Transforming Energy Leadership With Suzanne Ogle

 

Step into the world of strategic foresight and dynamic execution as this episode unpacks the nuances of leadership in change. Join Adam Markel as he sits down with Suzanne Ogle, the astute President and CEO of SGA Natural Gas Association and Gas Machinery Research Council. With a career rooted in boardrooms and breakout sessions, Suzanne shares her unique insights as a “multiplier” leader, emphasizing the profound importance of maintaining a future-focused perspective amidst uncertainty. Discover how to effectively build capacity within organizations during times of rapid transformation and why embracing change with purpose is the ultimate currency for leaders today.

Show Notes:

• 01:29 Suzanne Ogle: From Bio To Purpose And Drive
• 09:56 – Entrepreneurial Spirit: Recognizing Leadership Instincts
• 12:38 – From Driver To Multiplier: Suzanne’s Evolving Leadership Style
• 19:16 – Business As Nurturing: The Deep Responsibility Of Leaders
• 26:14 – Pivoting To Success: Overcoming Resistance For Career Growth
• 34:26 – The Art Of The Designed Pivot: Proactive Career Navigation
• 37:07 – Workforce Dynamics: Redefining Employee-Employer Agreements
• 42:21 – Resilience & Purpose: Suzanne’s Keys To Navigating Change

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Transforming Energy Leadership With Suzanne Ogle

Everybody, it’s Adam Markel. Welcome back to another episode of the show. I love the guest that I have in store for you. I’m going to read her bio, and then we’re going to jump right in. Her name is Suzanne Ogle. She is a nationally recognized energy leader and President and CEO of SGA Natural Gas Association and Gas Machinery Research Council, where she is transforming how the industry connects, trains, and leads.

With a career rooted in boardrooms and breakout sessions alike, she has guided SGA’s evolution into North America’s premier learning and collaboration hub, all while championing reliability, innovation, and people. Known for her values-based leadership and mix of data, heart, and humor, Suzanne believes resilience begins with purpose, and change is the most powerful when it serves the greater good. You are going to love this conversation, so sit back and enjoy my interview with Suzanne Ogle.

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Suzanne Ogle: From Bio To Purpose And Drive

Suzanne, it’s fun to listen to somebody introduce you and share about your life, your accomplishments, and all that kind of stuff. It’s fun, it’s strange, and all that kind of thing. Here is my first question for you. What is something that’s not part of that bio, your CV as it is, that you would love for people to know about you? It is something that is not included in that that you would want folks to know.

I love that you said that I would love people to know about me, because I’m going to keep some things that are not there. The CV or LinkedIn only gives you a snapshot. If you look at all social media, it’s a vision of who they want you to see. I come from this background, which to me is important. I’m the caretaker for my family, and I don’t mean children. Probably, most people don’t know that about me, but I’m not shy about it. It’s an incredible privilege to be in that position. I have people who love me and raise me well. To be able to support them as they get older and need more assistance, and to have that trust is important to me.

I come from a place of service from my upbringing as well. My dad was a civil servant, so I grew up hearing about not just acts of service, but living a life of service. My mother-in-law was a teacher. My wife was a teacher for so many years, and even that is not exactly a civil servant’s job. They’re mostly done by people who have a commitment to a purpose that is less about financial gain and more about giving something or creating something valuable for children or for others in that space. The work that you do in the world has an element of service involved in it as well. Does that resonate with you? Do you feel like you’re in service in your role? If so, how so?

I wanted this job. I took this job on purpose at the tail end of my career. I had been in a lot of executive positions for companies in the industry, coming up. What I wanted to do was be able to serve on a bigger scale than just a company to make an impact, to help create conversations that made sense as I saw the conversations getting more polarized, and to help people grow.

I love my parents dearly, but they were not servant people. My mom was an artist for Walt Disney. My dad was a pilot. My grandfather was a farmer. My one before that was a tool and dye maker. They lived through service in a way that their being was like that, and they still are now. That’s maybe where I got that. A principal purpose requires having a purpose for what I do. Otherwise, if I had to sit and twiddle my thumbs, I would just poke my eyes out.

I’m like, “I’m not a sit still guy.” Maybe the most difficult part of my childhood was managing boredom. You laughed there, so maybe you can relate to that, too.

I was never bored, but I was into everything, creating. I was in my dad’s tools, drilling holes and making paperweights, or I don’t know what. I was embroidering. I did all kinds of things, but I was never bored. They were trying to rein me in because I was in all their stuff all the time.

This is what I’m getting at as well. I got myself into a lot of things because being bored or sitting around with nothing going on was not a thing that I could be comfortable with. To manage that boredom, I would get myself into stuff.

Can you imagine the kids who are bored and don’t know what to do with themselves? Go outside and play. Go ride a bike.

My dad used to say something about boredom that I can’t repeat here. It wouldn’t be politically correct at the moment. Let’s say boredom was not unacceptable. It wasn’t tolerated.

It’s not tolerated for me as an adult. I’m sure it’s not tolerated for you as an adult. I’ve seen it.

