So, if you are part of the elite club of what they call the “global leadership forum and plus ones”………you heard RB - the new incoming CTC President - answer a question that was revealing about this clown’s attitude and lack of self awareness. We in the business units are getting hammered to hold our opex flat, while at the same time the costs from CTC and other central staff functions are going up - the businesses are getting increased allocations and told to absorb that by cutting within their own opex. So this comes up in the forum and RB basically told the person that they were “asking the wrong question” and that they should rather “think about the value” of the service they are getting for those allocated costs. I love when we see these types of clowns put their feet in their mouth as they get promoted way beyond their capabilities. Blame MW as he forces this by promoting folks not ready as he fills his aspirational diversity targets. RB was dismissive in his response and demonstrated a lack of self awareness in his egotistical response. At best, he showed a lack of empathy given who is getting squeezed with this flawed approach of pushing increasing corp allocations and center costs onto the businesses and telling them to make up for the costs by squeezing those who have to deliver the plan. While I wasn’t in the meeting, my supervisor shared this with us confidentially and I’ve heard now from multiple directions the BUZZ around RB’s poor approach to answering the question. Well, it just reminded me of JG in the new energy business……more of the same…….
16 replies (most recent on top)
"PHD at the center"....in my experience ,with a few exception,now all retired, PHD's have no practical or cost effective solutions to any of the BU problems. Thier only advice is always a science project solution. Of course if as a BU engineer you accept the center advice the PHD is not responsible for the outcome, you are. The center only offer advice , try going back to them when thier advice does not provide a suitable solution.
PHD' s want to do research don't let yourself or your BU become the guinea-pig.
Take out the forced BU support of CTC, and CTC would be closed in a year. There is nothing even remotely cost-competitive in CTC's costs, largely due to the massive managerial overhead. Siphon off the few productive CTC people and place them in the BUs.
No @daz, that BK is Burger King. 🍔🍟
How did BK come up so quickly? He speaks well but that’s about it, right?
BK is the new CTC pres; RB initials was a typo by original poster - but yes, the info provided in the original post is correct for both the way he answered the question and in how center costs continue to go up and are pushed on BUs to cut internally to offset increases. It is almost embarrassing to see our executives taking this approach and to think that they must take us all for fools. MW talks a lot about “servant leadership”……..yep, really serving us well man…….
RB as in MCBUs’s RB?
I’m a PHD at the center supporting the sorry a-s BU engineers who can’t use Excel. Fire them all and let us take over the wells. We will have 1MM bopd from Permian in a year
The centre folks should be made compete with other engineering companies for BU business let them prove thier value.
The days when the centre had true world class engineers who added value have long gone. The real experts, with a very few exceptions, walked away in 2016 and 2020.
Most of the centre engineers only believe thier brilliant because they are in the centre nit from provem abilities
I have never dealt with RB, I am not sure why this person is disliked.
RB has been a "clown" (opportunist, ill-equipped and over-hyped, famous for being famous) for a long time now. Archetypal Chevron high-pot.
Central allocations have always been and will always be a sticking point with BUs. The reduction in the number of BUs increased per-BU allocations, leading to huge shrieks from BUs and the large CTC staff and budget cuts of 2020.
CTC's rates haven't been competitive with third party engineering for quite some time now. A bloated structure with managers and chapter leads is the "root cause" for the BU's dissatisfaction. The "value" b.s. has gone on long enough, a reckoning is overdue!
Think you got the initials wrong. New CTC Pres is BK.
RB = Real Be-atch (wait…. you’ll see).
The company is much better if there is no CTC
Who the heck is RB?