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Monday, May 20, 2013

Comments on CEO Transocean admitting to mistakes related to the tragedy of Deepwater Horizon


In a recent article in the Maritime Explorer, "Transocean Ltd. CEO Steven Newman said the company’s crew on the Deepwater Horizon “should have done more” to prevent the rig’s 2010 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico". http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Transocean-Should-Have-Done-More-Before-Blowout-CEO-Testifies-2013-03-20/

This is indeed a pleasant change and in a way a pioneering effort for which Transocean's CEO needs to be congratulated. The maritime industry, in general, avoids taking blame. There are reasons for that wherein for example P&I clubs do not really pay unless someone is blamed. A bad system will defeat a good person every time” – W. Edwards Deming.  This reminds me of a quote from the Cain Mutiny, which in essence says, “Navy is a master plan devised by the genius for execution by idiots”.  This master plan is the system, which should be so created that there is no need to blame the individual.  Every time the system fails, the management reviews and acts to work on the procedures that comprise the system.  Improve the system enabling better protection of the individual. It is ironic that individuals who are assigned the designing and then implementing of the system often consider it a burden – little realizing that the system approach takes management away from asking, “Who” to asking, “How and Why”.  This results in further development of the system rather than blaming the individual who was simply working within the system.

In this article, however,the CEO talks of both good people and a good system. I agree with the good people bit. In any case if analysis reveals that the employees lacked competence or were negligent it would again point to the system, meaning the weak HR (Human Resources) procedures which hired incompetent personnel. So it is always the system which lets down the organization. So my objection and suggestion to Transocean (for that matter any maritime organization) is not to say that their system too was “wonderful” but to re-look at the system and analyze how the system let down the personnel they selected. I have a quote which I use when I work with organizations as I develop their systems as a consultant and that is “the only bad NC (Non Conformity) is the one you do not know about”. The system therefore should be created with the environment matched to encourage NCs to be reported. After all corrective action and correction are NC driven. And as the NCs collected contribute to the data base increase, they will provide the information which can be analyzed and trends obtained to predict potential NCs. The company becomes a mature organization when it can predict potential NCs before they occur. Potential NCs are data driven. Therefore Transocean needs to work towards that end. So, yes the CEO has indeed taken a very positive step by accepting the deficiencies and will no doubt now look ahead to going back to the Plan stage of the P-D-C-A cycle (Plan Do Check and ACT) and review the system.

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