It’s interesting because when we become adults, we use a different word for this. Maybe some folks are going, “Where are they going with this?” I do have an idea of where this is leading for me anyway, because when it comes to this concept, people talk about it in terms of purpose or in terms of fulfillment. They’re looking for a more purpose-driven life. To me, if you were a kid, you wouldn’t use the word purpose or fulfillment in what you were up to or what you’re interested in. You’d be like, “I’m bored.” Depending on who you’re around, like when I was in that state, I was told, “If you’re bored, go bang your head against the wall.” That’s what my dad would say. Go read a book.

Look what happened to your hair when you did that.

I lost all my hair as a result. I never actually went and banged my head against the wall, and he never banged my head against the wall either. It was an attitude adjustment or a shift. It wasn’t kind and gentle, even though he’s a very kind and gentle man in a lot of ways. That wasn’t a kind statement. When we get older, how do we continue to activate our creative juices, do things that are activating the higher purpose that we are or that can be a part of what we do, stay out of boredom, and stay out of this place where we only get ourselves into trouble by staying in our thoughts, staying in a silo, staying separated, or feeling like we’re separated from others?

You lead teams, and leading teams is leading people. That’s fundamentally what that is. When I look at people for whatever it’s worth, at least I try to see them as five and six-year-olds, the way I still know I am deep inside. We’re not very different from what we were back then. When you approach leading adults, how do you view them? How do you see them? Do you also see that people struggle with what I’m calling boredom, but you might refer to it in some other way?

You answered the question. It’s growth. Everybody has a different driver. It’s not that everybody wants to grow, but you do. Growth keeps that purpose. It keeps you interested and keeps creativity and curiosity, stretching to learn something new. Curiosity is a fundamental value that somebody has to have. I mentor younger generation professionals. I laugh sometimes because they’re 35 to 40. I was way ahead of where they are at 35 to 40. Sometimes, they envy the sense of purpose I have. They ask me, “Where do you get your purpose?” No one can tell you your purpose. You have to figure that out by finding things that are meaningful to you.

 

Do not be bored or become boring, even.

That’s a big company trap that you get stuck in. Something that changed that for me was that I did a bunch of startups. In a big company, you get siloed into something that you do and don’t have to touch everything. In startups, you have to touch everything. Everything is your responsibility, and the whole thing working is your responsibility. That’s why it has unfortunately created this monster in me that I love to have my hands touching everything. I am interested in everything all the time.

Entrepreneurial Spirit: Recognizing Leadership Instincts

I knew you were an entrepreneur the minute I met you. I don’t know why, because I didn’t know your history or anything, but I had a feeling like you were looking at everything. Why don’t you set it up? How do we know each other? Let’s talk for a second about that, to create context for our audience as to how you and I know each other. It’ll mean something when I say that when I first met you and saw you, I thought, “She’s seeing what’s going on in the room.”

As the CEO of the Trade Association, we do conferences. I was looking for a speaker who was going to resonate with my members. It’s an industry that’s in disruption and change. It is a pretty fast pace to change, and they need to take care of themselves. Through a bunch of research, I ran into Adam and reached out. He graciously agreed to be a speaker at a conference that I did not attend.

You were not there the first time.

I was taking my dad down the Amazon River, which is a growth thing at 89. That was his bucket list. I couldn’t have been more pleased to be down the Amazon River with my father. Because of a hurricane and being able to pivot, Adam, we rescheduled you for our conference that I was going to be at. We can all thank Milton for that. Milton gets a commission for you. Adam came to our management conference, spoke, and resonated with our group.

I met you there. It was the second time. I had this feeling again because a lot of times, I’ll meet some very senior-level executives or leaders. They feel like they were dropped in by helicopter. They were airdropped into that moment, and they’re going to be airdropped out of it as soon as possible. When you were there, I felt much more of the sense that you were a part of everything that was happening, even though everything was happening as a result of the incredible work of the leaders that you’ve assigned, who delegated those responsibilities. I felt like you had a hand in it somehow. That was a sense, but I didn’t know that to be the case. To what extent is that sense accurate or not?

It’s very accurate. These are my members. I’m in a place that’s my happiest time when I get to interact with my members. I want them to have the best experience. I help lead my team and make sure that they’re paying attention to everything because details are the most important part of it. Sometimes, details are overlooked. Every aspect of that needs to be paid attention to. The sum of the experience is that they all want to book you more. My job is to make sure it’s such a good experience that they can’t wait to book you more.

From Driver To Multiplier: Suzanne’s Evolving Leadership Style

I want to get a sense of what your leadership style is. In part, it’s because there are leaders who come from a place where they are comfortable in touching or at least having a hand in the meal that’s being created for the people that they’re serving. I like to think of it as all business is a value proposition. We have to create value for people. To me, that’s a loving endeavor. If it’s not a loving endeavor, then you could call it transactional. You could call it more of an extraction model, what can I take, etc.

