Category: Leadership

Want – Like – Need

Years ago, as part of a never-ending series of company reorganizations, a team of our change management consultants headed to the ‘field’ to interview users.  Upon their return, they presented an extensive list of technology investments deemed necessary to remain competitive. Their list focused on technology and not business concerns.  Wondering, I asked who they

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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

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Culture Matters A Lot! Cultural Interactions Matter MORE!!

“Failures of culture have been the single biggest destroyers of value in the last five years,” states the former senior vice president of HR of Google in a recent article.  This revelation by one of the contemporary tech giants supports the previous dictum, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  Depending on one’s perspective, this latter quote

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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.

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Man—Machine: Extension or Versus?

Are the emerging machines our friend or foe?  The debut of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things IoT) and a host of others seem to be drowning us as we drink from a technological fire hose.  Additionally, driverless vehicles, the Gig Economy et al. are conspiring to eliminate truck drivers and

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Zero: What If Switching Costs are Near?

Customer Acquisition and Retention (CAR) are two of the most important activities of the Marketing and Sales strategies and should be KPIs for “C” suite occupants as well.  One of the classic case studies of the battle over CAR is the so-called Cola Wars initiated between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in the 1970s.   These

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Aging Success: Never Give Up!

We live in a youth culture.  As young Baby Boomers, we were going to change the world.  Later other Gens would say the same.  Is it now too late for those over 50 to attain entrepreneurial success? A serial (often failed) entrepreneur, (Kentucky) Colonel Harland Sanders sold his first franchised secret receipt for “Kentucky Fired

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Your Career at the Speed of Light: Or Faster?

As a physics student in the 1960s, I and others became fascinate by the hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light; the Tachyon.  Then and to date, this particle/theory has not been found/proven.  Conventional wisdom remains that traveling faster than the speed of light is not possible.  Sorry Star Trek. Moving on,

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Houston . . .

“The Eagle has landed,” and fifty years ago mankind had accomplished the heretofore seemingly impossible.  Two men on the moon became a game changer and not in just the way most believe. Yes, technology advancement owes much to these early space pioneers traceable to the 1950s; realistically a long process going back much further.  Aerospace

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Oil: In the DNA of the Silicon Valley

When discussing the likelihood of DNA in crude oil, one source comments, “So the DNA they are talking about is like the DNA, where they’re looking at the live bacteria in the crude oil, which would be descendants of the bacteria that was around when the oil first began its degradation from organic material.” Time

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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,

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Systemic Reasoning Errors: Stink’en Think’en

The April 13-14, 2019 edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an opinion piece by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Russiagate and the Media’s News Denial.  The author makes the point, “Judgement is teachable.  Long ago, in relation to the Enron debacle, I pointed to the work of Harvard’s Max Bazerman and Northwestern’s David Messick, who

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Elevator: Going Up or Going Down?

True Story!  A couple of decades ago when I was the sales manager of a technology line of business that was part of a much larger organization, an excited young sales representative rushed into my office.  He just had to tell me that he just rode up the elevator and an older gentleman wearing a

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The Old Order Changeth . . . Knowledge Delivery 21st Century Style

My apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson.  The long forecast “Big Crew Change” is well underway and may in fact already be (mostly) over.  Many “Baby Boomers” have left the building and the rest will follow shortly. For years, this pundit has heard the lament about how to capture their knowledge before they hit the golf

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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

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Three Years—Ten Months: How did they do it?

The United States officially entered World War II on December 8, 1941.  The war in the Pacific formally ended on September 2, 1945. A recent documentary on one of the history channels chronicled the path the United States took from a nation with an underdeveloped military to global dominance over this period.  What struck this

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Mission Accomplished: Santa Completes Another Worldwide Transit—Incident Free!

Every December 24th, this jolly ole elf embarks on one more global initiative.  We know this to be true because each year since 1955, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD and its predecessor the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado have tracked his operation–www.noradsanta.org. We are happy to report

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Millennials Take On Our Increasingly Complex World

Originally published in 2013. On January 1st at 0348 hours a young engineer employed by a service company is trying to address a problem she has encountered with a compressor on a drilling rig in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico.  She graduated from college three years ago and went to work for a large energy

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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

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