Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/668677
18 Oil Prophets Betsi Bixby Meridian Associates In the seclusion of a private retreat, one petro CEO quietly said, "I just realized I get what I tolerate." It was a profound statement. A murmur of agreement went through the other marketers sitting at the table. A statement like that only comes from deep introspection. Not a single person left that retreat without seriously considering what they were "tolerating." Maybe it is tolerating good, instead of great. Or tolerating poor employee behavior and attitudes. Even tolerating self-sabotage or their own leadership being less than their best. Since that meeting, as I pondered this idea of "tolerating," I wanted to share what I see tolerated by petro CEOs both within and outside their companies, plus provide you with the cost of toleration, and more importantly, the cures. Poor leadership. Yes, that's you. This one is tough because it requires looking in the mirror and finding no one else to blame. It's simple. You are responsible for your company including strategic vision, organizational structure, culture, values, communication and financial results. If you don't like any of those, are you tolerating less than stellar self-behaviors? In my decades of consulting work within the industry, I've seen profits more than double in companies where the CEO tackled his or her own leadership. Cost: One year's annual profit. Look at your last FYE P&L and whatever is at the bottom line is your cost. How can I know that? Because I consistently experience CEOs doubling profits after deciding to work on their own leadership. Cure: Start with John C. Maxwell's book, The Five Levels of Leadership. It's an eye-opener. Basically, if you are not helping your team develop, you aren't a real leader. Substandard employee behavior. Let me begin with the toughest one to tackle and the rest will be easy. It is the long-term employee who actually does their job reasonably well, has a great depth of knowledge, but is grumpy, arrogant, disruptive or toxic. In fact, the high performing toxic employee is about as bad as it gets. Cost: If others have quit due to them, there is turnover cost. If you are spending your time putting out their fires, determine what percent of your time that is and multiply times your annual salary and benefits. Does that person interface with customers? Then count lost customer revenue. Now how may years have you been tolerating this? Yes, add it all up. It will start getting uglier. Cure: You must address the behaviors, not ignore them. Let the employee know those behaviors will not continue to be tolerated. I have a few useful tools I give my CEOs to prepare them for this type of meeting. Then the tough part, you must have consequences that are discussed with the employee such as you will be asked to leave the meeting, or leave the office for a day without pay, etc. Check with your attorney for local employment law to be sure your consequences are fair and legal. Finally, put a summary of your discussion in writing. Supplier bullying or ineptitude. How is that independent family businesses allow themselves to become "beholding" (to use a southern term) to a supplier that does not treat them fairly or with respect? Cost: This can be measured in lost margin, lost sales and lost customers. I've seen it get ugly into seven figures. Cure: Always be assessing your value to a supplier and their value to you. At Meridian, we teach our M-Power clients how to use a supplier matrix to identify potential areas of both risk and gain. It's been worth millions to some. Substandard technology or underutilizing great technology. If I had a $1 for every time someone told me "my software doesn't do that," I could have had a fully paid first class round trip to New Zealand (one of my favorite places)! In some instances, badly out of date software is being tolerated. Other times, people wanting to stay married to old processes are being tolerated. I host a "Technology Huddle" monthly as just one small part of our PetroAnswers services and invariably when someone who is using something neat talks about it, others on the call will exclaim, "We didn't know you could do that!" I even BUSINESS STRATEGIES What Are You Tolerating? 1 2 3 4