April 1, 2025 • 10 mins
In what ways are you or your team unwittingly polishing a cannonball?
To help you answer that question, check out Episode 108 of The Energy Detox, recorded outside Pittsburgh's PNC park, home of the Polish Cannonball (a new food item introduced for the 2025 season) and home to a 14-foot bronze statue of Bill Mazeroski, the Polish-American Pirate who launched a cannonball that won the 1960 World Series.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Did you hear that the PittsburghPirates are being sold? Did you
hear that long suffering piratesfans are finally getting their
wish that is a brand new owner?
Well, if you did hear thosethings, then I got some bad news
for you, because you may wellhave been the victim of an April
Fool's joke, because to the bestof my knowledge, the pirates are
not being sold, which means thatpirates leadership will continue
(00:21):
polishing a cannonball. And ifyou're not familiar with the
term polishing a cannonball,well, it essentially means to
continue doing things, makinginvestments, spending time
energy money on things thatreally don't make a difference.
And in the case of the Pirates,they will continue making
investments and spending timeand energy on things that may
(00:43):
make small tweaks to theorganization, to the team, to
the ballpark, but at the end ofthe day, likely won't make a
difference in their on fieldperformance. And so today, on
the energy detox, we're going totake that term, that idea of
polishing a cannonball, and posea couple questions for you as a
leader in the energy industry toask, how often are you or your
(01:03):
teams or your colleaguespolishing a cannonball? But
before we do that, to set thestage a little bit, the term
polishing a cannonball obviouslyhas plenty of pirates themes,
but I want to set the stage alittle bit more, because the
real inspiration comes from aPolish cannonball. Again, a
little fun with the Englishlanguage here, where the word
polish and polish can be spelledthe same way, because the Polish
(01:26):
Cannonball is one example of thepirates polishing a cannonball.
Because, as they do every year,they've introduced some new
cuisine to the ballpark, and oneof those is the Polish
cannonball. And what is that?
Well, it's a deep fried ball ofegg noodles, kielbasa, cabbage,
bacon cheese and with a side ofherb dipping sauce. Anyway,
(01:47):
again, I'd be remiss if I didn'tshed a little bit of light on
that inspiration. But also, andprobably more importantly, the
gentleman behind me, BillMazeroski, a Polish American
pirate who launched what somemight say is the most famous and
certainly the greatestcannonball in major league
baseball history, that being thegame winning home run the 1960
(02:10):
World Series the bottom of theninth against the mighty New
York Yankees to win That gameseven and again, launch his
place in Pirates infamy, in theHall of Fame, and including the
Polish American Hall Sports Hallof Fame, in addition to the
Baseball Hall of Fame inCooperstown.
(02:31):
Anyway. So with all of thosePolish themes and polishing
themes and cannonball themes,here, let's get to the crux of
today's episode, and that is, inwhat ways are you polishing a
cannonball? And to start, let'sgo with one item here that I see
quite often, and I've seen itthroughout my career and
certainly now as a coach, andthat is the constant polishing
(02:53):
of PowerPoint presentations. Howmuch time and energy have you
spent and have your colleaguesspent polishing figurative
cannon balls that go to someaudience that likely doesn't
even care how well polished yourpresentation is. And again, the
point of this episode is to notspend time talking about how to
improve your approach topresentations and how to
actually put forth effort thatwill make a difference, but
(03:15):
instead to simply have youasking that question. Are you
polishing a cannonball when itcomes to presentations? Are you
spending so much time on detailsand fluff and polish when at the
end of the day, all youraudience likely wants is some
bottom line suggestion, answeror question posed to them, so
that they can make a decision?
And if you have more details,great, but you probably don't
(03:37):
need to load them up front. Now,in some cases, you do right.
Maybe you're presenting to atechnical team about the design
of some sort of facility. Maybethey need all those details up
front to try to catch things.
That's fine. But again, I thinkit goes without saying that your
approach to presentation shouldnot be one size fits all. Yet, I
think every organization, atleast, that I have witnessed, is
(04:01):
susceptible to the polishing ofa cannonball when it comes to
presentations.
The next item on the list isrewarding firefighting again,
especially in an industry likeoil and gas well, employees are
often rewarded for fightingfires to jumping into action
when they're called upon, andthat's not a bad thing, except
(04:21):
when leaders unwittingly rewardfirefighters and not reward fire
preventers. So again, askyourself, in what ways are you
unwittingly rewardingfirefighters at the expense of
people who are actually outthere trying to prevent these
fires from occurring in thefirst place, and to throw in or
force in a baseball metaphor,let's go back to that game seven
(04:42):
of the 1960 World Series. It wasgreat. You know, the ultimate
hero coming through in theclutch, Bill Mazeroski, but in
your organization, are youbasically relying on constant
game sevens instead of saying,hey, how could we potentially
win this series in five or sixgames? Instead of having to find
ourselves constantly in thishigh pressure situation.
