Our Expertise

“That is the dumbest f . . . ing thing I have ever heard.”

This was the highest stakes meeting of my then brief consulting career. I had been working for two months with my small team on Dome College—a pet project of Dome Petroleum’s President—and had heard through the grapevine that the President expected a much different implementation than we had designed.

Dome College was intended to transform how Dome Petroleum carried out its exploration and production business, building a long-lasting competitive advantage if we got it right. In Phase One we were going to hire 30 young high performing MBA’s and Economics grads from outside the oil and gas industry and train them in industry-specific versions of topics like oil and gas law, geology, and negotiations. Once graduated from Dome College these people would be set to work in the 80-person Petroleum Land Department. It was expected that the new people’s ideas and skills would professionalize the department and shift the way the petroleum land industry worked in Canada.

My team and I were embedded in the Land Department during the design stage and were given access to Dome’s finest technical people. We worked out the curriculum, hiring criteria and other details of Phase One with these technical people and the Land Department’s two Vice Presidents. In brief, we were going to hire and train 10 people every six months so that they could be given meaningful work in the 80-person Land Department as soon as their training was completed. It was thought impractical to take on all 30 people at one time.

Just as we were about to start the Phase One roll out, I began to hear reports of the President talking with great excitement about a much different Phase One than what we had planned. I pressured the Senior VP to set up a meeting with the President so we could explain our plan and its rationale.

It took one call, and we went straight up to the President’s office. The VP introduced me to the President and said, “I’ll let George explain what we are doing.” The VP then left to go to the presidential washroom.

The VP rejoined us just as I wrapped up my presentation only to hear the President say, “That is the dumbest F . . . .ing thing I have ever heard!” There was a small pause and then the VP said, “Yes, I agree.”

What would you do now?

“The head office managers in this department are racist and sexist”

I had agreed to facilitate the fifth annual strategy and planning meeting for a federal government department, partly because of the location—a lovely sounding lodge on a lake outside of Yellowknife. The prior year’s meeting had been held at a fly-in lodge, but this meeting was also in a lovely spot.

The client had its head office in Yellowknife and branch offices in eight remote communities. The full group only got together once per year due to the challenge and expense of travel from the remote communities. The meeting process and format was pretty much set: the group, consisting of the four head office managers and the eight remote community managers, would confirm its workplan for the year, update its strategic plan and do some team building at the same time.

We had worked out the agenda and logistics three weeks prior to the meeting via email and I was feeling very relaxed until I had a quick phone call with the meeting organizer to confirm details. As the call was wrapping up, the meeting organizer said,

“The reason we hired you is that there was an incident at the last meeting. Just as we were wrapping up, two female Indigenous managers from remote regional offices stood up in front of the group and said, “The head office managers in this department are racist and sexist.” We couldn’t hear many details at the time because the two presenters started crying. And then, we all had to leave because the float plane arrived to take us out. We have not talked about this incident as a group since.”

What would you do now?

“So, you are here to teach me about my culture?”

I was contracted to facilitate a two-day strategy and planning meeting for the Northwest Territories Aboriginal Management Board (AMB). The meeting was held outside of Yellowknife, and I arrived one day early so that I could observe a day of the formal AMB board meeting and build rapport with the members.

The AMB allocated federal dollars for education and adult education throughout Northwest Territories, prior to the establishment of Nunavut. It consisted of 14 Regional Chiefs, half from the Eastern NWT, half from Western NWT. Everyone had travelled a long distance, but the Eastern Chiefs had to fly south to Montreal, and then to Yellowknife via Calgary.

The formal board meeting was unlike anything I had ever seen. The session was very formal, following a version of Robert’s Rules of Order. Tables were set in a square, each Chief had a microphone and wore headphones because the proceedings were being recorded and had simultaneous translation into 12 languages. Each Chief had three advisors sitting behind him, and often there would be side conversations with the advisors prior to a statement by the Chief.

The AMB accepted development funds from the federal government, allocated these funds to regions within the NWT and identified priorities for spending in the upcoming fiscal year. They also reported on expenditures in the prior year, identifying success and key problems that were encountered.

At the start of the day, I was introduced to the group and identified as the facilitator of the upcoming strategic planning session. During the first break in the formal meeting one of the Regional Chiefs approached me, shook my hand, and asked (or asserted) in a forceful manner, “So, you are here to teach me about my culture?”

What would you do now?

“The Board reduced my bonus by 40%!”

