Stop Assuming Your Accomplishments Speak for Themselves
Before you give a presentation, head into a performance review, or hop on a sales call, are you ready to explicitly convey why your audience should care about what you have to say?
Or do you just plan to wow them with facts and figures, assuming they'll connect the dots themselves?
Those are the questions raised in this episode of The Energy Detox, inspired by news that Range Resources, the first company to frac the Marcellus, will be acquired by EQT Corporation, which will once again become America's biggest natural gas producer.
RELATED EPISODES
“Pioneer or Pretender: Are Semantics Unwittingly Fracturing Your Credibility?” (The Energy Detox, Episode 98)
💡 On October 23, 2024, Range Resources celebrated the 20th anniversary of their groundbreaking Marcellus frac, and the world celebrated the 65th birthday of Weird Al Yankovic.
💡 Both Range and Weird Al are undoubtedly pioneers—although some might question those claims.
That being said, Episode 98 of The Energy Detox reinforces a leadership lesson you're almost certainly aware of...but may not be fully implementing: the specific words you use can—and will—shape your credibility, impact, and legacy.
“20 Marcellus-Inspired Ways to Be a Question-Able Leader” (The Energy Detox, Episode 97)
This company pioneered the Marcellus with its frac of the Renz #1 well in October 2004.
What is Range Resources?
To honor 20 years of shale development that helped save Western PA from economic jeopardy, this Jeopardy!-inspired episode of The Energy Detox asks 20 questions that 1) highlight the story of the first Marcellus frac, and 2) provide practical ways to unleash the full potential of your stakeholders.
“What Do People Think When They Hear Your Name?” (The Energy Detox, Episode 95)
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?
Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Being the first can get you attention. Being the biggest can also get you attention, and being the best is what we're all after, right?
00:08
But who cares? Who cares if you're the first? Who cares if you're the biggest? Who cares if you're the best at something?
00:16
Well, that's the question for you today on this episode of the Energy Detox, which builds upon this morning's big news that EQT will once again become the biggest producer of natural gas in the United States by acquiring the company that was the first to frack a Marcellus well, that being Range Resources. Also, that this combined entity can become the best in many different areas of the energy industry, but again, today our goal is not to step through all the details of this pending deal. No, it's to help you become a better leader. And how are we going to do that? Well, very simply, we're going to take whatever facts and figures and stats and accomplishments you might have about your career, or perhaps even just about a presentation or an upcoming conversation that you're having with somebody. We're going to take all those details and translate them into one sentence that you can convey to somebody else, so that they well, they'll care, they'll care, period, or they'll at least care more than they currently do.
01:16
But before we do that, I want to explain why I, Joe Sinnott, I'm standing here in a parking garage in the middle of Pittsburgh. Well, it's because behind me there's a building used to be called EQT Plaza, and several things have occurred over the last several years that make this question of conveying to stakeholders why they should care so very important. One of those occurred in 2017 when EQT announced that it would be acquiring Rice Energy and in turn becoming the biggest producer of natural gas in the United States. And when something like that happens, senior leadership and, of course, investor relations, well, they need to go forth and explain why people should care, why their audience, shareholders, investors, community members, why they should care.
02:02
Similarly, two years later, 2019, the former leadership of Rice Energy launched a proxy campaign to come in and essentially take over EQT, and they had to do the same thing. They had to convey, hey, not just this is what we've done. Here are some facts and figures, but why those who would be ultimately voting in that proxy campaign, should care.
02:23
And then five years later, I stood here for an episode of the Energy Detox on October 1st of 2024, when Chesapeake Energy closed the deal with Southwestern to become a new company, expand energy, and in turn become, at least for now, the biggest producer of natural gas. And in that conversation, we talked about how important it was to convey what people think of when they hear your name. Expand energy. That was a new name, but why should people care? Why should people care? What's well? What's in a name? And so, building on all of those things and the realities of leadership having to always answer the question and keep at the forefront why people should care. Let's bring it back to you.
03:00
So, as I said a minute or so ago, do you have any upcoming presentations, conversations? Maybe it's a conversation with a report. Maybe it's a conversation with a superior. Maybe it's an interview. Maybe you're writing a performance appraisal for yourself or for somebody else here as we approach performance appraisal season. Maybe you're going on a sales call. In all of those things take one accomplishment, one fact, one figure about yourself or your team, or again whatever it is you're trying to convey, and translate that into one sentence that answers the question: Why should your audience care? And now, if this seems overly simplistic, well, guess what? It is. But what I see all the time from a coaching standpoint, whether it's on the career coaching side, where you know people spend a lot of time boosting their resume and their LinkedIn, and they get in the zone and they get fixated on building up all the reasons that they're the best, but never actually translated into why the person that they're speaking to or trying to communicate with, whether it's in writing or whatever, why they should care.
03:59
Similarly, within companies, it happens all the time. You're getting ready to give a presentation. You build up your case, right? You translate all of the things that your team has done, that you've done. You you you lay it all out there. You've got all these facts and these figures about again why you're the biggest, the best, the greatest, whatever.
04:15
But you lose sight of why the audience should care. And again, you know, if you're in sales, you know this is sales 101, right? What does your audience think? Have your audience in mind at all times. But again, I'll tell you, from a communication standpoint, it's very easy, especially in this day and age when it becomes easier and easier to pile all the facts, all the figures, all the stats in with the help of our AI tools. Well, becomes a lot easier to forget that at the end of the day, there's still humans on the other side that need to have a very simple question answer, which is, why should I care?
04:49
And the reason that I care about this topic so very much, and we come back to similar themes all the time, is because you don't want to be seen as a commodity. Again, we've covered that in many episodes of the Energy Detox., the goal of de-commoditizing yourself from a leadership standpoint, because in this day and age, anybody can really have a nice, polished, full resume of everything they've done. But what they can't do as easily is translate that into why the person on the other side should care. So just as Range Resources and EQT this morning told investors basically why they should care. Told their customers why they should care. So too should you keep in mind the same principles. Why should the people that are listening to you or that you want listening to you? Why should they care? So the very simple exercise today, if you haven't already turned this off and gotten started, is to take 60 seconds.
05:38
Take one accomplishment, one thing again on your resume, in an upcoming presentation, in a performance appraisal that you're writing up, take one thing, turn it into one sentence that answers the question: Hey, here's why you should care.