I want to come back to that a little bit later in a different context, but I want to get a sense of your leadership style, having created in the past and being comfortable as an entrepreneur. To what extent do you look in on things? Do you truly trust people? Do you allow folks to run things without putting your hands on them as well? What’s true for you?

Trust is earned. Somebody could be an expert, but that doesn’t mean they listen. Trust is a function of listening a lot, and it’s evolving. I’ve been in this role for many years, and I was in executive positions before that, but not as a CEO. That’s a different level of how you lead and what you do. To me, the point is about asking better questions, aligning the talent, and creating a situation where others can lead. Earlier, it was I who was the driver. Now, I’m looking at being the multiplier, and that’s a different spot.

You met my COO, Cindy. The hardest part is the shift from us being the owners and the drivers to being the enablers so that other people can be owners and drivers. It’s a work in progress, but it is always maintaining the responsibility that I feel to my members as the driving force and making sure that we’re aligning with the strategic vision that we have. We’re setting a vision for the company. You came out during a rollout of a refresh and a rebrand. We’re a 115 or 116-year-old organization. We’ve been going on for that long, but reinventing yourself isn’t a bad thing. Change doesn’t make me run. I go, “Change, that’s exciting. Let’s do it again.” I like it. I come from a bunch of engineers who don’t like it.

It is learning to blend that, “How does change benefit you, and what’s that sidestep look like?” It’s an important aspect of how I’m leading now and trying to get people up and prepared. If you ask me who I am as a leader, I’m going to be a straightforward person with you. I’m not going to beat around the bush. I have pretty high expectations of what good looks like and what done looks like. I’m happy to tell you what those expectations are. If you’re not meeting them, I’ll give you coaching along the way, but we’re not going to deliver something less than the quality we want to deliver.

I love the way you framed that earlier as being the difference between being a driver and being a multiplier. That to me is an immediate takeaway from this conversation. Where is it that the shift occurs? What does it look like when you create this exponential result or value, almost like alchemy, from other people collaborating, or that you don’t have to be the one who is forcing, pushing, or actively engaging?

You’ve got to own it, number one. You have to own the result and the outcome, and feel that rather than owning a task. You have to have people below you who can look around corners and understand what the impact is. When you run any business, even if you’re a nonprofit, there’s risk. You have to manage that risk. You have to think about everything that you do in the context of what the value is, what the risk is, and how you balance that out. We have a responsibility to our members to manage their funds and their investment in this organization well. That has to be first and foremost as you think about things.

 

Maybe it’s a function of the responsibilities they’ve had or even things that predate their employment. Not everybody is able to appreciate what it feels like to wake up in the middle of the night with a worry about whether the business will succeed or fail. Even earlier on at stages in the development of a business, I’ve experienced this myself, and maybe you have, too, where you’ve woken up in the middle of the night worried about how to make payroll for that particular pay period.

When you work in the natural gas business and the energy business, it’s a secular business. Especially if you’re dealing with the supply end of it, that’s more secular than maybe the transmission end. I can remember being in a service company that we were at for a number of years, twenty years in one of the startup companies. I can remember sitting down in a downturn, and we pulled all the manufacturing people in the shop.

All the manufacturing people in the shop were looking at having to close the shop down because there wasn’t enough business. It was an equipment company. We pulled all the salespeople in the room and said, “This isn’t just your commission. This is their life. Go figure out how to sell something because you’re responsible for those people in that room. You go figure it out right now.” Having that level of responsibility is huge.

My father worked for an airline that went through an ugly period of time. It was right when I was in college. My grandfather was lying in a hospital. My father said, “Honey, I’m going to pay for your college for you.” I was happy. I was already working. I can remember the stress that was on my father. As a business leader, you have an enormous responsibility to the people who rely on you. It’s funny that you say that about people who don’t get that, and they don’t. I always use the same analogy about operators who run natural gas systems. It’s like having a baby. If you are a contractor to this person, you go, “That’s such a cute baby. Let me hold your baby for a bit.”

As a business leader, you have an enormous responsibility to those who rely on you. Share on X

That baby starts throwing up. You go, “That’s your baby. Thanks for letting me hold it.” If you are an operator of a natural gas asset, you are number one compelled to provide the public with a reliable service. When there are regulations around you and things that are restricting your ability to provide that, the enormous weight that that’s on is huge. You’re there with that baby and trying to make sure all the public is served in the way that they have to be served. My CEOs and my company take this so seriously. I don’t think people understand that it’s not a burden. It’s a responsibility that you have to meet.

Business As Nurturing: The Deep Responsibility Of Leaders

It’s probably one of the greatest commitments there is. I’m not saying that parents somehow have a corner on this or that you need to be a parent to understand this. I’m not saying either of those two things at all. When I think about our business and the businesses that I’ve been a part of, there has been a similar relationship from the standpoint of time, energy, focus, and even of love in the development of that business, the caretaking of that business as there has been in the caretaking of our kids.

