Why are you banning fuel sources that could re-energize your organization?
When it comes to investing in yourself, your team, or your company, it's easy to default to a fairly limited menu of training & development options.
But just as the decision by New York City Council yesterday to ban clean, domestic, reliable, affordable, plentiful Natural Gas from new construction will lead to plenty of unintended consequences for NYC residents (at least the ones who don't decide to move out of NY by the time the ban takes effect), your decisionโwhether conscious or unconsciousโto limit access to certain resources may be costing you a whole lot more than you realize.
That being said, this live episode of The Energy Detox will help YOU avoid unwittingly cutting off access to resources that can elevate you and your organization above your short-sighted competitors.
The goal: to (๐)๐ซ๐จ๐ฐ, (๐)๐ซ๐จ๐ญ๐๐๐ญ, ๐๐ง๐ (๐)๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ข๐ง success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
๐ก What are all the resources that can best fuel sustained growth and development?
๐ก Which resources are you unwittingly discouraging yourself or your stakeholders from accessing?
๐ก In what ways are sexy and short-term "solutions" blinding you from proven and sustainable resources?
Related Content:
โAre You Throwing the Baby Out with the Frac Water?โ (The Energy Detox)
โBiden administration weighs nationwide ban on gas stoves: reportโ (New York Post, 1/9/2023)
โMontgomery County (MD) approves near ban of fossil fuels in new buildingsโ (WYPR, 11/30/2022)
โBuilders, Realtors: Homeowners Prefer Natural Gas for Energy Needsโ (Marcellus Shale Coalition)
โNatural Gas: Critical for American Communitiesโ (American Gas Association)
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to the energy detox a 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 embrace diversity, at least diversity in terms of the resources that they use to help develop themselves and develop their teams and develop their organizations. Because the reality is that many leaders in all industries, particularly in oil, and gas tend to find themselves pigeon holed a bit, they tend to lean on the same resources, the same tricks and tools that have worked for decades to help move their people forward to help them grow and develop as future leaders. And that's not in and of itself bad. Putting money and time and energy into growth and development of employees and future leaders is not a bad thing. But it is bad or it is at least limiting when those leaders don't look outside the norm. They don't expand their menu of options, if you will. And so on today's episode, we're going to talk about the ways that you can avoid limiting yourself in terms of the options to help you and your organization grow. And to fuel this message, if you will to fuel this warning is the headline from yesterday from New York City where New York City Council voted to ban new natural gas projects, if you will, within New Construction starting in a couple of years. And again, you can look at the article yourself, you can go through the details. But in essence, New York City Council voted by a pretty overwhelming majority, to say that new buildings starting in 2023, at least those that are I think seven storeys or under won't be allowed to have natural gas in them. And again, there's exceptions, of course, but by and large, that means that no natural gas stoves and new you know, dwellings for for people. And that means that in 2027 buildings that are greater than seven storeys again, will not be allowed to use natural gas. And what does that mean? Well, of course, it means that the energy mix the options, if you will, that building builders, and certainly you know residents and occupants of those buildings have, well, they're going to be limited, they're not going to have the options that they had before. And this is all of course, a push that you're seeing in dozens of other cities around the country to electrify to move away from hydrocarbons. Of course, ignoring the fact that much of electricity is generated by hydrocarbons, you just can't see it, it's further upstream. But again, I'm going to resist the temptation to go down a path to talk about all of the ways that decisions like this are costly and limiting and, and quite frankly, contrary to some of the intended goals of those who are making these decisions. Again, I don't know if I'll be able to adhere to this promise throughout the next 10 to 15 minutes of this episode. But I'm going to try my hardest because again, the goal today is not to just cast stones decisions like this, the goal is to help make sure that you are not making short sighted decisions that have unintended consequences when it comes to the resources that you and your organization or even just you as an individual are employing to better yourself to maximize your potential. And again, this is something that is playing out not just in the bureaucratic world of of state and local governments. And as an aside, no state yet have banned natural gas hookups or new natural gas hookups. But it does look like New York State is poised to do so again on the heels of New York City's attempts. And I should I say at least that at least here in Pennsylvania, we do have leaders within the Commonwealth who at least are pushing for common sense approaches to energy and to energy choice and to ensure that communities and you know, individual townships and counties are unable to ban natural gas hookups, if for no other reason, then they're harmful to their constituents. They're harmful to people who don't want to pay twice as much for their energy. They're harmful to people that recognize that, again, having a diverse energy mix is a good thing. And again, that can play out in many different ways. I'm