That being said, let's move onto the third example of
(05:06):
polishing a cannonball, and thatis not firing, well, figurative
cannonballs, if you will, notfiring employees when they need
to be let go, when employees arenot a good fit for the
organization. And again, thatgoes both ways. Are you
continuing to, again, sort ofpolish their existence and keep
them along because it's eithereasier or it feels like the
(05:27):
right thing to do, when, infact, in many cases, you are
unwittingly harming them in thelong term, and you're certainly
harming your team and you'repotentially harming your own
reputation. How often do youhave an employee who, again, is
not a good fit, but you continuepouring resources into them in
the hopes that they might turnthings around, when, in reality,
again, what's best for them isto say, look, this isn't working
(05:48):
out. Here are some feedback onhow perhaps you can use your
strengths at anotherorganization. But it doesn't
need to be here. And again, it'scommon. It's human nature and
and quite frankly, it's a goodexample of and again, this is
not an insight that I dreamed upmyself, but I've heard before
for people that say, You knowwhat, when companies refer to
(06:10):
their employees as family,that's not necessarily a good
thing, because in a family, youknow what, you're not going to
fire a family member, right? Youare going to hold on. You are
going to pour all kinds of extraenergy and effort, even if
sometimes that means, you know,time and energy is not going to
be allocated to other members ofthe family. And again, you know,
pick your favorite analogy orbiblical story like the prodigal
(06:32):
son that was read at CatholicMasses this past weekend, right?
Sometimes it's good to letpeople walk away and come back,
if you will. But by and large,when it comes to family, no, you
keep them close. So again, somepeople will point out that, you
know, when it comes to business,what's best for all parties is
so again, let that cannonballfire away, let that person walk
away. And again, everybody canmove on in a much more conscious
(06:56):
and effective manner.
That being said, the fourthexample of polishing a
cannonball that I have seenquite often is obsessing and
polishing metrics that reallydon't matter. Again, you can
pause right now and think ofyour favorite dashboard that
you're tasked with updating on aregular basis that honestly
doesn't tell as full of a storyor as complete of a story as it
(07:19):
should, or, more importantly, itdoesn't impact the bottom line
as much as it should. And if wego back to the game seven of the
World Series, or actually theentire 1960 World Series, if you
looked at the metrics in termsof offensive production, you
will have seen that the Yankeesdominated the pirates. Think
they scored about twice as manyruns as the pirates if you look
at all seven games of thatseries. But of course, that
(07:40):
metric is not what mattered atthe end of the day, it was the
fact that the pirates won fourgames and the Yankees only won
three. So again, with that inmind, ask yourself, in what ways
are you looking at runproduction, when in reality, you
should be looking at somethingelse that points to the ultimate
goal, which is long term Seriesvictory, if you will.
And finally, the fifth examplefor this episode, at least, of
(08:01):
polishing a cannonball ismeetings. Again, a topic that
has come up on many of the other107 episodes of the energy
detox. But again, how often areyou or others polishing a
meeting, tweaking a meeting,tweaking the attendees, tweaking
the agenda, tweaking the timingof the meeting, instead of
taking a step back and asking,hey, does this meeting even need
(08:22):
to exist again? It's humannature to say, hey, well, you
know, before we give up on thismeeting, let's at least try to
improve it. And I get that. Butby and large, I would argue that
the time and energy spentpolishing that meeting, so to
speak, is not necessarily worthit. So as a leader, ask
yourself, does it make sense tosimply again fire that
(08:43):
cannonball, get rid of thatmeeting and start from scratch,
instead of spending all kinds oftime and energy polishing
something that really is nothaving the impact that you or
others expect it to have.
So that being said, those wereonly five examples of polishing
a cannonball. No doubt there aredozens that I'm sure you could
call to mind. And so with that,I welcome your feedback. I'd
(09:05):
love you to comment withwhatever examples of polishing a
cannonball that come to yourmind, and as another call to
action, what one example ofpolishing a cannonball can you
commit to not polishing what oneexample of polishing a
cannonball do you think willhave the most impact on you?
Heck today, if not this week,certainly going through the rest
(09:26):
of this quarter here as we kickoff quarter number one. And so
with that being said, I guessthe last call to action, if you
will, is if you happen to be oneof those people who will be
welcoming the currently one infour pirates back here to PNC
Park for their home openeragainst the Yankees, who, of
course, were vanquished by BillMazeroski on that famous home
(09:46):
run 65 years ago. Yikes.
Well, question for you is, ifyou try one of those Polish
Cannonballs here at theballpark, please do provide your
feedback and your comments onon. How good that cuisine was.
