Should Expand Energy Join the Thunder at the White House?

Which Oklahoma City team is more deserving of a White House invite:

🏀 The Thunder for winning the NBA Championship; or

🔥 Expand Energy for drilling a record-setting Marcellus well?

As you ponder that, check out this episode of The Energy Detox for some unconventional recognition tools to help you lead more effectively.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thanks to the Oklahoma Citythunders victory over the

(00:02):
Indiana Pacers last night ingame seven of the NBA Finals,
the thunder will presumably begetting an invitation to the
White House to celebrate theirchampionship, but here on the
energy detox, we're going tofocus on a different team that's
also based in Oklahoma City, andthat is arguably more worthy of
an invitation to the White Housefor something that they achieved

(00:24):
recently, and that team is theExpand energy drilling team and
its various service providerswho helped drill a record
setting Marcellus well down inWest Virginia recently. And that
well reached out over fivemiles, setting us land records
for length of well, length oflateral, longest BIT TRIP,
longest 24 hour and 48 hourfootage, all kinds of tremendous

(00:48):
records that, again, you couldargue, is probably more
impactful for your averageAmerican than the thunders
victory last night,notwithstanding the millions of
people, of course, who enjoywatching the NBA and enjoyed
watching the thunder beat thePacers last night. All that
being said, what expand energyhas done and continues to do,
has tremendous impact onAmericans from an energy
standpoint, obviously,especially here, as we navigate

(01:11):
a pretty intense heat wave inmuch of America and as we
navigate energy security mattersthanks to the events that
occurred this past weekend. Thatbeing said, are we doing enough
to celebrate natural gas? AndI'll let you answer that
question, because here on theenergy detox, we're not, again,
going to spend all of our timetalking about natural gas
either, and all of its benefitsand how, again, it makes America

(01:32):
stronger because of, again,types of things that expand
energy is doing no today on theenergy detox, we're going to
come back to our mission thatbeing helping you as a leader in
the oil and gas industry, bemore effective, be more
conscious, and in turn, helpyourself and help your team
continue building upon thesuccesses that you've had, much
like the success that thethunder had and that expand

(01:54):
energy has had. But before we dothat, I need to give full credit
to Jason Spiess host of thecrude life, because a couple
days ago, I happened to be aguest on the crude life, and we
were talking about expandenergies record setting well.
And ultimately, Jason said, Hey,wait a second. You know, we we
celebrate at the White House allkinds of sports teams after they

(02:15):
win championships. Why doesn'tPresident Trump invite expand
energy to again, tout thisachievement. So this idea that
we're talking about today,again, is not unique to me.
Again, I need to give fullcredit to Jason Spiess there.
And I also need to add one finalpoint, and that is expand
energy's Well, which, again, wason the order of five plus miles.
If you were to drill a well onthe White House lawn, down and

(02:36):
out five miles in any direction,you essentially could reach any
part of Washington DC, or atleast under Washington DC, and
in essence, figuratively, youknow, drain the swamp, if you
will, underneath Washington DC,just as a five mile lateral can
drain the reservoir theMarcellus natural gas from
underneath a vast area, and inturn have a very small

(03:00):
environmental footprint, which,of course, is one of the many
benefits of drilling theseextended laterals. So again,
that being said, setting asidethe operational matters, the
political matters, the sportsmatters. What's the point today?
Well, the point is to use thiswhole concept of inviting people
and celebrating achievements tohelp make sure that you are more

(03:20):
effective when it you know, whenit comes time for you to
acknowledge other folks. And todo that, we're going to start
first with this concept of themicrophone. Because, you know,
no doubt, if you've seen any ofthose, you know, short videos,
when teams are invited to theWhite House, it's all about who
gets the microphone right. Youknow, people passing around,
saying silly things, maybecracking a couple jokes, but

(03:41):
it's always interesting to seewho, again, who gets that
microphone, who gets to speak.
And from an expand energystandpoint, it was interesting
to see who got to speak,figuratively speaking, at least
in their press release, or atleast who was quoted, because
there was no mention in expandspress release about this record
setting well of the COO or a VP,no, it was all about a drilling
engineer. It's a drillingengineer who's quoted there, and

(04:02):
it's a drilling engineer whoessentially has the microphone
and is giving thanks to all ofthe third parties who helped
make this well possible, andwho's giving thanks to upper
management and certainly otherfolks at expand for making this
record setting well possible.
And so think about that in yourown world, in your own company,
how often when it comes time tocelebrate something, do you go

(04:22):
with the default? And that is,you know, the highest person
available is there to do whatthey do and take the microphone,
hand out some praise, somethanks, maybe a bonus, you know,
maybe a gift card, maybesomething like that. But
typically, again, it's thehighest person, because that
seems like the right thing todo. But what expanded is really
something that I encourage youto think about, which is, who

(04:43):
else can be the person with themicrophone offering thanks? It
doesn't have to be somebody fromthe top. In fact, maybe the
person on the top needs to get alittle thanks from from somebody
who's more on the front lines.
You know, that's differentiatedleadership, and when I see that
in action again, it's, it'samazing how often now, again,
this isn't forever. Buddy. Noteverybody likes the spotlight,
but it's amazing how you mightget different insights,
different color, if you allowsomebody else to give thanks. So