My client, CEO of a key social services agency, had had a tough year. Government funding priorities had shifted, trust with partner agencies had frayed, front-line staff were under enormous pressure and a radical strategic shift was required by her organization. There had been a lot of very hard work and tough decisions but now all those issues had been resolved in a positive way and everyone in the sector was looking forward to a much better year.

As the year was ending the CEO and I met with the Board Chair and three key board members to re-set objectives for the Executive Coaching work I was doing with the CEO. During that meeting each of the board members had effusive praise for the CEO’s accomplishments during the year and we were all aligned on objectives for the coaching project. The Chair stated that the biggest risk the organization faced that year was that the CEO would leave.

So, I was very much taken aback at my next coaching meeting when I was greeted by a steaming-mad CEO waving a performance appraisal just received via email, asking, “Do you think this is fair?”

When I looked at the first three pages of the document all I could see was summary of performance on CEO / organizational objectives with each performance measure rated Exceptional. Each rating was accompanied by comments from key stakeholders giving examples of how that aspect of performance contributed to their work and their community impact. I asked, “What is unfair about this?”

The CEO replied, “They cut my bonus payout by 40%!” And sure enough, even though performance on all key indicators but one was rated at the top level the Board decided to pay out 60% of the bonus.

This is not a person whose feathers are easily ruffled, nor was the dollar amount of the bonus going to make a substantial impact. But as we talked about the unfairness of the situation, I could feel the passion for and commitment to the organization slipping away.

What would you do now?

“I just fired our President.”

The leadership team of our high-flying IT client invested a ton of time and energy to get things set for their first offsite strategy session. Our client had hit the ground running with a business model focused on supporting the introduction of personal computers into corporations and their business doubled year over year over year. They had not had the opportunity to step aside from the day-to-day work and build a strategy that could keep up with its growth rate.

The Level 2 leadership team, the General Manager and their direct reports, did the bulk of the preparation work as the intent was to broaden ownership of strategy to include this level. Key leaders at this level prepared presentations on aspects of the strategy and each of these presentations had a dry run prior to the meeting. The agenda and strategy process were critiqued and upgraded several times as we were also building a template for subsequent yearly meetings.

On the morning prior to the strategy retreat I had a quick meeting with the core meeting planners—we all felt confident that we had a good plan, that we knew our roles and that the full team would be excited and engaged by absorbing the information and building a strategic plan that could channel the chaotic energies of rapid growth.

My comfort was dashed later that evening with a surprise call from the CEO, who said he thought I should know that he had just fired the President. The President, who had hired most of the meeting participants, was still going to attend the strategy meeting, and then would leave the company and move to Vancouver Island. The meeting participants would learn this news after they arrived at the offsite location.

What would you do now?

“We can’t share our confidential information with our internal partners.”

We were contracted to strengthen commercial collaboration between two joint venture partner organizations operating under a common brand in the Canadian natural gas market. Company A was American owned, specialized in sophisticated natural gas marketing and trading that was able to produce unique value for producers, for a fee. Company B was Canadian owned, specialized in mid-stream natural gas gathering systems and gas plants, in some instances owning the gas and sometimes providing service for a fee.

Both companies saw enormous synergy potential where they could lower risk and add much greater value to all stakeholders in a way that was very difficult to reproduce in the Canadian market. But after two years promoting their joint brand and with offices on adjoining floors, they had not done a single project of substance together. All the key people in both Company A and B said synergy was well within reach and were pretty sure it would produce a gold mine.

We designed a three-day intensive off-site retreat for the senior leaders and key technical staff from both Company A and B to explore collaboration on key projects, identify unique value propositions and reduce barriers to joint success. At the end of the session, we expected to have two or three viable collaborative projects to implement.

In preparation for the session, Company A and B each identified four high potential opportunities, preferably ones under active discussion with potential clients. They then developed a three-page case study overview for each of these opportunities and submitted them to us for review and to assemble into a package for each participant. It was clear to us as outsiders that there was a very strong likelihood of developing a unique competitive advantage in this market.

We had engaged a joint venture consulting guru from the UK to co-facilitate the planning retreat that was scheduled Wednesday – Friday. Early Monday morning, with our UK consultant in the air en route to Calgary, the CEO of Company A called to say that they could not share their case studies with Company B, because of their “commercial sensitivity.” Put another way, Company A was completely willing to share this confidential information with consultants they barely knew and was completely unwilling to share this same information with their corporate joint-venture partners.

What would you do now?

“Everything that got me here will now be a problem for me.”

