Category: Governing Energy

Seems Like Yesterday

Hard to believe that 13 years ago the offshore oil and gas industry changed forever.  On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, later sank.  “Approximately 134 million gallons of oil had spilled into the Gulf, the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.” One recent LinkedIn comment suggested that nothing had changed

Read More »

What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate!!

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw The 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, popularized the term, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”  The American Film Institute lists this statement as number 11 out of the top 100 movie quotes.  The basis of this

Read More »

Crisis Management: The Need for Internal Consistency

Attributed to former US Senator and Governor Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, “Trust is built with consistency.”  Moreover, from statistics we know that Internal Consistency, “measures whether several items that propose to measure the same general construct produce similar scores.”  The follow on definition statistical reliability, “is the consistency of a set of measurements or measuring

Read More »

Are Your DEI Wheels Spinning?

Originally published as a LinkedIn article on July 6, 2021, this updated version is reprinted here with the permission of the author.  Links to relevant sources are added. Lately, many LinkedIn posts bemoan the state of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The seeming slow take up of great ideas. Some argue that DEI initiatives are no

Read More »

Complicity or Write a Book?

I Need a Book Deal!   With the change of the US federal administration, previous key individuals are now coming out and writing books regarding their former boss.  This all the while with plenty of video evidence where these individuals pontificated a position and even changed their position dramatically while in the employ and in

Read More »

Open Sesame

A Year of Leadership–Or Not! On March 2, 2021 the Governor of Texas announced its 100% reopening–effectively proclaiming an end of the Covid-19 crisis.  Needless to say in our hyper-partisan world, many widely decried the decision and even accused him or bringing physical death to the state population. Mississippi announced a similar rollback of virus

Read More »

Teaming Safely

“For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind”   Second only to the basic need for food, water and what is required to sustain physical life, safety and security are the next step in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  In other words one cannot love or feel belonging or achieve a level of

Read More »
man with burning stick while moving in darkness

Agility, Resiliency, Sustainability

In a recent Harvard Business Review, I was struck by an article about Best Practices for small businesses.  From that piece, “To successfully navigate Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) challenges like Covid-19, family business leaders can look to best practices from another organization that specializes in VUCA situations—the U.S. military’s Special Operations Forces (SOF)”

Read More »

2020 Vision: Are Your Stars Aligned This Year?

Depending on one’s perspective, 2020 is either the end of the last decade or the beginning of this one.  One can argue that our actual birthday is the day we were born and 12 months later we are one year old.  This suggests that on our tenth birthday we have lived a decade and a

Read More »

Safety Santa: Another Case of Operational Excellence Success

A year ago, it was the pleasure of this blogger to report that Santa Clause completed yet another successful global fulfillment process AND importantly, the process was in compliance with the US Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) regulations.  A great deal of progress since the advent of one red light on the nose of the lead

Read More »

Lessons in Servant Leadership: What Did You Say?

Watch almost any media talk show and the interviewer will often interrupt the guest trying to answer the question just posed.  This is such a common phenomenon that it is accepted behavior perhaps driven by ratings that come from on-air confrontation.  It is part of the culture! Why ask the question if you’re only going

Read More »

In Defense of Humans—Machines Are Not Ready Yet

I recently submitted an internal organizational document that was spellchecked in addition to my review; several times.  One sentence where there the intent was to say, “that which is …” was change to “that witch is …” Did I type it wrong or did ‘auto correct’ take over the decision process?  In any event spellcheck

Read More »

Chain of Custody: Is Your Management System Ready?

“This eliminates the possibility for human error.”  This is an actual quote taken from one of the many blockchain ‘credible’ websites readily available—citation withheld to protect the guilty.    And, the Titanic was unsinkable! From another credible sources, “Is blockchain secure for my business?  Simply put, it can be.  But, not by just turning the key.

Read More »

Brand Your Digital Oilfield Culture: Internalize Its Transformation

Our recent article, “The Digital Oilfield Culture: Transformation Value for the Organizational Ecosystem” (pp.24-26) takes a somewhat different change management approach.  Why not brand your digital oilfield culture? Most consumers are familiar with the so-called ‘Brand Name.’  These are names so ubiquitous that in some cases that we take them for granted.  Soft drinks, beer,

Read More »

Fleeting Success: In Pursuit of Sustainability

Winston Churchill is credited with saying, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  The late Prime Minister nailed it; once again! Our journey through life, including our career is a marathon not a sprint.  While we celebrate success, often at happy hour or a party, we

Read More »

Command and Control: Is this the Way to Run the modern Railroad?

The managerial model, Command and Control (C&C) dates back to the dawn of humanity when tribal chieftains dictated the behavior of the group.  It survives to this day in many forms.  Typically, one thinks of military operations as the current manifestation of C&C in the western world. According to Wikipedia, by one definition found in

Read More »
Scroll to Top