Believe it or not, you can learn a lot from reality television.
It’s true: while “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” will always be utter trash, I’ve found there are certain shows out there that can teach you to look at your own industry with a more critical, inquisitive eye.
This is important, because if you’re reading this and are already a part of the oil & gas industry, you no doubt know how crucial it is to keep your technical skills sharp, but you may not realize how critical it is to understand the underlying fundamentals of the business.
Think about this: just because you know HOW to extract hydrocarbons, does that mean you SHOULD? What if the cost of production is higher than the cost of sale? What if there is no room in storage for more hydrocarbons? What if your organization can’t scale up in such a fashion to do this extraction economically?
These issues are not unique to the oil & gas industry, and the more you become comfortable with the concepts and are able to recognize these issues, the better position you put yourself in to do something about them and (hopefully) be noticed by your colleagues higher up the management ladder.
So, back to the part where I said watching reality tv can actually be good for your career development.
My two favorite shows for this purpose are Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” (the UK version, available on Netflix…the US version is awful) and Jon Taffer’s “Bar Rescue”.
I’ve watched many episodes of each – and I can watch the repeats nearly endlessly – and the list of issues faced by restaurant and bar owners can include any (or all!) of the following:
- Not focusing on a “core competency”
- No knowledge of their sales: what sells the most? the least?
- No knowledge of input costs, so no way of calculating margins, which indicate which items to push or drop from menus
- Inventory control is poor, so some owners don’t notice employees stealing from them, or don’t notice that all the food they buy goes unused and rots
- Not knowing who their customers are
- Not listening to customer feedback
- Trying to scale up the business too quickly
- Lack of proper marketing
- Misunderstanding/ignoring/underestimating the competitive landscape
- Lack of clear management structure, or poor management generally, means decisions never get made, and teams are always in disarray
What’s the common thread here?
Not once did the need to cook well or mix a cocktail come up!
These problems are faced every day by businesses all over the world.
In fact, each show follows exactly the template of a consulting project: doing an initial assessment of the current situation, diagnosing the problem, proposing corrective action and then executing on the strategy.
Isn’t that what you do also in your jobs when presented with a problem?
Of course, if the process were so simple anyone could do it, not to mention it would make for pretty boring television, so the aspect you cannot neglect is the “human” one.
Indeed, I always find really interesting the utter denial of each bar or restaurant owner that anything is wrong with their business, even though most likely they were the ones applying for a spot on the show!
This is where we get to the importance of “soft skills”. Gordon Ramsay and Jon Taffer have their own, shall we say forceful ways of overcoming that natural resistance to change, and it’s up to you to figure out your own way of doing so as well.
Let’s face it, when you want to get something done at work, or change a process, that usually requires effort on someone else’s part, who may or may not be willing to help you.
Recognizing resistance to assist you and knowing ways of overcoming that resistance are crucial to you being successful in your organization***.
My point?
Technical knowledge is a given – Gordon Ramsay and Jon Taffer know their businesses, and you know yours – but ultimately your project success will depend on how much buy-in you can get for your proposed solution.
Think about it: you may have come up with THE best reservoir model ever, but if the staff you’re pitching it to has an aversion to change and is comfortable with their old software, your offering is going nowhere.
Just to be totally clear: you’re not going to land a job as a business consultant or oil & gas strategy advisor by putting on your resume that you’ve watched all of “Kitchen Nightmares” twice, but if you believe (as I do) that repetition leads to mastery, the more you can be exposed to these concepts, the better.
Let’s be honest also: being exposed to change management best practices is way more fun when it involves Gordon Ramsay letting loose with an explosion of vulgarity.
So next time you’re tired, bored, or just feeling lazy, don’t feel too bad: watch either of these shows and you can honestly tell yourself you’re getting ready for the corner office.
*** I don’t want to take any credit here for someone else’s work, so on this topic I will refer you to an excellent book I’ve been reading on the subject of recognizing and overcoming resistance, called “Flawless Consulting” by Peter Block.
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