In 1991 a mid-sized Canadian oil and gas company embarked on a radical restructuring in a quest to increase profitability. This company did it right—it started at the top, reducing the senior leadership team by 40%; and then it reduced the number of supervisors in Operations and Administration.

Once the rightsizing was done it contracted with Fall Line Systems to help implement a team-based system throughout the company. Each team was multi-disciplinary, and the Operations teams had full accountability for production, developmental drilling, and business operations in its geographic area. We provided training on team decision making and problem solving for each team and acted as transition coaches for the team leaders. The Executive Leadership Team of Operations insisted they be part of the team training as well because the team-based structure was new to everyone, and the leaders were committed to the success of the new structure.

The teams lifted off very quickly. There was a high level of commitment, strong engagement, fast decision making and a remarkable level of innovation. Field operations were improving month-to-month and there seemed to be a clear path forward to increased profitability.

About two months into the team-based implementation the VP Operations called me into his office and said, “This is all going way better than I anticipated. I am very excited. However, it is now clear to me that everything that got me here will now be a problem for me.”

What would you do now?

“I don’t trust them either.”

We were contracted by the Board of a Calgary-based junior oil and gas company to help the leadership team work its way through a series of conflicts. The board was concerned that the team was no longer able to pull together and because of this the company was falling behind on meeting key production milestones.

The production milestones mattered a lot, because in the junior oil business stock valuations take a significant jump when production hits 5,000 barrels per day, then a much bigger leap at 10,000 barrels. The leadership team and board members all had been paid primarily in shares that were worth little until the 5,000-barrel milestone was achieved, and the shares were likely to be worth a bundle at the 10,000-barrel milestone.

It was not just money that was at stake for the leadership team. This was their first time building a company, so they were also building credibility with bankers, investors, regulators, and potential deal partners. The leadership team should also have been building credibility with the board, which had a couple of all-star company builders, but that was being strained by the missed deadlines.

We interviewed each leadership team member separately to uncover the roots of the conflict and the slow rate of business progress. There were lots of issues that had damaged both performance and trust. Everyone thought things would work better if someone else left the team, but everyone also thought this solution was impractical because the company needed the current mix of skills.

When we brought the leadership team together, they agreed, with some regret, that they could put up with each other at least until they hit the first milestone of 5,000 barrels. They would need some help to build trust, reestablish accountabilities and debrief issues in a healthy way but were willing to give it a try. They also agreed, with more enthusiasm, that they would put together for board review a new strategic plan outlining specific actions and timelines for achieving the 5,000-barrel objective.

My consulting partner and I then set up a special meeting of the board to outline what we had heard and to quantify the support it was going to take to help the team be successful. We recommended the board took this one thing at a time to see if the team could meet its commitments. The first action would be a review of the new strategic and business plan.

While the board members were discussing various dates for the strategy presentation the Board Chair spoke up saying, “Wait a minute. I don’t care what these people say to me. I don’t trust that they will tell us the truth about their actual business plan. I think they are hiding some of the properties in the hope that they can buy them up cheap once they start up a new company after we sell this company.”

After some heated discussion we did a poll—there was not a single board member that felt they could trust what the executive team told them in any meeting to discuss strategy or operations.

What would you do now?

“Oh, that was only a contractor who got hurt.”

The plant turnaround at our client’s largest gas plant had not gone well. In fact, people in the three groups most involved in the turnaround, maintenance, engineering, and operations, were so stirred up that we were brought in to lead a non-traditional project debriefing. The turnaround finished late and over budget, there had been one serious injury and several near misses. People were angry and pointing fingers and this was affecting ongoing operations at the plant.

Plant turnarounds are major events for gas plants and refineries. The plant, which normally runs 24 hours a day, is shut down so that major maintenance can be done safely. These turnarounds are a huge expense as the plant produces no product during the shutdown, and specialist contractors swell the staff on site by 100% or more. Meticulous planning is done for months prior to ensure the work is done on time, on budget and safely.

By the time we got involved the plant was back up running normally. The maintenance work had been completed during the turnover, the inevitable surprises had been addressed and rectified, engineering deficiencies and safety hazards had been identified and corrected. The machinery and processes in the plant were working well but the people were still pointing fingers at other departments and not working together effectively.

We did data gathering in separate groups, first with engineering, then operations, and then maintenance. Everyone felt their group had pulled a terrible mess out of the fire. People said things like, “Policies and procedures are not in place. The ones we have we don’t follow;” “We didn’t know who was running the thing;” “I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone got hurt;” “We have to take this facility seriously or not run it.” Several people said the turnaround scope never would have fit into the planned time and budget if everything had gone perfectly.

