ONE POWER FEED

My background is all things “regulatory.” I am a regulatory attorney, Head of Regulatory Affairs, former regulator, and former lawyer of regulators. I have spent A LOT of time working with (and unfortunately sometimes against) regulators. I have also spent a lot of time working with business leaders. The majority of whom, to put it bluntly, hate regulators. So, are regulators really the evil enemies that many businesses make them out to be?

I can honestly say that answer is YES. But at the same time, the answer is also, NO.

The truth is, regulators are before all else, human. They are people like you, like me, like the person who made you mad at Wal-Mart the other day because they cut you off and yelled at you, like the smartest and most reasonable colleague you have ever had. All of these types of people can be regulators.

So with that in mind, let’s dive more into what it means for a regulator to be a friend or a foe.

First, what does it look like to have a regulator that is a friend? Well, to put it plainly, regulators aren’t really meant to be your “friend.” They are meant to regulate you and scrutinize what you are doing. So the kind of “friendship” we are talking about here is different, and expectations need to be adjusted accordingly.

But there are a few qualities you can find in a great regulator to consider them a “friend.” A regulator is a “friend” when they are great at their job. When they are an expert in the area they regulate. When they love to “nerd out” about it. When you ask them a legitimate question and they can give you a knowledgeable, well-reasoned answer, or they promise to go find that answer and then do so. A regulator who is a “friend” is not on a power trip. Instead, they understand they have great power in their role, and they respect that power. Instead of using that power to bully, or to favor one industry over the other, they use that power to get to the bottom of an issue and help solve it in the fairest way possible. The majority of regulators I have met are “friends.”

Now let’s turn to what it looks like when a regulator is a “foe.” Regulators are foes when they have no clue about the area they regulate and they don’t even try to lean on others who do. A “foe” makes decisions based on their limited knowledge, no matter the collateral damage it causes. They have little or no legal basis for a decision they make and they don’t care. They know they have power and they throw it around haphazardly to impart their will on others or pursue an agenda. I have not met many of these regulators, but the few I have encountered made running a business a truly miserable and expensive experience, for no reason tied to fairness or the law.

But at the end of the day, though some regulators will act as your “friend” and some as a “foe,” they all regulate your business. And like every aspect of your business, you succeed when you recognize the realities of the world and react strategically to come out on top. So, instead of complaining about how regulators are your enemies, channel that energy instead towards getting your business the resources it needs to understand and comply with the regulatory environment in which you operate. Then, no matter if you run into a regulator who is a “friend” or “foe” you will be in a position to navigate every regulatory matter you encounter and come out of it far better off.

Katie Treadway is the Head of Regulatory Affairs at One Energy.

Learn more about Katie and the One Energy team.

My biggest professional fear isn’t what you’d think. I’m not afraid of failure; that will always be a possibility. I’m not afraid of getting someone hurt; I’m confident that we have done everything we can to create safety controls and enable a safe culture. I’m not afraid of losing control of the company; that is a part of growth and making the company something bigger than me.

My biggest professional fear is losing touch with the front line.

The front line is where a company’s values and aspirations are put into action. The front line is the people who are creating product, who are interacting with customers and vendors – the people who are building, and who are maintaining. The front line is the company, and if I lose touch with front line, that will be the beginning of the end.

I worked for several companies before I decided to start One Energy. I worked through countless toxic environments. In every case, I believe the root cause of each company’s issues was that senior management was completely disconnected from the front line. I would sit in meetings with the CEO who proclaimed, “we will spare no price for safety” and “everyone is empowered to stop work for safety.” Then a few days later, I would be on site witnessing a Project Manager trying to overrule a crane superintendent, saying “go ahead and make the lift – it’s just a little over the weight limit.” The CEO thought he was running one company; the reality was that his organization was a different entity entirely.

One of our large suppliers offers a similar cautionary tale. I know the international founder and his original team well. They are some of the most impressive executives I have ever met, and they have built a great global company. But in doing so, they have lost touch with their front line. They have hired a series of local, country-specific executives, and in doing so they have lost their soul. One current local executive is an incompetent pompous individual who has the technical understanding of a goldfish. He does not embody the virtues of the leaders who spent decades building the company. He does not advance the product; nor does he build lasting relationships with customers. He acts as though the U.S. subsidiary is his company and a source of personal power. He has made dozens of decisions that hurt the company both in the U.S. and worldwide. He goes on tirades to try to prove he is right and in doing so, ignores the best interests of the company. To prove a point to me (his customer), he once insisted that a product warranty be moved from one contract to another. He was so blind by insisting he was right that he failed to notice that he was doubling the warranty liability for his company by duplicating the same limit in the new contract for the extended warranty that was in the original warranty. Essentially, he created $20MM in unnecessary new liability for his company to prove a point.

There is no way the global executives of this supplier know what is happening on their front line. They have lost touch, and their once-great company is quickly becoming an embarrassment that is destined to fail if they don’t make a major change soon.  

Staying in touch and well aligned with the front line is the hardest part of my job. Most of the people on the front line at One Energy have very little tolerance for what I call executive puffery. They often tell me things I don’t want to hear, and frankly, they are not very good at the compliment sandwich. But these are the things all executives need to hear, and their candid, honest feedback is incredibly valuable.

One of the things we do to help me stay aligned with the status of One Energy’s front line is what we call “Pink Sheets.” I stole the idea from Admiral Hyman Rickover. The “Pinks” were the last carbon copy sheet from a work order in the nuclear navy, and every pink sheet made its way to the Admiral. While those in the chain of command could add comments to the sheets, they could not delete anything. So every single qualified frontline worker knew that their words would be read by the Admiral. And the Admiral knew, directly from the front line, how things were going.

Our Pink Sheets are filled out every Friday by everyone in the company and they ask the same four questions every week:

What did we do right this week?

What did we screw up this week?

What do we need to do better next week?

What is the single biggest threat to the company?

Those sheets annoy people, but they have solved more problems than I can count. I read every single one, sometimes I write back, and when action is needed, you better believe it is taken. Those sheets are my fail safe with the front line. They are candid, and they are an honest accounting of the week. And that is what executives need to stay grounded and in touch with the front line. They are just one of the tools I use every week to make sure I don’t lose touch and end up like the cautionary tales of my large supplier or former employer.

Fear is a great motivator. If more executives feared losing touch with the front line, we would have better companies, and we would have safer companies. I am afraid of losing touch with the front line, and I respectfully submit that fear, in this case, is a great thing.

          Jereme Kent is the CEO at One Energy.

          Learn more about Jereme and the One Energy team.