Carbon capture for jets, building trust, and eating frogs

Have you ever eaten a frog?

It’s officially Spring! Thank goodness, and I’m certainly trying to soak up the additional sunshine and watching things green up.

But if we want things to stay stable here on earth, we’re going to need to take care of it. So I’m excited to share one company that’s doing some cool stuff in the airline industry to do just that through carbon transformation.

We’ve also got some great stuff for building trust in teams, and enhancing productivity today.

Let’s jump in!

In today’s newsletter:

• ✈️ Turning CO2 into jet fuel

• ⚔️ Conflict can be a good thing to build trust

• 🐸Eating frogs as a productivity hack

• 🔥🐍 Hot Job – Senior Big Data Infrastructure Engineer

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📚 MUST READ

🌳 How about we don’t just reduce CO2 emissions, but we transform them?

Turning C02 into jet fuel?

Sounds crazy, right?

Well, it’s happening! Thanks to a startup called Twelve.

And they are currently building a factory to scale production in Washington State.

They call it carbon transformation, where they only use renewable energy and water to transform CO2 into critical chemicals and materials typically made from fossil fuels. It can drop-in directly to existing aircraft and has 90% lower lifecycle emission compared to conventional jet fuel.

There are multiple nearby factories that will supply the captured CO2, so it has locally sourced raw materials to work with.

Twelve’s process uses a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) reactor architecture for CO2 electrolysis. This architecture has been used commercially for water electrolysis for decades.

A few things to note - it will take time for this technology to “take off.”

Even when this factory gets operational, it will only make about 40,000 gallons of fuel per year to start, and this fuel is currently significantly more expensive than traditional jet fuel.

That said, as the technology continues to improve, they expect to product over 1 Million gallons per year, and compete on price with oil-based fuel. Even that is just a drop in the bucket, as airlines used 95 billion gallons of fuel in 2019.

So there’s work to be done, but you need to start somewhere, right?

What do you think? Will this help the airline industry be more sustainable?

🏆 CAREER TIPS

☕ Building Trust Through Conflict

Can conflict really build trust in people and teams? Absolutely. In fact, I would say that one of the best indicators of a team that trusts each other is the amount of conflict in the team.

When I share this with people, often they get confused. Isn't conflict a bad thing? In many instances, yes, but not always. Positive, healthy conflict happens when we challenge each other in real ways, be open and honest, and actually collaborate more effectively.

Disagreements are okay, and even expected. There’s no way everyone will agree with everything, and that wouldn’t be good anyway!

The best teams I've ever worked on are teams that people felt safe to disagree and challenge others. Doing so, and keeping the environment positive helped build trust as we learned how to work through issues together.

This is a difficult concept for me to embrace because I'm naturally conflict-averse. I don't typically enjoy challenging others — it's easier to be agreeable.

But doing that is not actually helpful.

It's always better for my relationships to create an environment where it is safe to disagree. We can work through the issue, talk about the problem, evaluate the root cause, etc. Then, when we make a decision together, we can be united and commit to it together.

What's the alternative? Disagreeing but not saying anything about it, which leads people to go off, grumble to themselves and others, and create rifts in the team. Be open, honest, and share what you feel. Do it because it's better for the team and organization, not just because it's what you want.

Of course, if we are to build trusting cultures and relationships, how we react when people disagree or bring up challenges matters a lot. Creating a safe environment where people feel safe to disagree without being reprimanded or harassed is critical. In fact, you should completely acknowledge and consider the differing opinion.

It's up to the leader to do that - lead - in this reaction. In fact, effective leaders should be seeking out and asking for ideas and opinions that are different from theirs. This reminds me of a great quote from Simon Sinek:

"Bad leaders care about who is right. Good leaders care about what is right."

Get your ego out of the way and look for the right answer rather than trying to be personally right all the time. You'll be surprised by how much more honest and trusting your team will be if you do.

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📚 BOOK RECOMMENDATION

🔑 Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy

The saying goes: if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, then you’re done with the toughest thing for the day. Eating that frog means tackling your most challenging task—and it’s also the one that can have the greatest positive impact on your life.

Productivity and time management coach Brian Tracy shows you how to organize each day so you can zero in on these critical tasks and accomplish them efficiently and effectively.

The 3 essentials of successful time management are decision, discipline, and determination, and Tracy shows you how to dial in these skills using 21 principles and techniques like:

• Single handle every task

• Upgrade your key skills

• Identify your key constraints

• Put the pressure on yourself

• Slice and dice the task

This life-changing manual will ensure that you get more of your important tasks done today.