So with that being said, andagain, in honor of Bill
Mazeroski and his walk off winand as we stand here a couple
(10:08):
days away from welcoming thePittsburgh Pirates who have
suffered three walk off lossesin their first five games, I'd
be remiss not to end thisepisode by offering a Go Bucs
and a go forth to you to becomea more conscious leader who does
not spend time polishing cannonballs.
Did you hear that the PittsburghPirates are being sold? Did you
hear that long suffering piratesfans are finally getting their
wish that is a brand new owner?
Well, if you did hear thosethings, then I got some bad news
for you, because you may wellhave been the victim of an April
Fool's joke, because to the bestof my knowledge, the pirates are
not being sold, which means thatpirates leadership will continue
(00:21):
polishing a cannonball. And ifyou're not familiar with the
term polishing a cannonball,well, it essentially means to
continue doing things, makinginvestments, spending time
energy money on things thatreally don't make a difference.
And in the case of the Pirates,they will continue making
investments and spending timeand energy on things that may
(00:43):
make small tweaks to theorganization, to the team, to
the ballpark, but at the end ofthe day, likely won't make a
difference in their on fieldperformance. And so today, on
the energy detox, we're going totake that term, that idea of
polishing a cannonball, and posea couple questions for you as a
leader in the energy industry toask, how often are you or your
(01:03):
teams or your colleaguespolishing a cannonball? But
before we do that, to set thestage a little bit, the term
polishing a cannonball obviouslyhas plenty of pirates themes,
but I want to set the stage alittle bit more, because the
real inspiration comes from aPolish cannonball. Again, a
little fun with the Englishlanguage here, where the word
polish and polish can be spelledthe same way, because the Polish
(01:26):
Cannonball is one example of thepirates polishing a cannonball.
Because, as they do every year,they've introduced some new
cuisine to the ballpark, and oneof those is the Polish
cannonball. And what is that?
Well, it's a deep fried ball ofegg noodles, kielbasa, cabbage,
bacon cheese and with a side ofherb dipping sauce. Anyway,
(01:47):
again, I'd be remiss if I didn'tshed a little bit of light on
that inspiration. But also, andprobably more importantly, the
gentleman behind me, BillMazeroski, a Polish American
pirate who launched what somemight say is the most famous and
certainly the greatestcannonball in major league
baseball history, that being thegame winning home run the 1960
(02:10):
World Series the bottom of theninth against the mighty New
York Yankees to win That gameseven and again, launch his
place in Pirates infamy, in theHall of Fame, and including the
Polish American Hall Sports Hallof Fame, in addition to the
Baseball Hall of Fame inCooperstown.
(02:31):
Anyway. So with all of thosePolish themes and polishing
themes and cannonball themes,here, let's get to the crux of
today's episode, and that is, inwhat ways are you polishing a
cannonball? And to start, let'sgo with one item here that I see
quite often, and I've seen itthroughout my career and
certainly now as a coach, andthat is the constant polishing
(02:53):
of PowerPoint presentations. Howmuch time and energy have you
spent and have your colleaguesspent polishing figurative
cannon balls that go to someaudience that likely doesn't
even care how well polished yourpresentation is. And again, the
point of this episode is to notspend time talking about how to
improve your approach topresentations and how to
actually put forth effort thatwill make a difference, but
(03:15):
instead to simply have youasking that question. Are you
polishing a cannonball when itcomes to presentations? Are you
spending so much time on detailsand fluff and polish when at the
end of the day, all youraudience likely wants is some
bottom line suggestion, answeror question posed to them, so
that they can make a decision?
And if you have more details,great, but you probably don't
(03:37):
need to load them up front. Now,in some cases, you do right.
Maybe you're presenting to atechnical team about the design
of some sort of facility. Maybethey need all those details up
front to try to catch things.
That's fine. But again, I thinkit goes without saying that your
approach to presentation shouldnot be one size fits all. Yet, I
think every organization, atleast, that I have witnessed, is
(04:01):
susceptible to the polishing ofa cannonball when it comes to
presentations.
The next item on the list isrewarding firefighting again,
especially in an industry likeoil and gas well, employees are
often rewarded for fightingfires to jumping into action
when they're called upon, andthat's not a bad thing, except
(04:21):
when leaders unwittingly rewardfirefighters and not reward fire
preventers. So again, askyourself, in what ways are you
unwittingly rewardingfirefighters at the expense of
people who are actually outthere trying to prevent these
fires from occurring in thefirst place, and to throw in or
force in a baseball metaphor,let's go back to that game seven
(04:42):
of the 1960 World Series. It wasgreat. You know, the ultimate
hero coming through in theclutch, Bill Mazeroski, but in
your organization, are youbasically relying on constant
game sevens instead of saying,hey, how could we potentially
win this series in five or sixgames? Instead of having to find
ourselves constantly in thishigh pressure situation.
