In this week’s miscellany of articles we are all rah-rah for WTI and frac’ing, forging new partnerships, and discussing team building and customer service, among other things. Are we out of the woods yet? Maybe not, but we’re still rather chipper at the moment. These are the full versions of the “Drilling Deeper” news items that appeared as abbreviated versions in the print edition of PBOG’s August 2016 issue.
It’s Time to Switch Back, Canary CEO Says
Dan K. Eberhart, CEO of Canary, LLC in Oklahoma City. (PRNewsFoto/Canary, LLC)
Arguably the world’s most valuable commodity, crude oil is essential to modern life, the building block for everything from gasoline to guitar strings. Like other commodities, crude is governed by the theory of supply and demand. Producers produce, buyers buy, and, ideally, the price is good for both. In the 1980s, in order to simplify buying and selling crude in the international marketplace—and guarantee pricing transparency—the industry established benchmarks, a sort of pricing reference point. The two primary benchmarks are Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate, or WTI; nearly 200 more lightly traded references also exist.
Brent comprises light, sweet production from the North Sea and is used to price oil traded in Europe, Africa, Australia, and parts of Asia—roughly two-thirds of the world’s volume. WTI prices U.S. production as well as crude from Canada, Mexico, and South America.
“With expanded logistics at American oil trading hubs improving refinery access to domestic crude, and a supply-based rally raising WTI prices toward the $50 per barrel mark, it is time to reestablish WTI as the world’s oil price benchmark,” explained Dan K. Eberhart, CEO of Canary, LLC.
“The fact is, even before the price decrease, or the Brexit, the four fields in the North Sea that constitute Brent crude—the eponymous Brent, Forties, Oseberg, and Ekofisk—are literally drying up.”
First exploited in the 1970s, they are mature fields where production fell from 420,000 barrels per day in 2009 to 260,000 barrels per day in 2014. The fields supplying Brent crude have long been in decline, but now, with the price drop and WTI-related shale levels increasing, drilling projects beyond 2017 are drying up.
In contrast, during roughly the same period, U.S. production doubled to more than 9.43 million barrels per day, largely on the strength of new shale development. Shale will continue to alter the supply side of the world’s energy equation, particularly since the United States lifted its 40-year ban on crude oil exports. Couple that with increasing demand in India and Asia, especially among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), that can be met by North American crude traded on WTI, and it becomes increasingly clear that Brent may no longer be the best choice as the basis for global oil pricing.
About Canary, LLC:
After ten acquisitions and seven decades, Canary, LLC, is now one of the largest private wellhead service companies in North America. Canary serves its clients and the public through quality drilling and production services, local charitable endeavors, and educational campaigns concerning energy policies. Visit canaryUSA.com, fb.com/CanaryConnects, or @CanaryConnects.
Iraqi and Angolan Crude Depresses Gasoline Prices
By Colin Fenton (www.blacklightgo.com)
Large U.S. runs of priced-to-move crudes from the Middle East, Angola, and Venezuela have enabled U.S. product supply to catch up with domestic product demand. This supply availability is pressing down on product prices despite generally favorable consumer demand for products—most notably in gasoline. Diesel demand continues to lag behind last year on the ongoing contractions in manufacturing and domestic rail and trucking. There are now also indications of softening demand for oil products in construction and roadwork, perhaps offering a more real-time glimpse into those sectors than that provided by the more upbeat May data reported in late June for U.S. existing home sales and architectural billings. The contraction in U.S. crude supply is large and deepening (>1 million b/d YoY), but the overhang in total commercial petroleum stocks and the easy availability of non-U.S. crude supplies looking for a home remain headwinds on crude prices for now.