My wife and I have four kids. We have three grandkids and stuff. I have always thought that in the middle of the night, when that baby wakes up, it’s your job to hold it and feed it. When it cries and won’t stop crying, it’s your job to love it, nurture it, and all that. What do you think a business is? It’s the same thing. When it’s crying in the middle of the night for something, you’re the one to either ignore it, shake it, or nurture it and take care of it. We know the answer we want to have there and what would be the goal, but you’re tested in those moments.

I feel like we’re going through a time right now, and you alluded to it a moment ago. Businesses and leaders of businesses are being tested again. Being a resilience researcher and somebody who speaks on this, and our company trains on this, this is a repeat for us. We’re agnostic to change. There’ll always be something like this disruption or the pandemic that is going to shake the ground beneath us. This time, it feels a little bit interesting, different, and unique. I want to get your take on it.

How do you feel about what’s going on in the marketplace? Your association supports leaders in those roles, who are taking care of these babies. Their businesses are serving many people, so the ripple effect is enormous. I want to get your sense on what’s going on in the marketplace and your thoughts around how you’re supporting those leaders to support the people that they serve.

I brought you in for resilience. That’s the key. Resilience is very much grounded in being future-focused. I remember going to a Houdini one time, and he was walking on a tightrope. I never forgot this. It was one of the best analogies I’ve ever heard. They had the tightrope set up across the room. He was walking with his pole on this tightrope and talked about how tightrope walking is like business. If you are looking down at your feet, you’re going to fall off the wire. If you are looking ahead, you can keep the business on the right track.

It could be overwhelming to be looking down at your feet. If you’re staying future-focused and you are thinking through what is core business, what good business looks like, how you want to act as a business, what your community looks like, how you service that community, how you service your employees, you don’t get lost in the noise of the moment. It’s always about bouncing back from that moment and building capacity. Learning through that is important. There are all kinds of shifts, like policy shifts, workforce shifts, or perception shifts. All those shifts are okay. Being able to navigate through that is the leadership currency that’s demanded. It’s not to get stuck looking at your toes.

All those shifts are okay, but being able to navigate through them is the leadership currency demanded right now. Don't get stuck looking at your toes. Share on X

When you said that a moment ago about needing to continue to learn and grow, it feels to me like the alternative for some people, and they repeat this, is to almost see resilience as that “I’m a punching bag.” It is a Rocky Balboa model of take a hit, get knocked down, and take a hit. If you don’t learn anything from the experience to be able to add to your capacity so that you can move forward, then you are just a punching dummy. I don’t know how you do anybody any good.

Your point, too, is that you’ve got to take care of yourself. That’s important. There’s part of the resilience as well, finding what takes care of yourself so that you can show up in a way that adds capacity during change and uncertainty. You go back to the VUCA environment, which some of your people are probably too young to know what VUCA is. It’s volatility, uncertainty, and the way people lead, especially in the natural gas industry, where we have lots of engineers who like to have all kinds of knowns and everything to add up right. It’s not the way it is anymore. There are lesser-knowns. You have to navigate and build capacity and confidence that can help you make good decisions with unknowns.

It’s tremendous. There are so many unknowns. The A is ambiguous. I don’t remember what the C is either. We’re talking about this major disruption.

I’m sure you have a smarter group than we are, so they’ll know what it is.

Somebody either knows it or is looking it up. They can leave a comment on it, and it’ll be in our show notes. I want to get a sense of when you’re speaking to these leaders. Without giving away anything proprietary, are you worried about what you’re hearing? Is it instilling greater confidence in you to hear what they’re thinking or saying about the times that we’re in? I guess I’m asking for reconnaissance.

The first word that comes to my mind is ‘inspired.’ I have a huge board. I have 40 people on my board. It’s a very large board. I have six people who act in an executive capacity, so they’re the ones I deal with on a day-to-day basis, but I have the top CEOs from around the country, all of North America, on my board. When I listen to them and I hear what they’re saying, I am inspired by the tremendous care that they have for their people and their companies, the innovation drive that they have, and the aspiration for bringing emissions reduction to what they’re doing to improving, becoming better, and meeting the demand.

If you look at the growing energy demand and the pressure to reduce emissions, and to have a group, a C-suite, that’s excited about the opportunity to meet that, even in this very shifting sands, it’s inspiring. I feel so fortunate to be the CEO who is leading in this role, where I get to work with these phenomenal leaders who show up every day for their companies and for their communities. It’s awe-inspiring to me that I got to be in this place and be at this time.

Pivoting To Success: Overcoming Resistance For Career Growth

I already know the answer to this question. I will ask it anyway. It’s the good lawyer in me or the old lawyer in me. When you listen to and interact with the board, you are no doubt inspired by them. Are you learning from them? You are a CEO yourself. You are a seasoned executive. Are you learning from this board of other CEOs regularly?

Adam, I’m learning from you. Let me flip this around. You interview hundreds of leaders. You reflect on how they’re going to navigate change. What’s one of the changes that you in your life have resisted, but it’s been the best thing for your career? People don’t like change necessarily, but you’re resilient. You pivot. What’s a change that you resisted but ended up becoming the best thing for your career, or maybe personally for your soul, whatever that looks like for you?

