Welcome to the March issue of Business & Industry Connection (BIC). I know many of you are either in the beginning of a scheduled spring turnaround or somewhere in the process of a major construction or expansion project. Thanks for using BIC to collect your industry updates and news about events and suppliers in your area. 

Spring is one of the busiest times of the year for our staff as well. Many industry associations in which we have memberships and cover for the publication go on hiatus in the winter and start meetings and activities in earnest in the spring. The same goes for many of the working committees on which our staff participates. In addition to this, BIC is scheduled to participate in more than a dozen conferences and trade shows in the next couple of months, keeping our ear to the ground to bring you the most relevant and topical industry news. All of this is coupled with an unrelenting production schedule and a recent burst of activity for our sister company, IVS Investment Banking. With all of this activity, I must also consider my loving wife and three school-aged kids who have competing and precedent time requirements of their own.  

A major concern for me as a manager — which is probably a concern for many of you as managers of your own time, opportunities, workload and family — is how am I going to do what I need to when there are so many opportunities now with more unknowns coming down the pike? 

I believe the answer is in positioning. It is the essential intermediate step in executing a complex plan when variables are involved. 

In recent From The Publisher articles, I have written about goal setting and later about planning and specifically the role of left and right brain thinking in a holistic planning process. When you don’t know exactly what the future holds for a specific event, your goal becomes the position you need to be in to make the best of the multitude of event outcomes. Those outcomes may be weighted by likelihood in determining the desired position to address said outcomes. 

To use a sports analogy, a defensive back in football will not know the route a receiver will run, or even if the offense will execute a rush or a pass attempt. There is no simple plan to address what the defensive back must do prior the snap of the ball.    But he and the coaches can analyze the down and distance, the tendencies of the opposing team and the formation of the offense to put the defensive back in the appropriate position to have the best chance to make a play to help his team. 

In this analogy, poor positioning of the defensive back does not reflect on his speed or strength required to make the play, nor does it reflect on his effort, nor his desire or heart to do the right thing. Likewise, proper positioning, while a necessary element of success, does not guarantee success on every play. 

We as a country must position ourselves for the future of energy. Uncertainty in the U.S. energy market includes the peak oil theory; actions of foreign governments; third world development; our domestic economic growth; work force development; new, emerging technologies and many other factors. The future may be uncertain, but we can position ourselves to have the best chance of success.

I recently had a chance to meet with Lane Sloan, former CEO of Shell Chemical and the chairman of the Energy Collaborative of the Greater Houston Partnership. I am proud of the work he and others are doing in research, commercialization, work force development and strategy to properly position Houston and the United States for a secure energy future. BIC has made a commitment to help with the marketing and communication needs of this deliberate positioning effort.

Business marketing itself is all about positioning for success. One is never sure what exact business opportunity may arise or dissipate. You can’t be everywhere at once. Marketing is about putting yourself in a position to take the best advantage of the most opportunities possible. At BIC, our core businesses are positioning our readers for success on and off the job by providing timely, relevant information and positioning our alliance members to have the best chance of leveraging the maximum number of opportunities.

Personal positioning is just as critical if not more than other positional priorities.  No amount of success at work can make up for a failure at home. There are always plenty of unknowns that can arise in our personal lives — an accident; an unforeseen job change; actions of our spouse, children and parents; a death in the family; unexpected consequences we bear for others’ mistakes, etc. It is human nature to want to feel in control of our situation, but life’s experiences ultimately will bear out that we are not in control of the situation. If anything, our situations are more out of control, and we are just living in them.     

Proper personal positioning involves being in a place where you can handle all of the many unknowns that life can throw at you, but knowing that you are not in control of what is happening. Going back to the sports analogy, note that the defensive back is never in control of what is happening around him. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can keep ourselves aware and informed and control our attitude and reactions.  

I, and others, have found that proper attitude and reactions to life’s unforeseen and out-of-control events emanate from a peaceful relationship with God. I like to believe that someone or something has to be in control of all that is going on, and that when things seem unfair or not right, it will be made right in due time. Positioning one’s self under a greater authority takes some pressure off and allows you to be more effective at home and at work.

This issue of BIC features a number of executives focused on positioning their own companies for success. Paul Barletta and his company — Hexion Specialty Chemicals — are busy preparing for the acquisition of Huntsman Corp., while Guy Tenini, site manager of DuPont’s Pontchartain Works facility, is focused on the safety of his team and the environment. Bob Chen shares his inspirational journey from a position at General Electric to president and CEO of his own company — RAE Systems.

Also included in this issue is insight into new regulations for industry, including the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and OSHA’s employer-paid PPE rule. Industry training managers outline best practices and challenges in BIC’s Training Roundtable. And Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers President Pierre Alvarez discusses technology as the key to the future of oil sands.

Until next time, we hope you and those around you enjoy this issue of BIC, and we hope that you will share this copy of the publication. If you are unable to share a hard copy of BIC, you can refer your friends and colleagues to www.bic
magazine.com, where BIC magazine can be read in its entirety online.

To contact Thomas, you can e-mail him at tbrinsko@bicalliance.com.