Sei sulla pagina 1di 7

IMPLEMENTING CHANGES IN LEADERSHIP

THINKING AND BEHAVIOURS TO DRIVE


OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN OIL AND GAS

TH
Laura, Id like to start off with a question about the
relationship between leadership behaviour and culture. What is the
thread that links all of them?

LM
Well, if we start with the definition of culture that we use at
CLG, we say that culture is really the set of behaviours and norms
for behaviour that are reinforced and encouraged over time by
people, by systems.

In this interview we take a look at the roles of leadership and


behaviour on the journey towards process excellence. And rather
than viewing this through the eyes of the business executive, we
have borrowed the analytical perspective of Laura Methot Ph.D, a
degreed Organisational Psychologist and Senior Partner at CLG.

So, culture really is all about behaviour and our approach is to


understand the most important behaviours we call them highimpact behaviours that need to happen regularly and well by
people within the organisation in order to achieve your result,
maintain your culture, and overall accelerate your effectiveness.

Laura holds a doctorate in Applied


Behavioural Analysis and a masters degree in
industrial / organizational psychology from
Western Michigan University. She earned a
bachelors degree in psychology from Saint
Marys University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
where she currently is an adjunct professor.

So, we start by pinpointing those behaviours and then wrap the


leadership fundamentals around that to make sure that those highimpact behaviours are supported.

TH
Lets talk about the kind of leadership - everybody has a
different definition, but what for you makes good leadership
and what is the importance of leadership within the operational
excellence framework?

Speaker key
TH
LM

Tim Hadar, Editor In Chief, Oil & Gas IQ


Laura Methot Ph.D, Senior Partner, CLG

LM
Thats a great question. We kind of think in terms of a
bunch of different bottom lines in the business. So, theres your
typical bottom line that business people think about. Thats the
impact on revenues, profitability - in industrial settings its usually
around safety and environment, reliability, cost-effectiveness,
production etc.
But theres also culture as a bottom line. What do you want

your culture to look like? More and more were hearing


that people want a culture of engagement, of ownership,
of accountability. So, we need to be pinpointing performer
behaviours that get at producing the results in a way that is
consistent with your cultural definition or what youre shooting for.
Now, we approach leadership from a behavioural perspective as
well. In our own terminology we call it Q4 leadership.
So, if you envision a matrix where on one axis youve got leadership
values and behaviours and the impact of leadership in the
organisation along one axis, the other axis is your results from poor
results to really superb results.

So, what do the leaders that live within Q4 do? Its not about being
nice. Its not about being pleasant. In fact, if you shoot to be liked
as a leader, very likely youre going to end up in a pleasantly noncompetitive situation.

If you put those two things together, where our most positive
leadership impact comes together with the highest results, is in the
upper right-hand quadrant of that matrix - Q4.

Theres a set of five fundamental principles for good leadership


behaviour, I like to call them core leadership behaviours: setting
expectations, observing, providing feedback, removing barriers,
and coaching.

Q4 leaders set clear expectations. You need to make sure that


people in your organisation know whats important and what you
expect of them and how those behaviours and expectations tie in
to the cultural imperative in the bottom line?

TH
So, youve outlined and defined the five core leadership
behaviours, but, in chicken and egg terms, which needs to come
first?

Leaders who are really good at setting clear expectations enables


them to get out and observe in their organisation - its not lurking
behind pillar and post playing gotcha. Its walking the floor, being
in key meetings, talking to people, watching, listening, and asking
questions. Based on the expectations set, the leader is observing
performance in the organisation and understanding what people
are doing and achieving?

LM
Interesting question. To me its a dynamic system and so its
either the chicken or egg depending on where you enter into the
system. Culture influences what people do. Its a set of rules or
norms that guide people in what they say and what they do;
leaders included.

So, we set expectations. We observe performance. Those two


things together allow them to do the next three things that are
critical. That enables us to provide feedback contingent upon what
we see and what weve heard positive and constructive pointers.

