Safety vs. Succession Planning in Petroleum Engineering

Summary and Hermeneutics Framework

Belfast is a petroleum company with core competencies in oil and gas exploration, development, and production, located in Calgary. Its experts are petroleum engineers, many of whom have substantial years of experience in the petroleum sector. The company's decision makers are its Board of Directors. Belfast's decision makers and experts disagree about the experience level of engineers that the company needs to supervise sensitive oilfield operations. Whereas the Board believes that newer engineers should become exposed to a broader range of activities in the field, the experts disagree and hold the opinion that risking public safety by placing fresh engineers — just out of school — in supervisory roles is unprofessional. The conflicting opinions of the Board and the experts are manifestations of the epistemologies, or knowledge paradigms, of the two groups. An examination of the underlying assumptions of these two groups helps to characterize their respective epistemologies.

The paper discusses the worldviews of the Board and the field experts using hermeneutics and critical theory frameworks. The discussion includes the groups' philosophical assumptions and epistemological stances as they relate to the issues of on-boarding, transitioning, sustainability, and promoting new engineers to greater levels of responsibility.

The decision to use hermeneutics is to enter this evaluation without a preset list of criteria and rely purely on interpreting the actual facts of this case (Klein, 1996). In order to understand the situation among the Board, the senior experts, and the newest employees, an understanding of each party's views must first be established. In this way, an unbiased examination of the components of this discussion can be conducted without preconceived ideas or conclusions. Next, in the hermeneutic circle, an iterative approach is used to compare these parts in various combinations in order to develop the shared meanings, concepts, and beliefs among the parties (Klein, 1996). After comparing and documenting the various epistemologies, the parts are assembled together and shared. By communicating back to each of the parties what they are perceived as understanding, they can reflect on their responses and re-evaluate their views of one another. This is key to defining the next steps of the organization in resolving conflicts and meeting the core objective of creating sustainability — and ultimately meeting the profit maximization goal of the corporation.

The principles most apparent in this process include: recognizing the potential gaps between what is being done and the knowledge of participants (Klein, 1996); acknowledging the possibility of more than a single understanding for a similar sequence of events; and assessing traditional social constructs between leadership and the experts relative to communication (Klein, 1996) — that is, whether communication has always been top-down, or whether there are areas where horizontal learning can occur.

Several findings emerge from this analysis and are reviewed here to further develop an understanding of the situation.

First, "doing appears less valuable than knowing" (Agbons, 1975, p. 15). There seems to be a knowing-doing problem. The existing challenge is to close this performance paradox gap between doing and knowing by translating knowledge into working knowledge for newer engineers. Transforming knowledge into action will be important to the company's success.

Second, expert petroleum engineering practitioner knowledge is not easily transferable to younger engineers, and there seem to be many lost opportunities to groom competent professionals. Workers in petroleum engineering have generally come from three backgrounds: those who earned a degree in the field from an accredited institution; those who transferred from other related fields; and those trained on the job by senior experts. Even today, fewer than 75% are qualified through education or formal training in petroleum engineering, according to J.C. Calhoun in the Journal of Petroleum Technology (1996).

Having noted the diversity of opinions within the frameworks of critical theory and hermeneutics, the perspectives of each type of worker are explored to understand their conceptual connections and realize the part they play in the larger process.

Third, taking into consideration the conflicting underlying philosophies and perspectives held by both groups is helpful to the organization, especially as it involves succession planning, on-boarding, transitioning, and promoting new engineers to greater levels of responsibility.

The company's experts are petroleum engineers whose grounds of expertise include their academic qualifications and substantial years of experience in the petroleum sector. They are most able to determine what is necessary to run operations efficiently and achieve ultimate productivity. However, many of them are of retirement age, and knowledge has not yet been transferred to the incoming engineers.

Company Background and Expert Epistemologies

The petroleum engineering experts hold well-formed, field-based beliefs. With several large-scale mega-projects concurrently underway almost always, they regard the idea of placing fresh engineers — just out of school — in charge of sensitive operations as unprofessional and a risk to public safety. The experts are mainly engineers with many years of experience, and they approach the issue through a purely academic, practitioner, and professional lens. Their postulation appears to have been arrived at through rational assessment, and therefore their knowledge paradigms display a conservative element of epistemology.

The company's decision makers are its Board of Directors. To benefit from the decision-making talent of prominent individuals, the Board consists of entrepreneurial, innovative, and resourceful personalities. Board members include the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the country's Finance Minister, the Central Bank Governor, presidents of two national universities, two former CEOs of multinational oil companies (Shell Group and Texaco), and a former executive vice president of the International Finance Corporation. Others include a previous World Bank managing director and senior vice presidents of two of the company's strategic business units (upstream and industrial relations). Their grounds of decision-making ability include their diverse skills, backgrounds, exposure, acumen, and experience.