Once I completed the departmental interviews, I met with the Plant Manager. He confirmed much of what I had heard already but stressed that it was not as bad as it sounded. After all the work had got done and the plant was up and running well. When we talked about the near misses and the one serious injury, requiring a helicopter medivac, I asked about the sign at the plant entrance declaring proudly, “4661 days without a lost time accident.” The plant manager said, “Oh, that was just a contractor who got hurt.”

What would you do now?

“The last time we held a meeting like this they fired the people who spoke up.”

The founding partners in one of Canada’s leading architectural firms were nearing retirement age and so they were putting the pieces together for a smooth transition to a new set of partners formed from current key staff. They had a very successful business, a stable of solid clients and a team of architects with huge potential.

The partners contracted with Fall Line Systems to work with them and the potential new partners to produce a statement of the firm’s Vision and Values. They hoped this could partially capture the firm’s ‘special sauce’ and act as a guide while the new leadership team got its legs.

There were 14 participants in this process, including the founding partners. I first met individually with each participant to dig into their views of the firm’s ‘special sauce’ and to hear their sense of the values they needed to preserve and the vision the firm needed to build toward in the next 10 years. People were seriously engaged in these conversations, as they were deeply proud of the firm’s work and committed to extending its legacy in this new phase.

This is not to mean that the firm’s leaders were blind to issues that needed to be addressed. Everyone seemed clear-eyed about the values that were stated but not always translated into behaviour. The prospective partners were especially keen on building stronger alignment between intended values and behaviour.

There was a good feeling of momentum on the morning we gathered for the first full team meeting on Vision / Values. This was dashed a bit as the founding partners were all late, delayed by an important client meeting. As the rest of us sat around making small talk and drinking coffee, one of the key prospective partners said to me, in front of the group, “I don’t think I will contribute much today. The last time we had a similar meeting they fired the people who spoke up the most.” Others nodded their heads and said they too would be cautious.

What would you do now?

“Now we have to define ‘zero’.”

We were one of the facilitators working for a national consultation set up to provide direction to the federal government on pressing environmental issues that needed to be addressed over next 10 years. Our Western Regional meeting had roughly 120 scientists representing industry, government, academics, environmental non-government organizations (ENGO’s) and interested citizens addressing eight broad subject areas.

I was assigned to facilitate a multi-sector group that was to identify 10-15 chemical substances so dangerous that the government should require zero release into the environment from any industrial process in Canada. This seemed to me to be a daunting task to accomplish with a group whose interests were in competition.

The discussion did start out slowly and cautiously but every one of the 16 scientists in our group made it clear that the question we were answering was fair and important—there are chemicals so hazardous they should never be released into the environment. Once this hurdle was passed people just focused on the task. First, we identified 20 hyper-dangerous chemicals; then we prioritized these by their longevity and harm. Within two hours we had a list of the 10 substances that absolutely must have zero release and the next 10 most hazardous, in order of priority.

We took a break at this time, and everyone was pleased and surprised at the strong consensus, the quality of thinking and the lack of animosity as we moved to our conclusions.

When we got back from our break the mood seemed very light. It seemed our remaining tasks were to summarize our findings and discuss how we would communicate them to the full group. However, the mood darkened considerably when one of the industry scientists said, “Hold on. We are not done yet. Now we must define what we mean by zero.”

What would you do now?

“The new OS will never see the light of day”

In March 1987 I taught a series of courses on Internal Consulting Skills to the Software Research and Development Department of ‘BX Corporation’, then the 3^rd largest mainframe computer company in the U.S. These courses were part of BX’s post-merger integration efforts after buying ‘SX Corporation’ for $4.8 billion in the largest merger in the U.S. computer industry up to that time.

On the third night of the first course (each course was five days long), the CEO of the newly merged firm hosted a dinner for our group plus all the senior managers in their department. After a fine meal, the CEO explained the logic of the merger—the new firm, now called ‘UX’, would be able to out-compete IBM for years once the firm was able to integrate BX’s next generation operating system with SX’s revolutionary mainframe called ‘Uni.’

The CEO emphasized that BX’s operating systems were the crown jewels of both the old and new corporations, and he thanked my class participants and their department for their brilliant work. He also pointed out several times that the success of the merged company was dependent on timely delivery of the Uni version of the new operating system by the end of the year. The CEO concluded by thanking everyone for their hard work and reminded them how important it was to release the new OS prior to year end. Then the CEO and VP’s left, and dessert was served.