So, leaders are no different than any other performer in their


organisation with regards to how they make their choices, how
they spend their time, and what behaviours they engage in. Many
of our clients have purposely identified culture change as critical
because they recognise that relationship between cultural norms
and organisational success.

Were working with them on identifying and removing


barriers. Theres nothing more frustrating than having
capable people with clear direction that cant get the
work done because something is getting in their way.

For instance, lets say we enter into an organisation that has a


command-and-control culture, or one where over the years it has
been acceptable to really try hard irrespective of results. The
executive leadership team recognises they need to change things.
They need the norms to change. They need the behaviours to
change and they want a culture of involvement and ownership and
accountability.

And then finally the fifth would be around knowing when to up the
dialogue into a coaching conversation. So, that could be coaching
for improving performance that isnt quite there or it could be
developmental coaching - that the leader has spotted that an
individual is ready to raise their game and take it to the next level.

So, wed hope to find out what that looks like in the new culture?
What will people be saying and doing differently that demonstrates
involvement and ownership and accountability and how do we help
translate that into real behaviour change for both leaders from the
executive level right own to boots on the ground frontline?

New leaders or opinion leaders will emerge and that can


result in your culture shifting whether or not you want it.
You can take that passive laissez-faire approach, or you
can very purposefully shape your culture in a different
direction. Theyre saying, we are going to decide what we want

So, I hope that answers it. It is a dynamic system in that the rules
that are there in the culture at any point in time do influence the
behaviours that people engage in what people say and do but
leaders can come in and create the conditions to change those
behaviours and thus resulting in a new culture.

our culture to be and are very rigorous about how theyre going to
get there.
In large organisations, cultures are big and they take a long, long
time to move. So, envision a multi-year shaping curve where maybe
you started in 2010-2011 and you said, were going to start building
some momentum around having a continuous improvement mindset in our organisation. Alongside that were going to work on
building our leadership capacity from the senior levels right down
to the front line. That may take a year or two to do.

TH
Its not the rosiest of metaphors but is your operational
excellence management programme the parasite in the host which
is culture?

Now lets make sure that were getting the results of that
endeavour. Were going to raise the bar on, for example, safety
and environment, reliability, cost, productivity, public relations,
community relations, and so maybe thats the next part in our
shaping curve is. Your endgame might be, from starting in 2010 to
shift our focus into continuous improvement and leadership
capacity so that by 2015 we are working on operational excellence
as the definition of our culture.

LM
Thats a cool way to think about it. Maybe a slightly more
positive metaphor coming from modern medical research is how
researchers are taking viruses and inserting DNA into the virus to
have that virus propagate throughout a sick body and take the new
DNA and make the body healthy.
I work with clients who use the term operational excellence as the
culture they want to reach as an end state. You can sit back and
passively allow culture to evolve because it will. New people will
come in.

TH
Laura, from your experience as a doctor of behavioural
psychology, how do leadership culture and behaviour interface
with operational excellence in oil and gas? How do you actually
engineer the conditions for that to exist in a business?

Make sure that the direction is clearly understood and consistent


throughout your entire organisation. Youve obviously got some
communication planning and deployment to do there, but youve
also got to make sure that you have your key performance
indicators (KPIs). So, you have your KPI dashboard set up so that
people have their scores. We know how were doing against our
expectation. So, if, for example, as part of our operational
excellence initiatives were looking to increase our equipment
availability and utilisation up to their target levels, but right now
were only operating at 50%, then we need to have a dashboard of
KPIs that shows us if we are making progress toward that ultimate
goal.

The bottom line is, nothing changes until behaviour


changes. So, youve got your programmes in place. Youre talking
LM

about operational excellence. Youve got the vision for what this
looks like, what you want your business to look like. Thats all well
and good, but really the only thing thats going to bring you there is
the people in your organisation behaving in a way thats consistent
with your operational excellence vision.
What brings together strategy, process, even technology
implementation, and your operations excellence vision is
behaviour. Its what your people say and do at work. Thats where
it all comes together and behaviour must be positively managed by
very intentional leadership in order to make that happen.

