The Weekly Reflektion 42/2024

Reflekt will organise a breakfast seminar Wednesday 27th November. In the seminar we will consider what the offshore petroleum industry can learn from the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. 

The seminar will be held at the Quality Hotel Pond in Forus from 0800 to 1000. A light breakfast will be served beforehand. There is plenty of free parking at and around the hotel. Please let us know if you would like to attend.

Some managers have a ‘get it fixed’ attitude to solving problems and pride themselves on their action focus. Sometimes the desire to fix the problem gets in the way of finding out what the problem actually is, and consequently fails to find a practical solution. Some managers avoid discussing problems in order to avoid expensive modifications and also fail to find a practical solution. Irrespective of the management attitude, dialog and open discussion is important. 

What is the problem?

The management of a high-rise building with mostly offices were receiving complaints about the lifts. They were too slow and too much time was being wasted standing around waiting. Time that could be used for productive work. There was tough competition for rented offices and plenty of alternatives, so the management were keen to take action. A study was initiated and an estimate for the upgrade of the lifts was received. Stronger cables and more powerful electric motors would speed up the lifts by nearly 50%. The upgrade was approved by the management committee. Just before the orders were placed, someone suggested installing full length mirrors beside the lifts on each floor. The management committee decided on a trial period. After three months the complaints had reduced significantly, and the upgrade of the lifts was cancelled. The problem was not that the lifts were too slow, it was that people were bored when they were waiting. The mirrors gave them something to do. The mirrors also made people feel more comfortable as they allowed them to see what and who was behind them.

When I was working offshore as a platform manager, I attended the weekly safety meetings with all the crews. One evening, at the Drilling safety meeting, one of the roughnecks had a long tirade about a problem on the rig floor, or more specifically, under the rig floor. It was a relatively old platform and although the drilling facilities had been upgraded there were still problems. As this was portrayed as a safety issue, I put up my hand and said I would have a look at it. Next morning at the morning break I arrived in the Drilling coffee shack as agreed. The roughneck was not there, so one of his colleagues called him on the radio. He arrived and was surprised to see me, obviously not expecting any follow up on his ‘problem’. We went out and he showed me the cramped conditions under the rig floor where he and the other roughnecks had to work from time to time. We discussed the ‘problem’ and I told him that I didn’t really know what could be done short of rebuilding the rig. ‘Oh, you can’t do anything about, I know that’. We returned to the shack had a coffee, chatted for a while then I left. The ‘problem’ never came up again at the safety meeting. The ‘problem’ was not the cramped conditions that were pretty much unavoidable given the way the rig was built. The problem was the management didn’t appreciate the conditions that people had to work in and the efforts they made to get the job done and keep the drill bit turning.