Once the executives left the room, the talk turned to nostalgia for BX and a real sense of loss associated with the adoption of the UX name. The corporate historians at our table pointed out that BX had been formed in 1886 to produce adding machines. Its first machine, the hand cranked P100 could only add. Three years later the P200 could both add and subtract. Out of that foundation the firm became the largest adding machine company and then the producer of a series of technologically ground-breaking computers. Their computers were the backbone of the banking industry in the U.S.

Everyone in the room then raised a toast to BX. After this, one of the more senior engineers said loud enough to be heard by all, “You know George, we will not deliver that operating system on time. It will be at least one year late.” Then he did a poll of our 20 course participants, many of whom were writing the new OS. The consensus was summed up by one of the senior software engineers who said, “The new Uni OS will never see the light of day.”

What would you do now?

“But he never comes into my office!”

It seemed to all of us that we were coming to the end of a long road, ready to start an exciting new phase of work. Our client, a conservative slow moving energy firm, had set up a non-regulated subsidiary three years earlier charged with starting the transformation of the energy business in the local area. It was hoped that this work would also bring more entrepreneurial practices into the mother corporation.

The new subsidiary’s strategy had now matured to the point that serious investment decisions needed to be made. Their plan required investments in the range of $1.5 -$3.0 billion over the upcoming four years—a very big bite for a mother corporation with $5 billion of assets. Initial investments were to begin within six months, ramping up over the four years period if the initial steps were successful.

Our client, whose parent organization had about $5 billion of assets, was actively planning investments in the range of $1.5 billion to $4 billion in the upcoming three years to build infrastructure to service natural gas production from a newly developed offshore gas field. This was a new area of business for the client, and we had assembled a strategy advisory board of experts in the natural gas business that worked with the client for about three years to help them understand both the risks and rewards of these proposed projects.

We were facilitating a meeting of the mother corporation’s executive team, all of whom had been deeply involved in reviewing and editing the investment strategy. The meeting’s purpose was to again review the investment strategy, review the plan for financing the investments and outline the effect these investments would have on the parent’s cash flow, balance sheet and credit rating.

The engagement level and questioning were intense as everyone was aware of the potential for transforming both the company and its geographic region. Everyone was also aware of the risks involved. After two hours we took a break. There was a real sense of excitement and energy in the room.

After the break the group honed into the details of the first two planned investment projects. These were small in scope and were considered low risk, but their progress had stalled. As we dug into them it became clear that they had stalled because the new subsidiary’s Executive VP and the mother corporation’s CFO were using different methods for assessing return and risk even though they had agreed on a common approach many months earlier.

The most senior of the Vice Presidents in the meeting turned to the two executives and asked in a frustrated manner, “Why have you two not sorted this out prior to now?” It turns out these two hadn’t talked about this issue for six weeks. When asked why, the CFO responded, “But he never comes into my office!” After an audible gasp, the group’s attention turned to the Executive VP of the subsidiary who said, “Well, he never comes into my office either!”

What would you do now?

“Would it be good for your career if you came to work for me?”

It was 1983, and my career arc had stalled out. I had just completed my first year as ‘Dean of Dome College’ and was waiting for a corporate decision to fund a second year. The first cohort of Dome College grads had completed their term with rave reviews about the quality of their education and Dome Petroleum’s executive team were excited about this initiative. However, Dome was suffering severe financial problems, so all initiatives directed toward growth were being tightly scrutinized.

In the interim I was being given make-work jobs in the Human Resources Department. Initially this was a relief after the intense work keeping Dome College functioning, but I did want to get back into doing some form of interesting work.

Out of the blue I received a call from the Drilling VP of Dome’s offshore drilling company, Canmar. I had done some consulting to Canmar, helping implement its new drill crew training program prior to starting up Dome College as an employee. The VP said, “I am really stuck. I have just fired our Training Manager and our drilling season is about to begin. We have no one here who understands the drill crew training program. Would it be good for your career if you came to work for me for a year?” I said I would help all I can, but I wasn’t sure if this was a good long-term solution. The VP and I agreed he would call my boss in HR to see what they could work out.

I never heard a single word from my HR bosses about the Canmar offer. After a week I asked my direct supervisor to check out what was going on. He came back to my office a day later and said the HR bosses had discussed the offer and were not going to tell me about it as they did not want to lose me on their head count.

What would you do now?