U.S. product demand over the past four weeks has averaged 20.25 million b/d, up 2.1 percent from last year. Year-to-date, demand is now 19.90 million b/d, up 1.7 percent YoY. Residual fuel oil is a surprisingly large contributor to this growth on both a percentage basis (+43 percent YoY ytd) and in barrel growth (+91 thousand b/d). To put that latter number in context, it’s larger than the combined demand growth in 2016 from jet and propane: bigger markets where year-to-date demand growth is running 2.4 percent and 4.1 percent ahead of last year, respectively. Motor gasoline is the largest contributor to U.S. demand growth (+365 kbd, +4.1 percent), while distillate fuel oil is the largest drag (–275 thousand b/d, –6.8 percent).
On the supply side, the contraction in domestic production continues to deepen, despite the uptick in the rig count. EIA estimates Lower 48 production of crude oil and lease condensate last week was 8.15 million b/d, down by more than one million b/d versus the same week a year ago. This output is down from last year by about 880 thousand b/d on a four-week basis and down by about 390 thousand b/d year-to-date.
Working somewhat against these supply cuts is the ongoing prolific output from NGL-rich plays. NGL output has punched through 3.5 million b/d for the past few weeks and year-to-date supply growth is about 300 thousand b/d or close to 10 percent YoY. Production of ethanol and biodiesel is also additive to total liquids supply, averaging 1.05 million b/d ytd, for a gain of 30 thousand b/d or +2.9 percent YoY.
Commercial crude inventories are still above 530 million barrels despite a small pullback last week. That’s 68 million barrels (15 percent) higher than a year ago.
In this context it is notable that crude imports surged last week from an already high level: to 8.44 million b/d from 7.62 million b/d. Some of these flows appear to be catch-up deliveries in the aftermath of the Alberta wildfire. Imports from Canada reached 3.10 million b/d last week from 2.76 million b/d the prior week and 2.65 same week year ago.
However, that factor is not a full explanation. Year-to-date U.S. crude imports have averaged 7.82 million b/d, which is a gain of 600 thousand b/d on the year ago. Digging deeper it seems clear that barrels from the Middle East and Africa are priced competitively to deliver into the U.S., especially into PADD 1. There, crude imports over the past four weeks have averaged 875 thousand b/d: a 50 percent increase over the year ago, or +293 thousand b/d. On a four-week basis, Iraq’s crude shipments into the U.S. are 356 thousand b/d, a 98 percent increase over last year’s 180 thousand b/d. Over the same time frame, Angola sent 141 thousand b/d, an increase of 80 percent over last year’s 79 thousand b/d. Venezuelan cargoes are also surging. Last week the U.S. took 888 thousand b/d from Venezuela, or about 200 thousand b/d higher than last year’s average for mid-June. These barrels are crowding out heavy sour shipments into the Gulf Coast. U.S. imports of Mexican crude are running at 544 thousand b/d (down 230 thousand b/d or 30 percent yoy). PADD 3 crude imports show the lowest growth rate (5.9 percent) among all regions.
Recent media reports have ascribed the pullback in crude prices, at least in part, to the Brexit vote, producer selling, and cautious speculation above the $50 handle. Certainly these factors may be contributing to price. But in our view a more immediate factor seems to be the sharp pullback in gasoline prices on burgeoning supply. Refiner plus blender production of gasoline is now above 10 million b/d on a four-week basis and PADD 4 is running at nearly 99 percent refinery utilization. The cash price for conventional gasoline in New York Harbor reached $1.604 per gallon on June 8, then slumped to $1.401 per gallon as of June 16. Over the same time frame RBOB cash prices in Los Angeles slumped from $1.706 to $1.513, though admittedly that price is showing substantially more day-to-day volatility than elsewhere.
The data show a fairly hefty build in other oils outside of unfinished oils: about 5 million barrels. This may prove to be mere noise, an artifact of reconciling monthly data to weekly estimates. But it has our attention because this category includes asphalt and road oil and so may be signaling a sudden slump in construction demand.