I’m going to get two of them. Frankly, they’re the last two books. It’s that easy. There’s so much that goes into a book. The first book, Pivot, was a story about reinvention. I was a lawyer for almost twenty years. I resisted for a long period of time the idea that I could give up on something that I had spent so much time developing. So much money had gone into going to law school for three years, passing the bar exam, and all that stuff. It was getting a golden ticket to be honest about it, if there’s a license to earn money in the law, for sure, and some other things, too. I knew that it was eroding my soul, the way I was showing up in that role, and that I needed a change. That didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen easily.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that part of why I had the courage to even lean into the change was because of my partner, my wife. When I would say to her, “I’m thinking about this,” I was waiting for what’s going to be the reaction to that. I never got the look that, “What? Are you an idiot?” I got that look from colleagues. I got that look from other people. “You’re out of your mind. Are you crazy?” My wife looked at me, and instead, it was always a curiosity. “What’s going on with him?” Most of all, it was like, “Whatever it is that you want to do, we’re in it together.”

You’re describing sunk cost bias, right?

One of the myths in the book Pivot was all about that sunk cost fallacy.

So many people stay stuck in things because they’ve put this much into it without understanding. It’s an interesting story. It reminds me of a time when I was at a pivot. I worked for a company that had a private equity company come into it. They turned over the executive team. Anybody close to the CEO has to go too. A lot of the people who were put into positions were people whom I had helped get into those positions.

I felt like maybe it was a loss of control, or I’d put this much time into that. When I looked back on it, it cracked a different thing open for me. I also think about it in terms of my parents, who still have a fabulous relationship. Let me say to all the people who are tuning in, there is nothing that you could do kinder for your children than to have a good relationship if you’re divorced. My parents have a phenomenal one. It’s shocking to me how many people do not.

My parents are divorced. They’re friends. My mother and my stepmother are friends. My mother’s boyfriend and my father are friends. They operated this way, and nobody would turn on anybody. After seventeen or twenty years, they also decided not to suffer the sunk cost bias and went to live their best lives. It goes to show you, Adam, how important the person is that you marry, because what you need is that person who challenges you, supports you, and gets curious rather than judges you.

It is anybody close to you in your life, truly. I got lucky that I found somebody early on, and I wasn’t distracted and looking elsewhere. All that romantic stuff, I could say, too. The truth is that it ended up being incredibly blessed, fortunate, and lucky. Warren Buffett said, in a different context, that by being born in the United States, for him, it’s like he hit the ovarian lottery. It’s an interesting turn of phrase. He was born at a time in the Great Depression. They were poor, living in Oklahoma.

He didn’t have a lot going for him, but he hit the ovarian lottery nonetheless because he was born in this country and probably also because he was Caucasian. Had he not been, it would have been potentially different for him. There are things that happen in your life. If you can look at those things as being fortunate circumstances that enable you to then develop and be what you are today, but even more tomorrow, it’s a different lens that you’re looking at it through. For me, in that moment, when I was going to give up a career that had been very profitable for our family and everything else, there was a lot of nerves around that. There was a lot of uncertainty around that.

To move forward and design the pivot was the choice that my wife and I made together. I didn’t come home and jump ship. Josh Shipp is an author who wrote a book called Jump Ship. I’m not a jump ship guy. I’m an attorney. I’m conservative by nature, and yet I’m an entrepreneur. We’re all a big jumble of things. Even being conservative, I thought that the more dangerous thing to me personally, to my soul, my evolution, my family, my relationships, and my finances, was to continue to do something that I knew wasn’t in my long-term best interest. The truth is that a lot of people are going through a career change. If they’re not yet, there’s some potential career change or a work-related change that’s on the horizon.

When people think about the possibility that there might be a pivot coming, it can bring up so much anxiety. It can even get people stuck in a disempowering place. I’m not a prognosticator. I don’t predict things. I’m not an economist, but I play one on TV sometimes because I study and look at this stuff. We’re going to see workforce reductions, or it’s already been happening. We’re still at virtually full employment, and that’s remarkable. There are going to be some more restructures out there. I don’t know if you want to add some thoughts to that. Learning how to navigate the change and pivot is an essential skill.

The Art Of The Designed Pivot: Proactive Career Navigation

You said something to me that hit me there, that you should plan your pivot. This is what I always tell my son, and this is how I thought about it. This is why growth is so important. You get lots of tools that you can use in your tool belt. You can pull out different skill sets at different times, but it’s up to you as a person to always be growing and learning. That way, when the door opens or you have to plan a pivot, you have other things that you can pivot on. If you wait until that moment comes and then you’re caught flat-footed, you’re further behind than you would have been.

 

In my career, I have been a diagnostician. I started out as that. I owned a Sonic, which was exhausting. I was a sales assistant. I was the Director of Marketing. I was a Chief Commercial Officer. I was the Vice President of Investor Relations. Each one of those is because I was always seeking to grow and learn in different ways. When the door opened up, I was able to step over there. I’ve got the confidence to know I can do that.

