The Moment: The Offense Myth

Your Qs Answered on Why We Will Fail

I’m writing my next book about The Moment. Through these summer Both True editions, I’m exploring the forces shaping The Moment and what it means for you, the oil and gas leader. As the complexity of the energy transition is made clear to civic and political leaders, the Moment is giving us the most important opportunity in our lifetimes to play a positive leadership role in the energy future.

Your excellent critiques and questions in response to my essay explaining “Why We Will Fail” at seizing The Moment got my brain engaged. The burden is on me to explain: Why should we seek to persuade those who disagree with us—by which I mean listen to, understand, empathize with, and lead them—instead of trying to educate them, as we’ve always done? Well, it’s largely a matter of how you see the future playing out—especially how you see The Moment playing out in the short term—and what your goals are.

So let me show you why my crystal ball sees opportunity for you in being persuasive, not in lecturing. There’s a lot to this, so we’ll take it on in two installments.

Enter Crystal Ball

How did I land on persuasiveness as my prescription for The Moment? It wasn’t my rose-colored-glasses naiveté (although I do have rose-colored glasses for some things—and I do embrace naiveté when it gives me the courage to go on). No: I got here because I was once head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) and, in the nine years since, I have tried everything else.

Your feedback, critiques, and questions all boil down to one formula: Traditional industry advocates want to “go on offense.” (We’ll examine what this looks like below.) My experience is that the various iterations of “going on offense” at best are simply ineffective—and at worst will squander the precious opportunity we have to seize The Moment.

The Offense Myth Under Crystal Ball Scrutiny

Climate philanthropy has mushroomed in recent years, funding activists who have absolutely changed public opinion, political priorities, and the course of finance, business, and public policy history. The impulse to go on offense is an understandable reaction to being vilified and to assessing what we’ve done so far as ineffective. We’re on one team, climate activists are on the other, and we’re locked in a zero-sum game. Whatever your goal, a “going on offense” approach has four stages:

1. Build an all-for-one oil and gas industry approach. Whether the metaphor is a game or a war, the idea is that there is another side, and all of us on our side need to combine forces to win.

2. Relentlessly point out the other side’s failures. This is characterized as an end to “pandering to talk of decarbonization” and a relentless effort to highlight shortfalls, call out misinformation, and provide data- and science-backed explanations.

3. Raise and spend more money than the other side. This strategy imagines climate activists are better funded and organized and seeks to out-organize and outspend them.

4. Recapture the institutions that matter. This step is designed to influence media, educators, policymakers, and elected officials who have previously been swayed by climate activists.

The fundamental assumption is that we go on offense to win.

And that’s when we lose. Here’s why:

It’s been tried. And it doesn’t work. For many outside of oil and gas trade associations and company communications departments, there’s a sense that the industry has been sitting this out. But that’s just patently untrue. Trade associations and companies have been launching public engagement efforts with the public and political campaigns “against the opposition” for years. There’s no low-hanging fruit left to pluck. I lived this firsthand for five years in Colorado as head of COGA. If someone thinks an education initiative or a political pressure campaign might work, it has already been funded and tried. These efforts sometimes succeed in narrow bands on narrow issues, but they do not change the macro conversation.

You’re already the villain—do you really want to act like one? Offense pretty quickly translates into what looks to outside observers as political warfare. If “offense” is your metaphor, it’s worth asking, “Offense against whom?” Your customers? The voters in your service territory? Leaders in communities where you need to get permitted? The momentum around climate interest and activism has become so pervasive and mainstream that “taking it on” quickly looks like protecting your incumbent or backward-looking interests at all costs. And incidentally, it looks like fighting against the very stakeholders whose minds you want to change and whose support you need.

It’s about as satisfying as pissing into a headwind. Pointing out failures, providing educational materials, and critiquing climate aspirations are tactics that each have a place—but where, and with whom, and to what end? The central point of consideration is Who is the audience for this endeavor, and do you have credibility with them? If policymakers or regulators need to understand earlier failures so they don’t repeat those mistakes, whom would they trust to tell them? Probably not an industry spokesperson who is “on offense.” It’s important for us to understand failures, not to celebrate them (tacky!) but to offer solutions that meet the spirit of the original endeavor.

That smells funny. If you ask just about any layperson (the people you need to convince), “Who has more money, power, and influence: climate activists or the oil and gas industry?” which do you think they will say? And it is true that the industry is pretty darn well funded, supported, and orchestrated. If you’re not happy with how the industry is going about changing the energy-and-climate dialogue, that’s fine, but it’s pretty lame to cry poverty. Proceed with caution in arguments that make it sound as if the oil and gas industry is the victim of a better-funded and orchestrated climate conspiracy. It doesn’t translate to a general audience.

What would winning look like, anyway? I think we can agree that many of the institutions that matter are captured by a climate-activist agenda. Interestingly, the environmental movement is no longer the rebels; they’ve become the institution—dare I say, “The Man!” Like railroads, tech, and oil before them, the annoying, edgy startups have become the incumbent fat cats. What does this mean for us? Certainly not that we should try to unseat them. Instead of imagining a world where we reclaim a lost narrative, look to what new iterations of the climate-and-energy story will capture the public’s imagination. Does The Moment offer leadership opportunities for pragmatic coalitions to provide novel solutions?

To be continued! In the next installment, I will linger on our theory of success for “going on offense,” asking a fundamental strategic question: “To what end?”

Challenged by what you’re reading? Please forward to three colleagues and start a conversation. Are you in it to win it? Hit that heart button below.

I’m in it to win it,

Tisha