I don't have much. I was tired all weekend and didn't brainstorm any good ideas to write about. I've got ideas, but they're all just thin sketches. But, since I just had a meeting in Las Vegas for work, let's start there.
The field engineers are the favored children of Schlumberger. I like that phrase. It makes it sound like we're the anointed heirs of the company, as if it was some secret order with lots of rituals and flogging involved. Well, there are some benchmarks to achieve that are like rituals, but there is no flogging, at least not yet. The Las Vegas trip reinforced what I always knew though. Field engineers are future leaders of the company for all the obvious reasons. We're the ones with intelligence and motivation to advance. Skills needed at all levels of the company beyond day to day field operations.
In Las Vegas, a lot of very relevant managers were very interested in letting us know what kind of career paths were available and, more importantly, in listening to what we had to say. The good, bad, and ugly of our experiences. (See, that's part of that communication thing that I'm so big on. Listening is the first step.) We've obviously very valuable investments for the company deemed very worthy of taking care of.
The field time is like a rite of passage though. It serves two basic purposes. The first is to learn about what is realistically possible in the field by actually being in the field. There's no point in developing tools that cannot be implemented or managing with no idea of how the ground operations work. And time spent in the field is the best way to figure the way things really work. The second purpose is perhaps less apparent, but just as important. The field is almost like a rite of passage for the field engineers, to prove that they could handle the hardships of field life. It's like some sort of worthiness thing.
A result of that is that the company is internally very cliquish. My sense is that there are very few managers within the company who did not work their way up from the field level. The advantage of that is you end up with a lot of loyal managers, true company men. The disadvantage is that you end up with a lot of loyal managers, true company men. There's the risk of a lack of fresh ideas, though the company engages in several other practices to encourage new ideas.
2 comments:
The bean counters are the ones who will end up at the top echelon. They even try to steal or hire away some other companies' top dogs. Don't bank on it that the future CEOs rise from the bottom or from the field. They want to make you feel good so you don't just quit in a few years. Remember the cost of new recruit. Retention is the word!
Ha, I knew it. The "loyal managers", sounds scary. I bet your mother told you that you are her most favorite child without telling you that she told this to all her other 10 children the same! If you believe that I have a Golden Gate Bridge to sell, cheap.
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