(05:06):
ask yourself again. You know, nodoubt, I would hope here in
short order, you'll havesomething to thank somebody for,
whether it's a third party,whether it's somebody
internally, and if you have anopportunity to give somebody
else the opportunity to saythanks before you do well, take
advantage of that opportunity.
Give them the microphone. Youknow, again, that that is a win,

(05:27):
win, win, win, all kinds ofpeople winning when you take
that responsibility and hand itoff to somebody else. So take a
page from expand ask you cangive that microphone to next
time you need to give praise forsome sort of internal or
external accomplishment. Itemnumber two here in terms of
practical things that you coulddo from a leadership standpoint,
under this umbrella ofinvitations and and making sure

(05:49):
that the praise and thespotlight is is as effective as
possible. And that is, ofcourse, to lean into this
concept of, hey, you know whatwe're not done yet. How often
when a team wins and they say,Hey, you know what? We're not
done yet. We're ready for nextyear, right? We're ready to
repeat or repeat in some cases,and certainly in the world of
sports, I think that's common,right? To say we are not done

(06:10):
yet. Oil and gas, same thing. Ihave no doubt that expand energy
is out there saying, Hey, we arenot done yet. We're going to
keep setting records. I have nodoubt about that. Again, given
the industry that I've beenprivileged to serve here in
multiple capacities for the last20 years. But here's where I am
concerned, and here's wherepeople do miss the boat a little
bit, and where I don't want youto miss the boat. It's the fact
that other parties are not doneyet. Other teams are not done

(06:33):
yet. It's very easy. When you'reon cloud nine. You're getting
all these accolades to say, hey,we're gonna keep working hard.
We're gonna work harder thanever. We're not going to rest on
our laurels. But what that alsoneeds to mean is we're not going
to forget that there's otherparties who are trying to do
similar things as us. You know,the thunder obviously thinking,
hey, you know the Pacers aregoing to be, you know, even more

(06:54):
agitated, but more motivated tocome at us next year and emerge
victorious. So again, I think,make sure you're asking yourself
that, but in an oil and gascontext, especially, ask
yourself, hey, in what ways arewe resting on our laurels and
saying, Look, you know what,we've proven once again, that we
are the best. And from anindustry wide standpoint, not
just the company widestandpoint, from an industry

(07:16):
wide standpoint, how often doyou hear leaders in the industry
talk about the fact that, well,renewables, you know, they can't
compete. From a from a, youknow, math standpoint, from an
energy standpoint, from a coststandpoint, you know, wind and
solar in particular, they justcan't compete. But how often do
you hear that same leaderexpress confidence in what he's
saying or she's saying bythrowing the words yet in there?

(07:38):
They can't compete yet. Now arethey ever going to be able to
compete at the same level thatoil and gas can again, from a
reliability standpoint, from anaffordability standpoint, I
don't know, but a leader, acoach, an owner who doesn't
firmly believe that there'sother industries, there's other
companies, there's other teamsout there that are gunning for

(08:00):
you at all times, if you don'tbelieve that they're gonna find
a way to try and win, wellagain, you're obviously setting
yourself up for long termfailure. You're setting yourself
up for not being able to buildon your current successes if
you're not focused on the factthat other people are also not
done yet. That being said, thethird and final energy Sports

(08:21):
Leadership note for todayrevolves around this idea of
false hurdles. And this is aconcept again, I gotta give full
credit where it's due. Thismorning on the radio, folks
talking about the thundervictory. You know, they talked
about how often in sports teamsuse these, these false hurdles,
these false chips on theirshoulders, to make it seem like
they overcame something thatthey really didn't overcome.

(08:43):
Now, how often you hear a teamsay, You know what, everybody
counted us out, or nobodybelieved in us. Nobody thought
that we could emerge victorious,when the reality is they were a
favorite. They should have won.
You know, the betting markets,you know, had them again as the
odds on favorite for months.
Well, in the case of thethunder, I did not hear any
examples? Have not heard anyexamples of them throwing out
these false hurdles. And then onthe radio again this morning,

(09:05):
they weren't either, but theywere talking about the fact that
so often you do hear thatthough, right? You know how
often? Again, like a like aTravis Kelsey after Kansas City
wins, you know, one or twochampionships, yeah, you know,
nobody counted on us, or theydidn't think we could do it. And
people say, Well, are you crazy?
Like, of course, everybodythought you could do it. So make
sure again, when you haveachievements and you've done
well, you know, don't undercutwhat people are, you know,

(09:28):
understandably applauding, butmaking it sound like, you know,
you achieved more than youreally did, or you overcame some
sort of hurdle that reallywasn't there. So that being
said, ask yourself, what elsecan you do when it comes to this
idea of inviting others andgiving praise and making sure
that you know the right folksare in the conversation about

(09:50):
the accomplishments that hadbeen achieved and, of course,
more significantly, the futureaccomplishments that you hope.
To achieve, and with that again,I guess the final sort of call
to action today is, well, askyourself, what kind of praise
and feedback can you give tosomebody else here that maybe
they might not be expecting?

(10:15):
Certainly the thunder expectingthis, I think expand energy
undoubtedly would expect plentyof accolades for their
accomplishment. But you know whoin your sphere of influence on
your personal life and yourprofessional life is out there
that you know make maybe coulduse a little bit of recognition
today. Go forth, give them thatrecognition. And with that,
congrats to expand energy.
Congrats to the Oklahoma CityThunder and thank you, as

(10:36):
always, for tuning in to theenergy detox.