I have been reading this blog as well as several other oilfield related ones (Baker, Weatherford, NOV, Shell, BP, Conoco, etc.) and the all have one common thread. Everybody's management is either, 1) incompetent, 2) stupid, 3) corrupt or 4) a combination of the first 3 options. Apparently, Exxon is relatively well managed, but everybody else is run by complete morons. How is the possible? How can almost every major company in the oilfield be run by complete idiots? I am at a loss to explain this. Isn't the cream supposed to rise, or is the Peter Principle (the popular 1970s theory that people are promoted in an organization until they reach their level of incompetence) actually alive and well in the oilfield? Are all the smart managers in the country doing venture capital and working on Wall Street? What the??? Am I missing something here?
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What I have seen in my experience at service companies, is that there are quite a few "managers" that either are not educated or have some completely unrelated degree. Some of the managers know very little about the product or service which is paying their salary, yet they are in a position of power. This is likely due to some form of cronyism or nepotism. At MAJOR operating companies, on the other hand, in my experience, the managers in charge of operations are very highly educated, like MS Eng or PHD. It's almost night and day in difference between education and qualifications of managers.
Very well written diatribe by Avery. I have to agree with his thesis, but I wish to add a different slant on the Management view. Having an education is not the end all and be all. But having non-educated individuals assume the command of mid management is not good. You may be competent being a manager with no education, but having no education while others do sets a paranoia that you are replaceable. This insecurity is detrimental to the company in the long term, as you promote others who have educational challenges similar to yours. You don't promote he most capable, but someone who can't replace you. This is counterproductive since you can't grow beyond mid-management, neither can the company in that department. All the while consolidating your power and eliminating or discrediting the most capable individuals who have the ideas and aptitude to do so. I am afraid I have seen it happen at companies before, I saw the ground work at my Halliburton department years in the making. These weak links in the Management chain are the Politicians that we all dread. The politicians may have an engineering degree, and they are just as guilty, but someone without an education is 19 times out of 20 to be a politician.
My opinion? It's not that all management sucks, but maybe management incentive? Everybody is making too much money and focused on more more more, at the expense of what are we here for in the first place? Oh yeah, product has to work, customer has to be happy, gotta cut costs, has to be there, has to be reliable, safety, quality, timeliness and cost. And with the amount of money that all these folks are making? who cares? Damn, i'll just sit here and pull in all this coin, be prudent, save my money, do this for as long as i can, and if they push me out, hell i'll go somewhere else with my title and experience and well, do the same thing, and maybe even negotiate a big payout clause should i be dismissed from the company. Now, you and i get laid off? We go into crisis mode and have to actually manage our input and output, get creative and resourceful - kinda puts the shoe on the other foot for being efficient managers now don't it. Now, engineers as managers? For the most part they suck. From my point of view, engineers are taught to believe that their's is the greatest pursuit, by virtue of being the engineer and their educational experience they can do anything. WRONG. There are some real bad ones out there and there are some really good ones, the others are marginal. No people skills, no management forte, lack of dedication to the majority business tasks required, difficulty in managing engineering decisions vs business or market decisions, focus on making that "tenured" management position, getting into the money club, arrogance. Upper management on the other hand, is best served by those who actually have "business savvy", but it helps to have some technical discipline as well. But like someone mentioned below, and i've never looked at it like that, but POLITICIAN is an apt description for it, very good observation. cheers, now if you will excuse me i am late for my meds. oh look, there's bigfoot.
SLB is corrupt by muslims and east indians in Houston.
WOW. that's my districts' mantra. DEF. HAL Way. The for sharing that!!
The Dilbert principle refers to a 1990s theory by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing.
The best managers are normally those that started from below. I think Slb groom their manager from engineers so they have been better than those rivals. HAL is going wrong direction if they keep the politicians in the mid management and upper management.
I had good managers 4 years ago however they were engineers and went on to other companies or left country so they werent always bad.
Because most of these morons are politicians and can talk well to cover their asses. Other than that..they are all useless bunch of idiots. Imagine having a so called ops manager who are not even a petrotechnical in background! Or a guy coming as country manager or BD manager and knows nothing. Only those at working level or front end knows which management really does their work or competent. I wish there are a system where the management KPI cam be evaluated based on feedback from their subordinates or direct reports.
You hit the nail on the head the Peter Principle is the linchpin of oil field management Peter Principle is or should be in the core values of the above mentioned companies