Five Essential Steps To Change Management Success In Oil & Gas

In 1996, John P. Kotter, one of the leading-lights in the field of leadership and transformation, asserted that less than one third of change management projects achieve their stated goals. This statistic has barely changed in the intervening 18 years.

In the business world, oil and gas companies are the enterprises most in need of accelerated change management for a number of reasons, prime amongst which are:

• The Great Crew Change – The facts are stark: by 2018, 50 per cent of all geophysicists and engineers will be retiring from the Western oil and gas industry. In our landmark study, The Great Crew Change: An Extinction Level Event In The Making?, we covered the phenomenal brain-drain that would result in this loss of talent – and a key driver for efficient and necessary change management.
• Technological advancement –Ten years ago, the "digital oilfield" was in its infancy. In 2014, work orders can be logged, production levels monitored and downhole temperatures measured in real-time – all relayed from mobile devices in the field to control centres via wireless internet connections and VSAT technology. If technology refuses to stand still, why should companies remain static?
• Evolving business drivers –It is widely-recognised that "The Age of Easy Oil" is over, and companies are entering more inhospitable environments – both politically and geologically-speaking - than ever before in the quest for the Black Gold. Oil and gas organisations that used to make pinpricks in the earth and exploit the gushers that followed, are going to have to deal with tougher times ahead.

Once change management has risen to the top of your corporate agenda and the Top Brass have agreed that the process must go forward – only then does the fun begin.

Here at Oil and Gas IQ we have bumped heads with our counterparts at the PEX Network to put together a list of five essential steps to follow when change management is afoot in your organisation....