Articles & Insights

Having just returned from a bit of an extended holiday weekend in which I was blissfully oblivious of anything work-related, I invariably came back to a mountain of emails in my inbox.  This is not really an atypical occurrence for me as email seems to have become the preferred mode of...

If you're in the Baby Boomer generation like me you remember the Billy Joel song where he sang "Honesty Is Such a Lonely Word... " In the dictionary, honesty is defined as truthfulness and fairness, not cheating and stealing, yet in the workplace honesty does not just concern lying, stealing or...

Valentine's Day (or the Feast of St. Valentine) has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages when the tradition of courtly love flourished in 18th century England and is still celebrated today in various ways all around the world.  So with all the love floating around out...

I was recently interviewed by one of the nation's leading energy magazines and asked my thoughts about the biggest challenges facing the downstream industry in terms of employment for 2015.  My answer was echoed in this article by Dorothy Davis Ballard Entitled "Your New Year's Resolution: Bring...

In keeping with our annual tradition of our December newsletter addition being more "in the holiday spirit", I thought I'd share some excerpts from a poll that was taken for "About.com" by Susan Heathfield, a management and organizational development consultant who specializes in HR issues.  She...

It's that time of the year where there's a definite nip in the air, orange and red leaves cover the ground, and the smell of pumpkin pie and turkey are imminently around the corner.  So it's appropriate that our thoughts turn to Thanksgiving and all that we have to be grateful for.  This article...

An article entitled "Can Oil Refineries Fix Stupid? - Improve refinery safety performance by establishing the proper leadership culture" by Steve Pagani that appeared in the e-newsletter "RefinerLink" on 9/7/14 (http://www.refinerlink.com/blog/Can_Oil_Refineries_Fix_Stupid) really struck a chord...

I'm sure that your lives, like mine, revolve around "keeping an eye on the time."  Whether for personal or professional obligations, we can't get away from our time obligations and the need to stay on schedule for fear of turning our whole day upside down.  And yet it continuously amazes me (and...

If you are good at what you do on the job ... if you are a conscientious, committed professional ... two things will be true: (1) you'll get more to do, and (2) you'll want to do it all well. That's when the vicious cycle kicks into action.   A few projects turn into many, with demands that...

Hearing the announcers at the World Cup in Brazil comment on the heat and humidity, "much like Houston, Texas" it reminded me that not everyone is prepared to deal with 90+ degree temps and 80+% humidity.  For Houstonians like me, this is the summer norm.  We laugh when others talk about seasons...

In the last two or three weeks, I've had conversations with three different people who have opted for stand-up desks or other rearrangements of their work environment, and it occurred to me that this is becoming quite the rage. So it came as no surprise to have just seen this article by Whitson...