Heartland Reacts to Striking of Fed Frac’ing Rules
A federal court on Tuesday struck down Obama administration regulations aimed at restricting hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas on federal lands. The U.S. District Court judge, Scott Skavdahl, ruled Congress never granted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management authority to regulate frac’ing on federal lands. The following statements from environment and energy policy experts at The Heartland Institute—a free-market think tank—have been reproduced below:
“At last, some sense in the court system. We have been hydraulically fracturing wells since 1947, with more than a million performed to date. Not a single proven case of groundwater pollution has occurred as a result, and it likely never will because of the great drilling depths required, which go well below the shallow aquifers where drinking water supplies come from.
“As a result of poorly illustrated well diagrams, folks think wells make simple right-angle turns, but instead they generally only turn three degrees every 100 vertical feet due to the relatively inflexible steel piping that’s used. So, to turn 90 degrees requires about 3,000 vertical feet, which is well below where drinking water is taken from.
“Hydraulic fracturing poses no threat to our water supply or our surface land from seismic shocks, and it is about time government bureaucrats realize this.”
—Jay Lehr, science director at The Heartland Institute
“While I applaud the ruling and am thankful a federal court decided to uphold Congress’ standing as the solely authorized entity with the power to write laws in the United States, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama administration largely ignores the ruling and hampers existing frac’ing projects on public lands and stalls future ones through executive orders and rules.
“The evidence shows this administration is an avowed enemy of the use of fossil fuels, despite their clear benefits in the form of economic growth, job creation, and energy security.”
—H. Sterling Burnett, research fellow, Environment and Energy Policy at The Heartland Institute; and managing editor, Environment & Climate News
“President Barack Obama’s administration, which appears to comprehend no limits to its scope and authority, just got its knuckles rapped again by a federal judge, and deservedly so. In an instance of poetic justice, this time the person administering the knuckle-rapping was a judge Obama himself appointed.
“Judge Scott Skavdahl was only pointing out the obvious when he ruled Congress never intended to grant federal authority over frac’ing to any other federal agency when it blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from doing so. Each state is free to regulate frac’ing as it sees fit. This has been the case for more than 60 years. Nothing has changed, no matter how much the Obama administration would have liked it to.”
—Tim Benson, policy analyst at The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is a 32-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Ill. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit their website or call (312) 377-4000.
University of Tulsa and Elynx Partner Up
Photo Cutline: eLynx Technologies and The University of Tulsa Artificial Lift Projects have partnered to advance artificial lift and make a smarter oil and gas field. L-R: Dr. Holden Zhang, director of TUALP, and Stephen Jackson, president and CEO of eLynx Technologies
Artificial lift will be pushed to new heights with the recent partnership between eLynx Technologies and the University of Tulsa. ELynx will bring an enormous cache of operational data to the partnership from its more than 16 years of experience monitoring over 37,000 wells in all the major U.S. basins. The data will be analyzed and algorithms will be created to help predict future production patterns.
“Fortunately, our hometown university happens to be one of the best oil and gas research facilities in the world when it comes to oil and gas production, artificial lift, and creating a smart oilfield,” said eLynx president and CEO Stephen Jackson. “We have a vast amount of very good data and we want to put it to work for us with the help of Dr. Holden Zhang, director of TU Artificial Lift Projects (TUALP), and his team.”
ELynx’s partnership sets the stage for a long-standing relationship with the university’s innovative research program to help identify, test, and develop optimization strategies and collect a unique understanding of the data produced. As a member of the consortium, eLynx will have access to its vast experience and knowledge, including an industry-leading modeling program.
“We already provide the best models for oil and gas production design and operation optimizations, but with eLynx we will be able to access a wealth of field data to enhance the models and develop methodologies for potential problem diagnosis,” said Zhang, who also serves as a professor of petroleum engineering at TU. “Utilizing remote well surveillance can provide detailed information about production trends. The sooner we can identify a potential problem, the better production rate and efficiency we can achieve, which will change the practice as we know it.”
ELynx has contracted with Zhang as a consultant, tapping into his immense wealth of knowledge and significant respect within the industry, as he is widely revered as a leader in artificial lift development.