sitting here where I know that if my electricity goes out, I have a natural gas power generator that will kick on in a couple seconds. And you know, once the once the router resets, I can resume this live broadcast if I wanted to. I'm very fortunate to be living here in western Pennsylvania where we have plentiful, cheap, clean energy, and it's reliable. And I have the choice. I have a diversity of mix right here in my home where again, I can do everything I need to do with electricity, but I can also cook with natural gas or homes heated with natural gas and again, even our electricity right here can be powered by electric by natural gas that's a few feet away from me in a generator and why would Wouldn't you want people to have access to similar choices, similar options. So again, coming back to you and your organization and avoiding the temptation to go down the path that I already broke my promise
05:10
on? Let's jump into the first question today, which is, what are all of the resources that can best fuel sustained growth and development? And again, this is a question that is not meant to, again, go through a list or menu of existing options, it's actually meant for you to say, look, what are the challenges that you're facing? What are the things that are holding you back? What are the things that are frustrating your stakeholders, whether they're employees, whether, again, if you're in a job hunt, it's it's potential employers of you, whatever the case might be, ask yourself, what are the hurdles? What are the barriers, and clearly in the world of coaching, one of the things that I enjoy doing, and one of the things I spend the most time on is uncovering those barriers, having conversations with you with others, to figure out again, where the limitations are, are they around communication? Are they against some sort of technical hold up and some sort of limitation, perhaps when it comes to, you know, data governance and analytics and, and things that are causing people to be slow and to lose confidence in their decisions? Whatever the case might be, you need to identify what those barriers are? And then ask yourself, all right, well, what are all the different ways we can fill in the gaps? What are all the different ways that we can help address those challenges, and from there, talk about all of the different resources that you might have at your disposal to challenge those things? And, again, what I see quite often I saw this in my own career, and I certainly see this now and engage with individuals is that people have a pretty limited mindset, right? People don't think outside the box to throw in a cliche term, when it comes to training and development, a lot of people will default to the same menu of choices, the same menu of classes that people have been going to in some cases for years, particularly if they're, you know, if they're if they're stamped with, you know, industry approval, and it's an industry course, a lot of people will gravitate towards them, right, because it seems safe. It seems like a known quantity. In some cases, you know, the price is right, people have already signed off on it, and years past, and they don't even think about it. But again, the whole goal of waiting partners, the goal of me as a coach is to make sure that you are thinking through these decisions, you are conscious, and you're going beyond just you know, the the sticker price and the you know, the industry that a certain course, or a training or some sort of development opportunity is pointed towards. So again, I ask you, are there options beyond your industry that might help fuel communication, you know, maybe you think, I don't know, something crazy, you go to a cooking class, for example, it might not seem like anything that's related to what you do, particularly if you're an oil and gas. But maybe you go to a cooking class, and you see how people communicate in a kitchen, you see how they improvise, when it comes to ingredients, you see some of the safety protocols that are in place, you see the way that they work with no natural gas in a safe manner and and how they avoid turning to, you know, electric stove tops, because they don't have quite the same efficacy as natural gas. But again, continuing to try to resist the urge to go down that path to to knock New York City's decision. The question for you is how might you be limiting your options? How might you be ignoring things that are outside of your industry that can make an impact because I know in my own experience, I have been to trainings, and I know some of my team members have been to trainings that were not industry specific. And then they came back in the second third degree impact of people going to these trainings, communication classes and classes on how to present data differently that had nothing to do with oil and gas. In fact, some of them are over on these coasts where you know, much of the audience has, you know, very little desire to work with people in the oil and gas industry, despite their dependence on it, of course. But that being said, what are you missing? How can you go outside the box? How can you encourage your employees to come with you or come to you rather with different options, a menu of options that are again, reasonable cost that might not have anything to do with your industry, but address specific challenges, like communication, like working together, like solving problems, like thinking, in some of the most impactful trainings that I've been to throughout my career, and I've talked about this, in other episodes of the energy detox aren't directly related to oil and gas, the innovation training that my former employer spent, knows how much money on to send us to, I still draw upon that training every single day, what I do, and even if I were to switch industries, I promised that there is no training that I've had that had more impact on the way that I think and the way that I impact others. And certainly, as a manager at the time, I was able to draw upon that and help my team lead more effectively and make better results. And obviously now the second, third, fourth, fifth degree impacts of that training are, you know, it's quite amazing. So again, ask yourself, what are those types of trainings? What are those types of resources? What are those types of, you know, avenues that you can go down, that, you know, might not be off the shelf
