Sheryl Corrigan, senior vice president of EHS compliance and ethics for Koch Industries, spoke on the challenges of continuous improvement at the Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas Summit.
Sheryl Corrigan, senior vice president of environment health and safety (EHS) compliance and ethics for Koch Industries, said she believes the primary reason business exists is to make people's lives better "in a way that uses fewer resources and provides more value to our customers than their alternatives."
That, Corrigan explained, is where transformation is accentuated.
"To do this well, to meet our customers' expectations and their needs -- the expectations outside our fenceline and our communities and regulators -- we have to recognize that if we're not constantly improving, we're falling behind," said Corrigan. "I think each of us does recognize that, but the hard part is actually turning that recognition into action."
Corrigan readily admitted that change can be difficult, speaking at the Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas Summit held recently in Houston, where she delivered a keynote address on "Operational Excellence: Transformation Inside and Outside the Fenceline."
"Let's be honest," she said. "Change is really scary. What's in it for the employee? Why should they change? It was working fine before."
One reason transformation is not only necessary but also inevitable is due to the rapid pace at which technology is evolving.
"Every instance when I can use technology to do a routine task, my time is free for creative problem solving, which leads us to better performance and results," she said. "By my choice of not using traditional models and moving to the electronic model, I've made a personal commitment to transform in my life."
Corrigan said a priority at Koch Industries is to make the tools available so employees can do creative work that, in turn, excites employees.
"That's really the punchline on transformation. It only works if our folks do it from the bottom up, as well as our leaders from the top down," she said. "The bottom up has to take hold. Folks have to see the value for them in their work life to transform. And once that personal commitment takes hold and those incentives are aligned, it's 'Katy, bar the door.' There's no telling what kind of value can be achieved."
In terms of encouraging employees to embrace transformation, Corrigan stressed that much is at stake.
"We need to do this right," she said. "It's a tremendous opportunity for all of us to get to the next level of performance in operational performance and health and safety by freeing our people through automation and use of technology to apply new vision, strategies and practices toward existing challenges. I think that's hugely exciting."
Investing in transformation
Regarding Koch's investments in business processes and innovation, Corrigan noted leadership is very invested in the notion of transformation, reiterating that "if we're not changing, we're falling behind."
"There's a lot of support from management in providing the resources to drive that investment," she continued, "whether that's infrastructure or different tools."
Corrigan said she believes the greater and harder question that requires focus and attention is "driving that personal transformation of every single one of our workers. It's one thing to provide that infrastructure, but it's a completely different problem to get folks to want to use it and to drive the value creation."
Once people do embrace transformation, she said, they find it actually makes not only their work lives better, but also their personal lives.
"We're really trying to connect those two universes and help people connect to the fact that transformation doesn't mean you're going to lose your job," she said. "It means you get to do something that's cooler and, hopefully, more fulfilling."
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