About TUALP:
TUALP is a leading research consortium in developing artificial lift technologies. The overall research directions are guided collectively by the advisory board, consisting of member representatives, and the costs are shared by all participating companies. Since TUALP’s inception in 1983, the team has completed projects on hydraulic jet pumping, gas-lift, gas allocation, sucker-rod pumping, electric submersible pump performances and other topics. All of the technical reports, together with data and supporting computer programs, are available to members. For more information about TUALP and other university research, visit https://utulsa.edu/research/.
About eLynx Technologies:
ELynx Technologies is a forward-thinking data insights and analytics company and is a leader in remote monitoring and field automation services to the oil and gas industry. Since 2000, eLynx has provided real-time data collection, production reporting, and remote monitoring and control for its more-than-400 exploration and production clients. Their web-based and mobile software delivers data to help clients optimize production, develop efficiencies, and reduce operational cost. Headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., eLynx has support offices throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, North Dakota, and West Virginia, covering all major basins in North America. For more information, visit www.elynxtech.com.
USGS Issues New Assessment of Mancos Shale
The Mancos Shale in the Piceance Basin of Colorado contains an estimated mean of 66 trillion cubic feet of shale natural gas, 74 million barrels of shale oil, and 45 million barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an updated assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey. This estimate is for undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.
The previous USGS assessment of the Mancos Shale in the Piceance Basin was completed in 2003 as part of a comprehensive assessment of the greater Uinta-Piceance Province and estimated 1.6 trillion cubic feet of shale natural gas.
“We reassessed the Mancos Shale in the Piceance Basin as part of a broader effort to reassess priority onshore U.S. continuous oil and gas accumulations,” said USGS scientist Sarah Hawkins, lead author of the assessment. “In the last decade, new drilling in the Mancos Shale provided additional geologic data and required a revision of our previous assessment of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil and gas.”
The Mancos Shale is a significant potential source of natural gas. For comparison, the assessed mean resources in the Mancos Shale of the Piceance Basin are the second-largest assessment of potential continuous gas resources that the USGS has ever conducted.
Since the last USGS assessment, more than 2,000 wells were drilled and completed in one or more intervals within the Mancos Shale of the Piceance Basin. In addition, the USGS Energy Resources Program drilled a research well in the southern Piceance Basin that provided significant new geologic and geochemical data that were used to refine the 2003 assessment.
The Mancos Shale is more than 4000 feet thick in the Piceance Basin, and contains intervals that act as the source rock for shale gas and oil, meaning that the petroleum was generated in the formation. Some of the oil and gas migrated out of the source rock and into tight (low permeability) reservoirs within the Mancos, as well as into conventional reservoirs both above and below the formation. Oil and gas also remained in continuous shale gas and shale oil reservoirs within the Mancos.
Tight gas in the younger, shallower parts of the Mancos Shale is produced primarily from vertical and directional wells in which the reservoirs have been hydraulically fractured. Shale oil and gas in the older and deeper intervals of the Mancos Shale are produced mostly from horizontal wells that have been hydraulically fractured.
The Mancos Shale is not the only formation that USGS has reassessed as technology and geologic understanding has advanced. In 2015, USGS released an updated Barnett Shale assessment for Texas; in 2013, USGS released an updated assessment of the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and, in 2011, USGS released an updated assessment of the Marcellus Shale.
USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources of onshore lands and offshore state waters. The USGS Mancos Shale assessment was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol.
The new assessment of the Mancos Shale may be found online. To find out more about USGS energy assessments and other energy research, please visit the USGS Energy Resources Program website.
Global Ammonia Capacity to Rise by 2020
Global ammonia capacity is poised to see considerable growth over the next five years, increasing capacity from 225.3 million tons per annum (mtpa) in 2015 to 271 mtpa by 2020, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData.