09:48
that might not fit the standard mold that your company has been used to do a refresh, ask for some input from others that's, you know, input from people from other organizations. If you're in human resources, again, tap into your human resources now work of people that are outside your oil and gas industry and asked what's worked for them. Don't limit yourselves so that you, you know, find yourself in a situation where, you know, your lack of diversity when it comes to training and development programs. And and this, you know, kind of fixed mindset is minds of limiting you, much like the residents of New York City will be limited over time as they limit the choices that they have when it comes to energy. Moving on to the next question, which resources are you unwittingly discouraging yourself or your stakeholders from accessing data related to the first question, which was meant to kind of work backwards from the challenges that you're facing and thinking through all of the different ways and all the different industries that might have you know, be facing similar problems? But this question is related to you. And again, your tendency to be overly protective of your training and development budgets and your approach to things and quite frankly, to be scared of going outside the box. So ask yourself, what are some things that you've said no to over the last year, either to yourself or to others in whether you're in career transition, and you've said no to going and taking a communications class or a writing class, again, an example of something that I was happy to be a part of, over the last couple of months, a writing class, I used to think of myself as a pretty decent writer, and quite frankly, I, you know, going through that class, I, you know, realize, okay, I was a decent writer, but I also realize is how far away I was from being a great writer by going into a writing class, again, that has nothing to do with my industry, nothing to do with oil and gas, but shifted the way I think shifted the way I act and shifted the way in many cases, I do business. Because, again, I allowed myself to not the overly protective of this, all right, well, I need to be doing something that's related to coaching need to be getting a coaching certification, or another coaching certification or doing this or something in oil and gas so that I can, you know, improve my, my working knowledge of what's going on in the industry. Now, I took a step back and said, Why not take a writing class? Why not take something that was going to have, you know, it's out of the tentacles to grow out into everything else? I do? So ask yourself in what ways are you limiting yourself and, and having this overly protective mindset, and casting aside potential resources that can make a big difference in you and your team and your organization? And the final question is, in what ways are sexy and often short term solutions, blinding you from proven and sustainable resources, it's very easy today to get swept up in all of the, you know, the latest and greatest technologies in particular, right? The latest apps, the latest approaches to you know, human psychology and an organizational development and all of these things that seem trendy, but you know, in your heart, especially if you've been around for a while that these things are short lived, but they're getting the attention of senior leadership, they're certainly getting the attention of those with the purse strings to to throw, you know, high six, in some cases, seven figures at these things. But the reality is, you know, that much like many software products, they're going to be short lived, they're not going to last. So again, as you make these decisions heading into 2022, as you look at your training and development budgets, ask yourself, are you unwittingly defaulting to these solutions that are sexy, that are new that that have some appeal? Or are you perhaps, you know, missing opportunities to, to look at some tried and true approaches, again, some things that, you know, have worked in the past, that people went through, that people have drawn upon, but again, might not have the, you know, the latest and greatest technology attached to them, you know, maybe they're a little bit old school, maybe they rely on pen and paper a little bit, whatever those are, just make sure you ask yourself, there is no one right answer. But ask yourself, are you missing opportunities for tried and true and proven resources? You know, because you want to go down a path that's a little bit sexier and fresher and, and has that you know, that either that digital stamp, or the stamp of approval from some new generation that doesn't realize the short sightedness of some of those approaches. And so with all that being said, as always, I appreciate you taking the time to listen and in turn to ask yourself questions to make sure that you're not going down a limiting path, much as the New York City Council did yesterday by limiting access to a proven reliable, sustainable, affordable, plentiful domestic energy source like natural gas. And so with that, I hope you have an excellent day. I hope you take care and again, I hope you tune in again for the next episode of the energy detox