Mike Brady

Posts

Avoiding the "black box syndrome"

Some of the most powerful performance improvement approaches I have seen, and been involved in, are where front line team members are involved in identifying problems, designing solutions and then putting those solutions in place. Approaches like WorkOutTM, Kaizen and Problem Solving Team Building (PSTB) embody the philosophy that the best ideas on how to improve how work gets done will come from those actually doing the work. As well as providing quantifiable improvements in performance, these approaches have the added benefit that they make front line team members feel more engaged with their organisation; they feel listened to, they feel they can affect their working lives and, when making improvements happen, they naturally feel a sense of achievement. This is why such performance improvement approaches are often the cornerstone of cultural change programmes because of the transformative effect they can have on people. However, these types of front line performance improvemen

Making operational risk personal

Having worked in in the risk and safety management area of the oil and gas industry I have seen, and in small part helped, some of the leading operators work hard on improving their safety culture. The realisation in the industry has been that layers of processes and controls can only go so far. Front line staff need to remain aware of the risks they face and not become complacent such that they do not spot those small indicators that something is out of place. So creating a culture that counters this tendency toward complacency, or risk normalisation, has been a focus for oil and gas operators. The oil and gas industry is not the only one that faces risks that could lead to catastrophic losses and the removal of the licence to operate. Financial institutions have faced such losses through failures in processes and controls around rogue trading, mis-selling of products and failures in anti-money laundering controls. The Basel Committee on Banking Stability (BCBS) as well as re

My retail therapy

I am not one who usually enjoys shopping. When I need to buy something I like to do it with a quick surgical strike 1. Know what you want before entering store | 2. Locate item once inside store | 3. Purchase item | 4. Exit store. No browsing, no chit chat with shop staff, no impulse purchases. Spending time in shops that aren’t selling food or drink for on-site consumption isn’t really my thing. Professionally as well, despite working in many industries, retail has not featured strongly in my CV. However, recently I was fortunate to get involved in a change project with a very large retail organisation with thousands of stores across the United States. As well as learning about some of the key processes in retail and meeting a variety of great people working in stores across the US, I got a first hand exposure to some of the forces currently impacting retailers. There are new technologies are being introduced principally to increase efficiency and improve customer exper

Brown paper bag accounting

I recently had cause to recall a type of work I did whilst studying to become a chartered accountant and in the period just after I qualified - brown paper bag accounts . This is not some kind of under the table tax evasion scheme but a phrase used to describe the accounts preparation work for the smallest of small businesses. It describes what the client would provide in terms of records from which to draw-up accounts, submit their VAT returns and produce their tax returns. It would be a bag (ok, sometimes and folder or a box) of expense receipts of various types, from shop tills and handwritten chits to vellum fee notes from solicitors. There would also be a bunch of bank statements and credit card bills. If you were lucky there would be a cash book which may record the client's drawings (money taken from the business for personal use) but often not. This was at first a huge struggle for a new trainee, but with guidance from senior colleagues and partners, and using the kno

Low oil price challenge for NOCs

Just an observation on national oil companies (NOC) in my region of interest (South East Asia) since the collapse of the oil price in 2014. An implicit role of the national oil companies is to provide technical and professional employment to the citizens of the country. There is the trickle down effect of spending by the NOC's employees but also an overall development impact of raising the skills pool of the nation. So with the oil price collapse, and the continuing demand to satisfy the government's income requirements (some SEA countries have a heavy reliance on oil revenues), the NOCs are faced with a challenge. Maintaining cash positivity in the face of a 50% cut in income has required oil companies to take action. Immediately, many suspended investment projects and reduced external non-critical spending. Next was internal and supply chain efficiencies: cutting staff and imposing blanket price reductions on suppliers. This immediate cash saving activity has been fol

Are safety KPIs counter-productive?

A colleague who works with a major international oil and gas company said “Safety KPIs achieve the exact opposite of their original intent”. Whilst he was undoubtedly being provocative to stimulate internal debate, the basis for such a bold statement can be seen in organisations that have comprehensive reporting mechanisms but still suffer from major safety incidents. Safety performance metrics face an inherent difficulty in that managers have a strong temptation to make their numbers as good as possible when they report their performance. This will be true for safety just as it is for production, sales, financials and any other business performance metric. Unfortunately, this tendency is the exact opposite of what is required for good safety performance. A common theme in many of the major catastrophic industrial incidents is the fact that warning signs were there but were not reported. If there is a bias that emphasises the good and glosses over the bad, there is li