I recently presented on my favorite Human Resources (HR) topics and was pleasantly surprised that more participants than not answered over half my questions correctly. The same day of the presentation, a client called and asked me a question; I answered that the client had to pay the individual who resigned unless they wanted to […]
Leadership: Listen and Learn
Listen and learn, or a meltdown may be just around the corner. I pulled out eight or ten books on leadership skills for this article, and I came up with the same conclusion—the best manager skills are to listen and learn. Listen to your employees because they are often not just thinking about themselves. Employees […]
Lending’s Changing Scene
As ESG (environmental, social and governance) and energy-transition-related concerns have caused most large and midsize banks to exit the oil and gas industry, local lenders like Midland’s Community National Bank and Odessa-based Southwest Bank have benefited by seeing some of those customers come their way. On the borrower side, Northern Oil and Gas has funded […]
The Workforce of Tomorrow. Success Breeds Success
Jim Collins has written extensively about the concept of turning the flywheel. The idea is simple. Success breeds support and commitment, which breeds even greater success, which breeds more support and commitment… around and around the flywheel goes. People like to support a winner. I have written about leadership quite a few times and have […]
Pumping Black Gold
With the spread of horizontal drilling around 2013-15, the artificial lift landscape began to change. For almost 100 years most wells had started the production phase with a beam pump (pumpjack) and finished with the same. Horizontal wells are a more complex beast, as production levels drop significantly over a well’s life. Changing production levels […]
How Much is Enough? When is Less More?
In December of 2021, I wrote an article about working where you want to work, not where your company physically exists. Now, in January 2023, let us revisit the topic. First, do you have to live where you work? Elon Musk may have ordered the Tesla and the Twitter workers back to the office, but […]
Outbound
By Paul Wiseman “What the world needs now Is light, sweet crude…” With apologies to Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick for that song hack, its truth is nonetheless valid—if you add natural gas to what’s needed. Since Congress reopened the U.S. oil market to exports in Q4 2015, the oil- and gas-rich Permian has dived […]
Succession Planning
Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences. (Norman Cousins) Start the new year off right and decide to start a succession plan at a minimum of two levels of the organization: the middle and the executive levels. The new supply chain issue for 2023 is human capital or having enough employees to do the job. […]
Conducting a Human Resource (HR) Audit
The best HR audits are the ones you control. The worst are those prompted by a letter from a government agency. Clean up one issue at a time while there is still time. All organizations need a major HR audit every few years and an annual review to ensure that the policies and procedures comply […]
Evaluating Evaluations
If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Thank you, Peter Drucker. October is the month to get ready for annual performance reviews. I wholeheartedly recommend evaluating the staff throughout the year with informal walkthroughs, supportive emails, and verbal or written corrective coaching to improve performance. The annual review should never be a surprise to […]
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