It’s the difference between the design aspect of the pivot versus the default pivot, which for so many people is the case. They wait for the tide to change or for the circumstances to dictate to them that they must make a change. I did the same thing. I wrote a book called Pivot. It was all about designing it. I ended up running a company as the CEO of an organization. My partners and I did not see eye to eye almost from day one. The writing was clearly on the wall.

I broke every one of my own rules, or the things that I had stated as being the way you pivot with intention and all that good stuff. I had my blinders on to all that stuff, waited, and went through six years of knowing that the writing was on the wall, that we’re not meant to last, and that this is not going to be a good fit. I sold myself a different story until it became a little bit flat-footed and going, “The change is going to happen right now?” as opposed to, “This change is happening.”

Going back to where you were is the cost to your soul, your heart, your health, your mind, your family, and the people around you when you’re in a job that you don’t like. I get that people have to pay bills. It’s not lost on me. They’re single parents who don’t get to have that opportunity. There are a lot of side hustles going on, but you always have to balance. What does that look like? What’s the cost? Going back to business, what’s the risk? What’s the benefit? What’s the opportunity, and how do you position it so you have the most agility to seize the opportunity that’s there?

Workforce Dynamics: Redefining Employee-Employer Agreements

If we’re speaking to leaders, senior-level folks that are making some of those decisions about what is happening in their own workforce, this repeat cycle of contraction and expansion that we see in business all the time is wasteful in so many respects. When times are uncertain, there’s a tightening and a scarcity mindset that takes over. When things are clearer and there’s more certainty, the wind is at our backs, and there’s some other thing that’s happening, it’s so jarring to the workforce.

I’m having more conversations with strategic people inside of organizations where my one question to them to start with is, “To what extent are you including workforce risk as part of the planning around your strategy? Whatever those outcomes are that you’re looking to attain, to what extent is that workforce a risk that’s part of that?” Often, I get a blank stare because they’ve considered macro and micro factors.

They’ve looked at so many things. Even in the political arena, they’ve looked at those as being risks, but they’re not necessarily thinking, “What if my workforce or our employees are exhausted? What if they’re thinking that they’re still in the job with one leg, but they’re in with one and out with one?” It is this thing that’s sometimes referred to as Quiet Quitting. “What if we lose people because they’ve opted out themselves?” We’ve chosen to reduce our workforce, thinking that we’re going to shore up our finances and make Wall Street happy or whatever it might be. Ultimately, when we do that, we’ve eroded the trust of the people who are still there.

We’ve not created a best and preferred environment or culture for people to want to come and contribute. I see that as so short-sighted. I get the realities of the numbers because I’ve run businesses to understand that that is the thing that will keep you up at night sometimes. I also realize there are other ways to do it. Garry Ridge is the former CEO and chairman of WD-40, which is a publicly traded company as well and has been around for a long time. During his 25 years in the seat, he never had a reduction in force. The people were let go for behavior and other things related to that.

When times were lean, they got together and figured out how not to do that. Do you have thoughts around the concept of when things get tight? We’re in a contraction period, and one of the first things that happens is they start letting go of the marketing people. They start letting go of the training and development folks. They freeze the budgets, but it’s the reduction in force that I’m curious what your thoughts are.

I have so many thoughts around this. The workforce is important. It’s a high risk. SEC and McKinsey had a study of this is one of the highest risks. SEC said, “This is a material risk to businesses, workforce, and how do you do them?” We run a training organization. I see investment in the workforce is important. Employment is an agreement, and there has to be an agreement on the employee side as well to put your full effort. It’s not a free ride. When people try to skirt putting their full effort in, it exasperates the cycle that you’re talking about, which I don’t think is good either.

Employment is an agreement. There has to be an agreement on the employee side as well to put your full effort into it; it’s not a free ride. Share on X

We’re doing a survey of our board, our training professionals, and our employees. I can see a gap in how executives see what the middle level sees and what the bottom people want. This is going to take you back to listening and then being informed in a thoughtful way. The workforce needs to show up in a way that adds value to the company. We need to provide them with an opportunity to have agency for their own development, and then it’ll be easier to sort out the people who are contributing to the company and the people who are looking for a free ride.

If you’re contributing to the company, you have agency, and you’re investing in the company and yourself, that’s a valuable employee. It is somebody who has more of a compliance mindset. You have to get them to compliance training, and then you have to discipline them to do compliance training. You have to make sure that they’re working their full hours. They’re not thinking. They’re just tasking and checking off a box. That’s not your best employee. They’re showing up, but they’re not contributing at a level that creates that agreement that the employer and the employee should have together. When you lose that balance, that’s how you end up in the cycle.

On both sides, I would describe it as, “Are you taking more than you’re giving?”

It goes back to keeping your humanity. Especially in this remote environment, the AI and all this, people want to send emails. The relationship aspect of that is a detriment to maintaining that very healthy relationship that makes a company thrive and a person thrive.