The company’s latest report states that the United States and Iran will propel ammonia industry expansion, and will be responsible for a vast quantity of the 80 planned projects slated to come online in the next five years.
The United States has 15 planned ammonia projects adding capacity of about 8.3 mtpa by 2020. Capital expenditure (capex) for these projects totals $3.47 billion over the next five years, and the top two companies accounting for major capacity additions in the country will be CF Industries Holdings, Inc., and Incitec Pivot Limited.
Iran is responsible for 12 planned ammonia projects adding capacity of about 7.4 mtpa by 2018, and its capital expenditure for these projects will be just over $3 billion by 2018. Major capacity additions will be from the National Petrochemical Company in Iran.
GlobalData’s report also states that Asia will see major additions by 2020, led by India and China, which are adding ammonia capacity of about 6.2 mtpa in the next five years, at a cost of $4.07 billion.
In Africa, the majority of capacity additions will be in Nigeria, with planned capacity additions of about 4.2 mtpa in 2017. Capex for these projects will total $1.39 billion by 2017, and Dangote Group is the top company accounting for the major capacity additions in the country.
In terms of European additions, the majority of ammonia capacity additions are in Russia, with planned capacity additions of about 3.5 mtpa by 2018. Capex for these projects totals $2.05 billion by 2018.
In South America, Brazil plans to spend $1.17 billion to add capacity of about 1.7 mtpa, which is expected to come onstream by 2020.
Time to Bring Back “Old School” Service
As the tech industry has exploded over the past couple of decades and millennials have risen to power, companies have innovated wildly to keep up with relentless customer expectations. “Better, faster, easier!” is the battle cry. Oh, and make sure there’s an app for that! It’s no surprise that sleek, streamlined, lightning-paced organizations abound these days. Yes it is what customers wanted—but isn’t there something cold and impersonal about many 21st century transactions?
You’re not imagining it, says Joseph Michelli. Yes, customers still demand the speed and efficiency. But what they really crave is that feeling of an old school company that takes the time to really know them, engage them, and nurture them.
“No matter how high tech your service becomes, you’re still serving human beings,” says Michelli, best-selling author of Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way. “Humans don’t want to feel like a URL or a Twitter handle or even a consumer. We want to feel like we matter. We’ll always choose companies that give us that feeling.”
Michelli—who worked with Mercedes-Benz USA to positively and radically transform its customer experience and who has written books on service giants like Zappos and Starbucks—knows how crucial it is to know your customers and show them how much you care.
“It may seem counterintuitive to ask a 2016 dot-com to bring back “mom and pop,” Main Street values,” he says. “But really, it’s not a conflict. You can provide customized, on-the-spot service and still make people feel like they just had an authentic, deeply personal experience.”
HOW you create this experience will vary depending on who you are, what you’re selling, what your current roadblocks may be. (HINT: You might have culture problems that shape your practices, processes, and priorities in ways that sabotage service.) Yet as you seek to go more “retro” in your service delivery, Michelli suggests you start by knowing the WHYs:
Customers crave a connection to simpler times. Life is so frantic and complicated, due in large part to technology. And people don’t want to get rid of technology, because it lets us attain goods and services quickly and efficiently. But when we need to get on the phone with a person, or when we’re face to face, we want to know we’re talking to a human being who has our interests at heart—not a machine. We long for the days when the shopkeeper would open the store after hours for a customer in need.
“Customers want the organizations that service them to be part Silicon Valley, part Main Street,” says Michelli. “There’s this tension between our age of incredible technology and the retro, connected, heartwarming, Norman Rockwell-y type of customer service people really want, and I think too many companies have gone too far in the space-age direction.
“A culture of compassion and empathy still has to come through in your person-to-person interactions,” he adds. “There really is something about sharing a smile—sharing a moment together—that becomes increasingly important in the cluttered world. We want people to pause and take a moment with us.”