That being said, let's move onto the third example of
(05:06):
polishing a cannonball, and thatis not firing, well, figurative
cannonballs, if you will, notfiring employees when they need
to be let go, when employees arenot a good fit for the
organization. And again, thatgoes both ways. Are you
continuing to, again, sort ofpolish their existence and keep
them along because it's eithereasier or it feels like the
(05:27):
right thing to do, when, infact, in many cases, you are
unwittingly harming them in thelong term, and you're certainly
harming your team and you'repotentially harming your own
reputation. How often do youhave an employee who, again, is
not a good fit, but you continuepouring resources into them in
the hopes that they might turnthings around, when, in reality,
again, what's best for them isto say, look, this isn't working
(05:48):
out. Here are some feedback onhow perhaps you can use your
strengths at anotherorganization. But it doesn't
need to be here. And again, it'scommon. It's human nature and
and quite frankly, it's a goodexample of and again, this is
not an insight that I dreamed upmyself, but I've heard before
for people that say, You knowwhat, when companies refer to
(06:10):
their employees as family,that's not necessarily a good
thing, because in a family, youknow what, you're not going to
fire a family member, right? Youare going to hold on. You are
going to pour all kinds of extraenergy and effort, even if
sometimes that means, you know,time and energy is not going to
be allocated to other members ofthe family. And again, you know,
pick your favorite analogy orbiblical story like the prodigal
(06:32):
son that was read at CatholicMasses this past weekend, right?
Sometimes it's good to letpeople walk away and come back,
if you will. But by and large,when it comes to family, no, you
keep them close. So again, somepeople will point out that, you
know, when it comes to business,what's best for all parties is
so again, let that cannonballfire away, let that person walk
away. And again, everybody canmove on in a much more conscious
(06:56):
and effective manner.
That being said, the fourthexample of polishing a
cannonball that I have seenquite often is obsessing and
polishing metrics that reallydon't matter. Again, you can
pause right now and think ofyour favorite dashboard that
you're tasked with updating on aregular basis that honestly
doesn't tell as full of a storyor as complete of a story as it
(07:19):
should, or, more importantly, itdoesn't impact the bottom line
as much as it should. And if wego back to the game seven of the
World Series, or actually theentire 1960 World Series, if you
looked at the metrics in termsof offensive production, you
will have seen that the Yankeesdominated the pirates. Think
they scored about twice as manyruns as the pirates if you look
at all seven games of thatseries. But of course, that
(07:40):
metric is not what mattered atthe end of the day, it was the
fact that the pirates won fourgames and the Yankees only won
three. So again, with that inmind, ask yourself, in what ways
are you looking at runproduction, when in reality, you
should be looking at somethingelse that points to the ultimate
goal, which is long term Seriesvictory, if you will.
And finally, the fifth examplefor this episode, at least, of
(08:01):
polishing a cannonball ismeetings. Again, a topic that
has come up on many of the other107 episodes of the energy
detox. But again, how often areyou or others polishing a
meeting, tweaking a meeting,tweaking the attendees, tweaking
the agenda, tweaking the timingof the meeting, instead of
taking a step back and asking,hey, does this meeting even need
(08:22):
to exist again? It's humannature to say, hey, well, you
know, before we give up on thismeeting, let's at least try to
improve it. And I get that. Butby and large, I would argue that
the time and energy spentpolishing that meeting, so to
speak, is not necessarily worthit. So as a leader, ask
yourself, does it make sense tosimply again fire that
(08:43):
cannonball, get rid of thatmeeting and start from scratch,
instead of spending all kinds oftime and energy polishing
something that really is nothaving the impact that you or
others expect it to have.
So that being said, those wereonly five examples of polishing
a cannonball. No doubt there aredozens that I'm sure you could
call to mind. And so with that,I welcome your feedback. I'd
(09:05):
love you to comment withwhatever examples of polishing a
cannonball that come to yourmind, and as another call to
action, what one example ofpolishing a cannonball can you
commit to not polishing what oneexample of polishing a
cannonball do you think willhave the most impact on you?
Heck today, if not this week,certainly going through the rest
(09:26):
of this quarter here as we kickoff quarter number one. And so
with that being said, I guessthe last call to action, if you
will, is if you happen to be oneof those people who will be
welcoming the currently one infour pirates back here to PNC
Park for their home openeragainst the Yankees, who, of
course, were vanquished by BillMazeroski on that famous home
(09:46):
run 65 years ago. Yikes.
Well, question for you is, ifyou try one of those Polish
Cannonballs here at theballpark, please do provide your
feedback and your comments onon. How good that cuisine was.
So with that being said, andagain, in honor of Bill
Mazeroski and his walk off winand as we stand here a couple
(10:08):
days away from welcoming thePittsburgh Pirates who have
suffered three walk off lossesin their first five games, I'd
be remiss not to end thisepisode by offering a Go Bucs
and a go forth to you to becomea more conscious leader who does
not spend time polishing cannonballs.
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