Is there a handful of allies that can help support you so that when you have one naysayer, one person who doesn't like what you're doing, that you have this audience of positive people who can help protect your social licence to operate, or, again, in a more figurative sense, protect your ability to lead and move forward. So that the one or two people that are out there that are looking to derail you may not have the same impact that they would otherwise, because the reality is for many leaders, and again, it's human nature, you focus on the squeaky wheel, right, you focus on the the negative, you focus on those threats, but part of protection, right, is also having a good offensive strategy and laying a good foundation building allies being out in the community, much as Olympus energy does, right. Again, Tim Duggan, I again, I don't think he's gonna, he's going to be upset if I DeVos that he shared yesterday that 100% of their workforce in 2021, will have donated some of their time to the community, to helping out to serving in some way shape or form. Well, you're building allies, you're building, that you're building those those people in that network that are going to protect your social licence to operate, so that the handful of people that are out there trying to do the opposite, are not as impactful. So again, that's the question for you today, as you go about your day, ask yourself Who in your audience is most likely to impact positively or negatively your ability to function as a leader? And if you're not focused on that individual or that group of individuals? Well ask, why not and ask how you could again, do something as simple as picking up the phone or shooting an email and, and re engaging and connecting so that you don't miss out on opportunities to again, shield yourself and quite frankly, protect yourself and protect the foundation that you've built so that you can continue moving forward and operating in the in the manner that again you you wish to operate. And so with that, we'll move on to the third and final story in question today. And the story comes from CNN X. And yesterday, CNN says CEO Nick Dooley is delivered a message that is very consistent with much of Nick's public conversation. So whether you've heard him on different interviews and at different events, his message is undeniably fairly different from some of the others. And if you listen to his podcast, which I recommend the the far middle, again, what he shared yesterday shouldn't come as any big surprise. But that being said, Paul, go of the Pittsburgh Business Times, as you can see, in this headline picked up on one thing that Nick talked about yesterday, which was Pennsylvania's impact fee, which is essentially a severance tax and the need perhaps to revisit this 10 year old tax so that it can allow for continued growth and better growth and more revenues. And again, as Paul got makes very clear in the article, Nick is not arguing that the tax should be reduced. Nick, isn't that arguing that the you know, the tax is going to have some sort of net negative impact on the revenues of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, quite the opposite. He's talking about revisiting this so that the people of the Commonwealth can flourish and can benefit even better from the natural gas industry. And in turn, the natural gas industry can benefit so that it can lead to more jobs, and again, more flourishing of people. Which again, brings us back to the impetus for this episode, a revisiting of the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit and focusing on the fact that it should be people people. That's it, that's who your audience is.
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So again, what was Nick's message? Well, it was largely around people, and in particular, the people of this region. And again, make very clear that he is a proud member of this region, you know, born here, raised here and, you know, proud to lead a company that is filled with, again, many Pennsylvanians. And he was very clear in his message yesterday, again, that hiring local and focusing on local people and local resources and using again, this this local blessing that we have in the form of Marcellus Shale to help people of the Commonwealth. So again, well, what does that all mean? You know, yes, his message might be more of a of a statewide sort of audience, if you will, versus the, you know, hyper local audience that Olympus talked about, versus the the global audience that he talked about, you know, Nick takes a very pragmatic approach to, quite frankly, everything. And he's talking about the people of the state and how they can benefit best from what we have under our feet. And all this brings us to, again, the question, the final question today to ask yourself, which is, are you spending more time building a solid and sustainable foundation or a bigger and in turn weaker platform? Because what Nick laid out yesterday, both in terms of his his suggestions regarding the impact fee and severance tax, and, and then a few other things, again, that that he laid out very in a very organized manner, what he was laying out was a foundation that allows Pennsylvania to flourish. It's a foundation that is built on or should be built on local talent. And again, sort of a play on words here, the CNS foundation that obviously Nick and his team leads is focused on addressing high school students and giving them exposure to jobs and trades that can build a solid foundation not just for their own careers relative to perhaps in some cases, some some useless college degree or perhaps