Customers find comfort in “the familiar.” No one likes to spend their valuable time dumping less-than-stellar companies only to start all over again in the search for better ones. People enjoy predictable companies they’re used to and comfortable with—as long as those companies deliver great service. An effort to remind valuable patrons that they are valued goes a long way in ensuring that you retain your customer base.
“I still go to my doctor in Colorado for second opinions—and I live in Florida!” muses Michelli. “I don’t have to tell him a huge backstory, because he’s known me for years. And the fact that he does great work to serve me, as the customer… that’s a big part of it too.”
He suggests you find ways to remind your customer how far back you go and that you strive to foster a lasting relationship. Whether that means logging notes about their particular needs in your database so you can follow up or offering “anniversary” discounts honoring their patronage, you can earn their loyalty and keep them coming back by treating them like they genuinely matter.
Old school service fits with the burgeoning artisanal movement happening now. For many years there’s been a lot of mass-produced junk out there. Customers everywhere are conditioned to expect less thanks to millions of disappointing products coming from across the globe. No wonder we’re in the middle of a full-fledged consumer backlash. More and more, shoppers are choosing products and services that are unique, customized labors of love.
“Look at the craft beer craze that’s everywhere today,” comments Michelli. “For generations in the United States, people drank pilsner—they were conditioned to do that. But now, more and more people are falling in love with the amazing craft beers available, because microbrewers have reclaimed the art of beer making.
“Businesses will delight customers when they pride themselves on their craftsmanship and skill level,” he adds. “There’s something uplifting about watching well-crafted skills and just appreciating that ability. There is an artisanship of service at the Ritz-Carlton. Watching those professionals in action just makes you go, ‘Wow, that’s a lost art!’”
Your service style helps you stand out from the pack. Obviously this is the most compelling reason to adopt an old school approach to service. It will draw customers to you and maybe even keep you alive. There’s so much competition out there today that the way you treat and relate to customers may be the only thing that makes you you.
“You can bring things to market very quickly today,” says Michelli. “Speed and global distribution sometimes make for product ubiquity, so it is all the more critical that you differentiate yourself by putting your customers first and really owning a certain style of old-fashioned service.”
Here’s the bottom line: Even though the times have changed and technology has leapt into the foreground, basic human needs have stayed the same.
“There’s never going to be a time when people say, I don’t really care if you hurt me. I don’t really care if you appreciate me. I don’t really care if I belong. You know, as far as I’m concerned, I just want to buy your stuff,” concludes Michelli. “And I think because of that, we have to anchor ourselves to the timeless truth of humanity, even as we customize the delivery in line with the cultural trends.
“The successful organizations are the ones that really get that,” he adds. “They figure out how to integrate technology but still truly connect to the customer face to face or on the phone. They instill it in their training. Team members learn to make sure customers know that they matter—that they are always heard and appreciated.”
About the Author:
Joseph A. Michelli, PhD, CSP, is an internationally sought-after speaker, organizational consultant, and New York Times number-one best-selling author. He is a globally recognized thought leader in customer experience design. For more information, please visit www.josephmichelli.com.
The Science of Success
By Tracey C. Jones
For many, success is an elusive goal. They feel powerless and resort to blaming their circumstances for the condition of their lives. But success is more scientific than you think. It follows the same universal laws found in natural science. When you look at it this way, you can take concrete steps to ensure you practice the science of success and create an experiment of excellence in your very own life.
The Function of Followership: How engaged are you as a follower? Contrary to popular belief, the job doesn’t make you; you make the job. The more engaged, authentic, and proactive you are, the greater your rewards. Every time you engage in effective followership, you exponentially increase your chances of success.
You may feel that your organization doesn’t value your active followership. This may be true. It takes an authentic leader and a collaborative culture to value active and engaged followers; however, the type of follower you are today determines the type of leader you’ll be tomorrow. They are two sides of the same coin.
The Exposure to Experience: You truly grow under adverse circumstances. Trials are not noble; they are character-building. Pressures forge and solidify our core, and a mind stretched can never go back to its previous form. Remember, a diamond was once a lump of coal, and a pearl was a grain of sand.