Resilience & Purpose: Suzanne’s Keys To Navigating Change

As we wrap up, I want to get two things out there on the record. You’ve been a serial pivoter. I’ve not described you this way, but you’ve lived all those principles. I want to understand how you’ve been resilient through that. What’s been a bit of the recipe or even a thing that’s go-to for you? When you’re weighing in at the board level, is there a piece of advice? Is there some reminder? Are you there, saying to that group that you’re learning from? I know they’re learning from you as well. I want to get one thing that you contribute to that environment, where it’s your intention that they’re taking an insight from you that you think is valuable. Those are the two things, your resilience and what’s that thing that you’re also contributing at that board level.

At the board level, the thing that I continue to bring home is the investment in each other. We’re a membership organization. How you invest in the organization allows me to invest back in you. That’s going back to that reciprocal relationship. It’s bringing that front and center and helping them understand what this decision looks like, what this means to your employees, and what it means to the association. It is closing that loop. It’s not that they don’t get it. It’s providing information in a non-agenda-driven way that allows them to interpret that and apply it in their own context. It’s taking the agenda out of the information that allows them to then process that in their own manner.

Relative to your pivots in both professionally and even personally, how do you maintain your high level of resilience?

I believe in compartmentalization enormously. When I have a huge load to carry or I have something I’m having to deal with and multiple competing priorities, even personally and professionally, each thing is in its own box. I deal with it exactly when I need to deal with it. I don’t let my boxes overlap in terms of my emotions or my energy. I come full force for this box when I need to, and I come full force through that box when I come to. If I were to look at all my boxes together at one time, it would be a typhoon of overwhelm for me. I can’t let myself get overwhelmed, so I can show up in the best way for everything, still think strategically, and show up generatively.

Suzanne, it’s what you said earlier, too. It’s not looking down at your feet when you’re on the tightrope. It is not looking down to see how high up I am, and that kind of thing. It’s that same idea of staying focused on that one thing or what’s in front of you.

I can even think about flying the plane. If you’ve got your engine out, you’re going to focus on the field in front of you and landing. You have to be able to work on that to get your plane to land. I have to be able to work on that as a CEO, as a mother, as a caretaker for an aunt, and all these different things. You have to be able to judge the distance out in front of you and put your effort and your focus into that at that time.

What that relates to is some research that we’ve done on multitasking. The idea here is that we need to be able to create more commitment in the present moment than we do. So often, we’ve got multiple tabs open on our computers, on our phones, and in everything. The level of commitment that we have in any singular activity or even singular thought at times is waning. A shift can be to think about, “I’m compartmentalizing this one thing that’s getting my full attention in this moment. That’s all that’s getting my full attention.”

People have said this before about multitasking. For me, as somebody who looks after not just the business I’m in, but the ones that I get invited to be a part of, to be in on the inside for a while, I see that there are a lot of unforced errors. My spiritual practice includes being more patient. I’ve had some lack of patience for unforced errors, and I’m working on that, but whether it’s sports or it’s business, these are good things to look at in that context. Unforced errors are optional. Struggle is optional, and failure is optional.

You’re making your life harder than it has to be. Don’t make the easy hard. I have a sign that says, “Patience is a virtue. It’s just not mine.”

How do you stop making unforced errors? The best answer that I’ve got, but it’s not a second of incubating this answer, is this level of being more present in the tasks. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to make mistakes. I want to be clear about that. We just make better mistakes. We make a higher-quality mistake. The mistake leads us to learn something that then leads us to grow. When you make an unforced error, it’s usually the result of sloppiness. It’s a sloppiness that comes from, “I didn’t have time to proofread that,” or whatever the thing might be. “I was doing six things all at once, and I felt the pressure to be six things.”

Look at this conversation we’re having. You see this a lot with all the teams on Zoom. People don’t turn their cameras on, and they’re trying to get their work done on the side. What you’re missing is the moment and being able to look at you, even if your eyes are tiny over there on your little screen. Still, I’m looking at you. I’m engaged in this conversation. That’s important. It brings you back to the humanity about why you’re here. You’re here with people. You’re here to do a job. You’re here working for people, and it takes it out of the check-a-box-move-on space if they can get computers for that.

What you said earlier was that there’s a reciprocal responsibility here on both parts. For some people who are reading this that have some decision-making ability when it comes to who stays and who goes, my hope is that that gets fully weighed in, and that you’re assessing people on an individual level as to whether or not they are showing up in the way that you were describing earlier and are contributors truly versus somebody whose number falls outside the line.

People need that feedback, too. In their head, they could be thinking they’re showing up like a rockstar, and you’re going, “You’re doing okay, but you’re not killing it.” They need to have that if everybody is cheerleading you along all the time and going, “Great job. You did your job.” I had somebody turn this in KPIs, and their KPI was to do their job. I go, “We’re not using KPIs that are to do your job. We’re moving strategic goals. It’s different.”

The call to action is to tell people.