some other path that doesn't lead to success and flourishing. And through that figurative foundation or that literal Foundation, if you will, and the the fingertip foundation we're talking about. The key is you're building something that is sustainable. And again, that's what we're all about here. Right? Sustainable development, sustainable leadership, sustainable production of natural gas, about sustainability. But the reality is, you need to ask yourself, are the things you're doing is the messaging that you're you're spending time and energy on, and again, bigger companies are spending lots of time and energy and money on messaging, but is that messaging actually building a solid foundation upon which you can build your company and other companies, much as Nick is doing by laying the groundwork from a talent standpoint, long before these individuals, you know, have the chance to join one of the trades or perhaps come in as skilled labor to work in our industry, whether it's from a pipeline standpoint, and welding, whether it's the carpenters unions, whatever the case might be? Are you spending time building that solid foundation? Are you focused on that audience who in turn can wind up being employees can being those who support your industry and the again, the state that you love and the region that you love? Or are you getting caught in the trap of just kind of going bigger, and grander, and diluting things, and again, you can bring it back to a charity standpoint, right? You know, there's only so much time and energy and money that you can devote. So it's great to be able to give to, you know, 1000 different charities, sure. And that's fine, you make an impact. But for many people, they enjoy picking a handful of things where they can see the difference, where they understand who the audience is, and where it's more than just cutting a check, but where they can form relationships. And again, there can be some mutually beneficial bond that actually helps both parties grow instead of just mindlessly spreading things out. And again, diluting your impact. And I think what we see with with C annex, both in terms of his pragmatic approach to regulations, and bureaucracy, and taxes, and all of those things, and in ours, what his company is doing with the CNS foundation and with the things that they're doing in the community, it's clear that Nick wants to strengthen the foundation that we already have here so that he can build things. So the question for you, though, is, are you diluting your message? Are you again, building a bigger platform? And this applies, regardless of what industry you're in? If you're in sales? Again, are you diluting your message? Are you are you losing the the, you know, the the uniqueness that you have as an individual or as a company and the uniqueness of whatever services you're providing? And we've talked about all this already, and some of the other questions, but it's an important one? How might you be diluting your message? How might you be focused on too wide of an audience? And how might that be building a shaky or foundation that is anything but sustainable. And so with all that being said, I, again, I appreciate your time today. Of course, as always tuning into the energy detox, I
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appreciate the feedback and the comments that I can continue to get regarding the show and the content that we share, I certainly appreciate hard energy for putting on a conference and and again, giving the opportunity for someone like me to not just sit in the audience and listen passively, but to go out and to have conversations with individuals and and talk about what they're hearing too, right. You know, the audience yesterday, obviously, is very industry friendly. And and everyone for the most part is on the same page, which in some ways is nice, because you can go to that extra level now. And you get beyond the surface level, you know, what did you think of so and so's talk? And you can really get to the heart of all right? What did it mean? What did it say? How was it different? Again, multiple leaders of you know, significant companies here in Pittsburgh, but with very different messages, and with very different approaches and very different audiences, which again, bringing this back to you begs the question, Who is your quote, core audience? How are you connecting with them today? And in what ways might you be diluting your message at the expense of your mission, and what it is you want to do as an individual leader and what your stakeholders want you to do for a company that is still expected to turn a profit to make a difference and to positively impact the region in which you work? And so with all that being said, again, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for giving a listen to this and thank you to all of those at doggies to engaged in conversation yesterday and shared their feedback and their thoughts, some of which undoubtedly shaped today's conversation. As always, I hope this helps ask you know, you ask better questions of yourself. And if you have any questions for me and the ways that I help individual leaders communicate better identify their audience, get their message out there and ultimately save time, energy and money that in many cases can be wasted on useless communication and conversations and faulty messaging then feel free to reach out whether on LinkedIn at winning partners calm One of those old fashioned phone calls if you so desire and either way, I again appreciate you tuning in. I hope you have an excellent rest of the week and take care