The quickest way to success is to cram fifty years of failure into fifteen. An intern once asked a seasoned executive how he became so successful. The executive replied, “Good judgment.” The intern asked how he got good judgment, and the elder replied, “Experience.” The young man then asked, “Well, how do you get experience?” His mentor replied, “Poor Judgment.” Every experience, good, bad, or ugly, adds a key to unlocking a future door. Make sure your key ring is full.
The Momentum of Motivation: Do you feel stuck? The reason could be the Law of Inertia, which states that all objects tend to keep on doing what they’re doing. Each one of us generates our own motivation. This is why people with the same opportunities experience different outcomes. Force equals mass times acceleration; therefore, if you want a greater force to “get you off your mass” you’ve got to apply a higher degree of acceleration. When you dial into your internal cheerleader, you will be a body in motion that stays in perpetual motion.
The added benefit of motivation is that it has a highly transferable quality. Thus, the more of it you generate, the more it multiplies. People also refer to this as “atmosphere.” Atmosphere doesn’t just come out of nowhere; someone has to generate it. You can be a thermometer that merely reflects what’s going on around you, or you can be a thermostat and set the temperature in your organization.
The Vector of Vision: Vision is simply seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Often people fool themselves into thinking vision is some type of mystical prophecy only a genius can see, when in reality the great visionaries are people who took action and got things accomplished when no one else would or could. Vision is what directs your everyday path and decision. Vision also has a moral quality that aligns with your values and convictions. Vision is a constant drip, a directional plumb line that centers everything we do.
Vectored vision is what keeps us on course in life. As a proverb says, “Where there is no vision; the people perish.” So if you want to stay on the path to success, keep your GPS calibrated to your true north.
The Physics of Failure: The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that an effect can never be greater than the cause. The universe tends toward an increasing state of disorder, and that includes you. To defeat the forces of natural chaos, you must implement a series of internal transformations. These include healthier eating, becoming a better thinker, and increasing your positivity. A robust body, mind, and soul are foundational to a successful life.
Many people think that life gets better by chance when, in fact, it only gets better through change. Emerson stated that cause and effect are two sides of the same coin. You cannot create a different outcome, nor even maintain the status quo, without injecting your life with some empowering forces. There’s no smoke without fire. If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got. So if you want to escape the black hole of failure, drill down to that root cause, commence countdown, and launch yourself out.
The Tension of Time: Everything you do is woven into the fabric of time. Existentialists go so far as to say you do not exist in time; you are time. So what are you doing with your life clock? Are you killing time or filling time? Do you have a sense of the potential that each second of life affords you? The pain of grief can stop the clock and freeze you in place, but the pleasure of passion can make the time fly. As Albert Einstein said, “That is the way to learn the most, when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.” When you dial into your passion, the tension of time fades away. We are aware of it, but not stuck in it. Every action looks to the future, but enjoys the here and now. So find what you love, do it, and transcend time.
Obey these laws of success and increase your choices in life. Choices equate to opportunities. Disobedience only leads to diminishing our choices, and diminished choices can lead to a life of regret. So if you want success to be a factor in your life, remember: it’s not luck, chance, or fortune…it’s science!
About The Author
Tracey C. Jones is a U.S. Air Force veteran, entrepreneur, speaker, and publisher. She speaks to audiences across the nation on leadership, accountability, business success, and other topics. Her latest book is Beyond Tremendous: Raising the Bar on Life. To learn more, visit www.TremendousTracey.com.
Team Building: Find the GLUE
By Joe Curcillo
Danny checks his email and finds a message advising him that he is the new team leader for the Alpha project. The email goes on to say, “during your time at this company, we believe you have shown the skills needed for success as a leader.” He immediately hits panic mode because his dream has come true—but he’s not quite sure he is ready to lead.