All of a sudden, you lay them off because you never were honest with them.

That breaks a social compact that used to exist and has eroded over time. Let’s think of people as talent, not resources, perhaps, but to reframe it so that they get treated in the way that you described. You tell them where things are working and where things could be done differently. If you’re going to make a change, it’s not exactly new news.

It’s a chance to cure. Everybody needs the right to cure. What if you have just a different mindset? You don’t have to be mean when you tell them. Don’t be mean. Be kind, but be honest. It’s different.

Suzanne, I’ve loved this conversation. We may need to do a part two because I feel like we’re just scratching the surface of where we could go. I want to give you the last word. You’re in an amazing role, and it’s an evolving role. Is there something that you’re seeing on the horizon that you want to share with us? Is there an aspiration or even a hope, a prayer for what the future looks like? I want to listen to your last words for this show.

I want to say thank you first because it was a delight to talk to you. It is fun, and I can’t wait to see you again. We’ll be seeing you at the operations conference coming up soon. It’s an exciting time because there are all kinds of ways to do things differently, and how do you harness that for good? It’s an opportunity to work smarter, work better, work more intelligently, drive home things, and then make sure that you get to hold that ethics guard there. That’s important.

People have to be grounded in their values and their ethics about how you use this in a way that maximizes the good. I love an opportunity to change this. I came from the plain facts paper before that, when it was the thermograph facts. I remember a CEO said, “You guys don’t need a computer. That’s not going anywhere. It’s just going to cost us money. We’ll get one, and you guys get to sit there together.” For anybody who could grab this moment and see the opportunities, but use them in a responsive way that does better for society, it’s a privilege and an exciting time.

 

Suzanne, thank you so much for your time. It’s been an absolute blast for our audience. They know they’ll find more about you and more about your organization as part of the show notes. If you’ve got questions for Suzanne or me, AdamMarkel.com/Podcast, you can leave a question there. Leave a review as well. That’s so helpful to us. We appreciate the time that you’ve spent doing that. I will say ciao for now. Again, thank you so much.

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I love that conversation. I hope you did as well. Suzanne is a remarkable person. I would describe her as an intuitive leader. She has so much experience as a person in her own growth and evolution of her career paths that she comes to the table with a knowing, with a confidence for sure, but with also a deep sense of both purpose, as well as what will move the needle, and how others in leadership roles can evolve, grow, and provide an environment for people to grow and evolve as well.

What else is the workplace? It’s a microcosm of every other aspect of our lives. It’s either a place where we’re growing or it’s a place where we’re dying. In the majority of instances where people are unhappy at work or where they’re not fulfilling their potential at work, it’s because there’s something there that’s not contributing or acting as a catalyst for them to show up as their best. That’s the question for leadership to ask. That’s a question for the culture for assessing what’s happening inside that culture, if it’s not bringing out the best in the majority of folks who have been invited into that environment.

Not everything is a good fit for everybody. There’s no question that sometimes, when it’s not a good fit, a change is necessary. Often, we are wasting the most important resources, which are the talent that we have, that make everything work. We know technology is a huge catalyst, a huge driver of growth, and a potential for greater growth in the future. Ultimately, it’s human talent that drives and will multiply the opportunity for value creation and success.

I love how Suzanne used those words to describe her transition into the role of CEO as moving away from being sort of a driver to becoming a multiplier. That was a takeaway for me, and one that I would imagine all of you sitting there reading that were also inspired by. I love the episode. I love the conversation. If you want to find more about what Suzanne has been doing in the world and what her organization is actively engaged in, feel free to peruse the show notes.

Also, if you’ve got questions for Suzanne or me, AdamMarkel.com/Podcast is a great place to leave them. If you love the episode, please share it with a colleague, a friend, or a family member who might benefit from it as well. Feel free to leave a review on the platform where you consume this show. Taking the time to do that is truly a blessing to us because it allows the algorithm to put the show in front of more and more potential audience and fans to join the community. We love how the community has continued to grow, and that’s because of all of you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do any of those things or none of them. Either way, it’s all good, and we appreciate you. With that, I’ll close out by saying ciao for now, and we’ll see you again.

 

Important Links

• SGA Natural Gas Association
• Gas Machinery Research Council
• Suzanne Ogle on LinkedIn
• Suzanne Ogle on Facebook
• @Suzanne_Ogle on Instagram
• Pivot
• Jump Ship
• Garry Ridge on LinkedIn
• Adam Markel Podcasts

 

About Suzanne Ogle

Suzanne Ogle is a nationally recognized energy leader and the President & CEO of SGA Natural Gas Association and Gas Machinery Research Council, where she’s transforming how the industry connects, trains, and leads.

With a career rooted in boardrooms and breakout sessions alike, she’s guided SGA’s evolution into North America’s premier learning and collaboration hub, all while championing reliability, innovation, and people.

Known for her values-based leadership and mix of data, heart, and humor, Suzanne believes resilience begins with purpose, and change is most powerful when it serves the greater good.