Then we need to look at the competencies within the organisation.


Do people have the right knowledge, skills and abilities to engage in
the things were asking them to do both on a technical front and on
a kind of interpersonal problem-solving front?
Then on-top of that, leadership needs to look at whether they have
the opportunity to do it. That means theyve got all the resources
they need, all the tools, all the equipment, level of authority for
decision-making, whether they have gotten all the gunk out of the
system and the barriers out of the way? Then, finally, leadership
need to make sure that the motivational conditions are there for
people to act on these new behaviours. So, there have to be
supporting and encouraging consequences throughout the
organisation to support peoples change.

TH
Youve said that culture cant change without behaviour
changing. How do you manage the process of that change?

LM
That depends on very intentionally defining of what you
need people to be doing. So, in an environment of operational
excellence youve got people very focused on using the work
processes effectively and managing the work outcomes.
5

Potash. When I meet with clients, if theres a whiteboard around, I


draw four boxes; one after the other.

TH
And does that come in the form of incentivisation of a
monetary kind, a status-based incentivisation, the use of
champions?
LM
All of the above. Having incentives certainly doesnt hurt.
Its really interesting; the most impactful consequences for
behaviour change tend to be those things that happen regularly
and immediately. So, good, supportive feedback feedback from
leaders based on your KPI data system.

Some may talk in terms of tangible rewards - that works


for some, but it really is making sure that the immediate
consequences are lined up with incentive systems and
promotion systems so your immediate and delayed
consequences are all lined up to get the new behaviours.

So, what were doing is creating a line of sight from leader


behaviour through performer behaviour to leading results that all
sum up successfully to your lagging business outcomes. Thats
always whats in my head, that line of sight. What is the leader
doing that is going to impact performers that will get new results at
the local level that collectively are going to add up to operational
excellence or whatever else it is that youre shooting for?

TH
Theres a lot to be said for creative imitation in the business
world, using an example of a company thats actually doing this
correctly and trying to follow that example. From your perspective,
who is getting the balance of leadership, culture and behaviour
right to actually drive to operational excellence?

LM

Thats the model that Mosaic uses and they go through making
sure that theyve got their KPI cascade in place, but they start with
their lagging outcomes. Throughout the organisation they identify
at an area and team level, what are your results numbers that

One of our clients that really is doing it right and its Mosaic

contribute to the outcome, and then, what are the behaviours for
the people in your group they need to do to get there?

Making sure everybody goes home safe? Ensuring you dont harm
the environment? That youve got safe, reliable, cost-effective
production? Define your perfect day and then make sure
everybody in the organisation knows what to do to contribute to
that and that theyre reinforced for doing it.

And theyve done a terrific job. Its a fantastic example of bringing


the behavioural leadership approach into your overall operations
excellence formulation.

TH
Laura, thats everything I wanted to ask. Thanks so much for
your time.

TH
If you had 30 seconds to explain to somebody the key thing
that you should do to get leadership culture and behaviour all
working together for operational excellence, what would that be?
Go!

LM

Sure. My pleasure, Tim.

LM
I would make sure that your senior team is absolutely
aligned on what operational excellence means and what that
means in terms of your outcome measures. Sit down. Define what
a perfect day in your organisation looks like vis--vis operational
excellence. Make sure you understand what the drivers of

the perfect day are and who needs to do what in to get


there and then, whats your role in making it happen?
TH

That was 20 seconds.

To meet Laura and learn more about the common culture


hurdles and management behaviours that can hinder
operational excellence and how to overcome them join
us at the upcoming Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas
Summit, taking place in Calgary June 1-3.
www.opexinoilandgas.ca

LM
[Laughs] Was that 20? Well the notion of the perfect day is
critical because operations excellence is the sum of what so many
people do every day and so operations excellence is not at a given
point in time. Its the sum of many people doing the right thing day
in, day out, day after day. So what does your perfect day look like?

Potrebbero piacerti anche