He has always been successful in completing the tasks assigned and he knows his business like the back of his hand, but he does not know where to begin as the top dog. The process of leading a team is about communication and organization.
Initially, you must determine the course of action based on all that you know about your industry and the project that has been assigned to you. Then, begin by outlining a plan to complete the task with success. When you have completed your outline for the plan of attack—and you can present it with confidence—you are ready to face the team. It is confidence and preparedness that allows them to buy in to you as the team leader.
Once you have amassed and organized the knowledge you possess in your industry, leadership is about finding the glue that binds your team together.
Let’s look at the GLUE.
Gather Team Information
Listen to the Team
Unify the Team
Empower and Execute.
Gather information about the team members and their backgrounds and skill sets. Sometimes, that information is available within the organization. Other times, you are fortunate enough to know your team members. No matter how you acquire the information, learn what you can about what the players have done on other teams or within the company at large. This background information is essential as a basis upon which you will build the infrastructure of your team. Now keep in mind: people change. Therefore, this collected information will be subject to modification and change as you watch the team come together during the life of the project. The initial information should be reviewed and analyzed as often as the project itself.
If the information you are gathering is subjective: consider the source. Depending on who provided the information, it may or may not be accurate. Ultimately, it is in the next phase—as you listen to your team members and learn—that you will begin to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your team in reality.
Listen to their concerns and knowledge to determine their ability to understand and comprehend. As you do so, the several types of players will surface. Listen closely to the comments and thoughts of your team. The way they speak and address the situation at hand will give you great insight into the type of team member they will become.
As each team member speaks or reacts to your plan, you must balance their words and actions against the information that you have gathered about their backgrounds and with the plan that you wish to implement. Team members will all individually bring positive skillsets to the table. Pay attention to those who will be constructive team members and aggressive participants as well as those with initiative who will lead their portion of the project with excitement. You may find that one person is an expert in the subject matter at hand while another is an expert in organization.
As you determine the place in your machine for each of the players, you will want to make sure that you speak to the expertise of the individuals so that they feel that you are speaking directly to them. For instance, when you were speaking of technical elements, you will want to look directly to your technician. On the other hand, while you are mapping out the course of action, you may want to begin with and acknowledge that you recognize a specific individual’s organizational skills, and indicate that you trust them with keeping the task on course. If someone is questioning every action you take, give that person value by letting them know that they are beneficially keeping you on your toes. This will give that person value as your conscience.
Unify them by finding a common thread, or by creating one that they can commit to. Once you have identified the type of team members you are managing, you will want to present the project and the individual tasks in a format that speaks to the specific skillsets of the individual members.
Create unity by making it clear that they are all essential and necessary members of your team. Help them understand that they are working for the common good of the team and the organization, and let them know that their relationship to each other is vital for success. If they can understand how they fit into the big picture—and how the project fits into the big picture of the organization—they will be more likely to feel like a part of the solution.
Empower the team to execute the plan with dedication and passion. Make the path ahead clear. Allow them to understand the stages of development as your project progresses. Give them feedback as you move along the way, and be ready and willing to step in and assist with mediation if conflict or hostility begins. By allowing the team to clearly visualize the direction in which they are embarking, execution will become more fluid and guaranteed. Always keep an open line of communication with all team members in a transparent and open fashion so that you will minimize the risk of competition for control.
With his plan outlined, and with a firm grasp on the team’s dynamics, Danny can walk into the conference room with all the information he could gather. He can now pay attention to the team members and listen carefully so that he can unify and empower them. He has the GLUE to bind his team. He must now put the plan in motion as he fosters the all for one and one for all mindset.
About The Author:
Joe Curcillo, The Mindshark, is a speaker, entertainer, lawyer, and communications expert. As an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law, Mr. Curcillo developed a hands-on course, based on the use of storytelling as a persuasive weapon. He has been a professional entertainer helping corporations and associations improve their communication techniques since 1979. For more information on bringing Joe Curcillo in for your next event, please visit www.TheMindShark.com.