Faced with making far-reaching strategic decisions for the company, the decision makers' epistemic worldview appears to be grounded in rationalism and "seeing the bigger picture." The Board's position is that new local hires should become exposed to hands-on practices, modern technologies, field visits, and practical experiences, with reduced concentration on theory. The Board promotes the idea that if newer engineers become exposed to a broader range of supervisory activities in the field, the company can successfully implement its succession plan — especially given an aging workforce that will soon retire, potentially creating a critical expertise vacuum.

1. Assumptions about ability. One inadvertent outcome of basing assumptions about experts' abilities predominantly on academic credentials is that different treatments are given to engineers depending on their qualifications. These distinctions may become self-fulfilling prophecies with regard to performance and motivation (Kuchinke, 1999). This is unhealthy for the organization and will cause conflict between the experts and new engineers. A spirit of competition will become embedded in the culture, delaying the free flow of communication necessary to streamline processes.

2. Assumptions about viewpoint and identity. Assumptions about what constitutes "manifest" attributes of a competent professional engineer tend to focus on two things (Delanty & Strydom, 2003, p. 123): first, superficial judgments collected over time; and second, a sense of familiarity engendered by employees similar to the executive making the judgment (Kaiser & Kaplan, 2006). An environment of distrust will pervade the culture and lead to mishandling of operations due to inadequate information sharing.

3. Assumptions leading to faulty employee evaluations. When employees are evaluated unfairly, they are not open to receiving correction or speaking up about ways to improve performance.

4. Assumptions concerning the transferability of expert knowledge. Accountability for knowledge transfer should rest with the most experienced and knowledgeable experts. However, the Board will have to empower these experts to share and document their wealth of knowledge through a long-term application such as Knowledge Management (KM) (Leavitt, 2002).

5. Assumptions about mentoring within teams. Assuming that effective mentoring will happen naturally within teams of varying expertise levels is idealistic. In practice, tight field schedules in a busy operational environment present serious challenges to successful mentoring. Therefore, other alternatives should be pursued to capture institutional knowledge before retirees begin leaving the company.

Assumptions about unprofessional behaviors. The experts hold the view that public safety is paramount and that supervisory positions in the field require well-groomed, seasoned, and competent professionals. They cite major incidents such as the Gulf and Atlantic Empress oil spills as evidence of what can go wrong. When spills occur, they damage a company's public image and cast a shadow over the entire profession.

This section applies critical theory and hermeneutical analysis to the epistemological assumptions that inform the situation, and by doing so derives insights about the worldviews held by the Board members and the field experts. The analysis considered aspects of communication that resulted in preconceived notions or biased ideas about new engineers — an emphasis especially appropriate in hermeneutical study. This framework tied hermeneutics to the assumptions identified and addressed the potential of critical theory to help release those assumptions from non-productive and unconscious interpretations. It also revealed that fear and pressure foster the existing knowing-doing gaps.

Sources such as Freire (2000) and Giroux (2010) were used to examine the application of critical theory and hermeneutics to analyze social phenomena within the macro and micro contexts in which they occur, and to apply a paradigm relatively free of cultural blinders. References by Hogan and Kaiser (2005) and Johnson and Duberley (2000) helped examine the Board's assumptions in light of interpersonal differences and the halo effect in assessing traits, including leadership skills and the ability to use them effectively.

The problem is primarily one of across-the-board succession planning. The Board would like to see better integration and on-the-job mentoring of new graduate engineers.

The source of the problem is the difference in perspectives between the Board and the petroleum engineering experts regarding the adequacy of preparation and experience of entry-level engineers to supervise sensitive oilfield operations. The Board approaches the issue from the vantage point of seeing the bigger picture: within ten years, the company will face a serious manpower challenge resulting from a high retirement rate among an aging workforce. The petroleum engineering experts, by contrast, are technocrats who do not see it this way. For them, the transfer of knowledge is crucial to ensuring sustainability. As practitioners sensitive to professional standards, the experts are concerned about the potential negative impact — on the company, the general public, and professional trust — that could result from costly mistakes made by inexperienced young engineers.

A recent work-life balance survey conducted by Andersen, an independent consulting firm, revealed that failure to align the divergent perspectives of the Board and the experts is affecting employees' work-life balance, operational efficiency, and resource utilization. The audit found that succession planning lags behind the short-term profit maximization goal of the company. One criticism is that the company's Board is not forthcoming with concrete steps to address the manpower challenge facing the organization.

Current State of Knowledge and Analysis Framework

A. A significant dispute about the experience level of engineers required to supervise sensitive oilfield operations exists within the organization.

B. Newer engineers currently have relatively little power within the organization.

C. "Doing appears less valuable than knowing" (Agbons, 1975, p. 15). This reflects a reactive attitude that relies on credentialed ability rather than applied experience and knowledge. The ability to proactively anticipate problems needs to be addressed.

D. Tremendous cost-efficient opportunities exist within the company to groom younger, competent professionals.