eSea EM AGA ZINE FROM M A ERSK TR A INING
M A R I T I M E / O I L & G A S / W I N D / C R A N E · N O . 2 9 / 2 0 17
Stepping stones – the right path to training
29
Sown seeds > · The Kaiser’s New Clothes > · Lonely at the Top > Karina and the Waves > · School’s Out – but not forever > Clock Wise > · Branded at Birth > · Big, Bigger, Biggest >
content 4 Sown seeds Football teams do it, pick the bright stars of tomorrow and then, like a plant, put them in a protected environment and nourish until they hit the peak of their ability. So why not with seafarers? It’s happening, watch this space.
12
10
6 The Kaiser’s New Clothes
Lonely at the Top
When he walks into a consultancy environment, Morten Kaiser is mentally naked. In his own words, ‘I come in with nothing, I lie with a pen.’ Morten is a consultant – one of today’s ‘in’ titles, so ‘in’ it is often over-used, abused and consequently misunderstood.
Few positions are as exposed as the role of the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM). A rig or platform offshore is an isolated community doing a difficult and potentially dangerous job often under the most trying geological and unforgiving geographical conditions.
18
15
Karina and the Waves
School’s Out – but not forever
What’s the biggest move you’ve made in your life and to you life? Could you face the prospect of a totally foreign experience? Karina could.
Schools out forever for tens of thousands of kids. What they don’t quite realize is that they may well not have said goodbye to learning, indeed it’s really just begun.
20
Clock Wise
Branded at Birth
Gerard ‘Ged’ Thompson has always watched things go round and round. It used to be the hands of the clock in the pensions office he worked in, now it’s the giant blades of a wind turbine.
Did you ever get the chance to sit down with your first boss and chat with him or her, or was the gap between senior management and junior apprentice such that the door was always closed? Amanda Nygaard Frisk got that very opportunity.
22 Big, Bigger, Biggest Maersk Invincible weighs a quarter of a million tons. She is the world’s biggest drilling rig. Three giant legs, 200 meter tall, support the metal mass and 54 electric engines power the gears to lift it above water.
instruct – teach – drill – school – educate – mentor – exercise – train You train to be a teacher or a physio, but you don’t really train to be a footballer; footballers go to training. It is a very subtle interpretation and part of the reason why the word training is open to misinterpretation and too easily devalued. It is hard to equate someone going to the gym with a medical student, scalpel in hand, but the word training covers both situations. In this issue we attempt to look at training from many different angles – trying to evaluate what companies and individuals get from it. There’s the old adage, ‘it’s better to train somebody and lose them, than not train and retain.’ If a company invests in developing staff, what’s the payback? We talk to three people who have been sponsored to get degrees, whilst still holding down their
fulltime jobs. Who wins, the company or the personnel, or both? Ged Thompson knew he would win – he swapped giving pensions advice to others for the high life – a wind turbine technician. We meet tomorrow’s captains, chief engineers and CEO’s who have been corralled into a single unit within a seafarers college in order to reach leadership goals through a refined and targeted training programme. On the subject of CEO’s, we asked the most junior employee to chat to the most senior, bookending the career span. What if you ignore specialist training and promote people on the grounds of seniority in favour of nurtured talent? You end up with the PanAm situation where only the oldest
cabin crew operated the ‘glory’ transatlantic routes, leaving passengers in the hope that the planes were in better nick than the staff. It is something that Susanne Slotsager, a senior consultant in leadership and organisational development sees as happening in the offshore industry. Consultant, there’s another word open to misinterpretation and even misuse. We attempt to unpick that one. People Skills chief Morten Kaiser defines the difference between consulting and lecturing by admitting that at the beginning of a session he often feels guilty for charging, but by the end feels he’s given more than added value. A bit like eSea. We don’t charge, we just want to spend some time with you.
Richard Lightbody rli039@maersktraining.com
Sown seeds
Football teams do it, pick the bright stars of tomorrow and then, like a plant, put them in a protected environment and nourish until they hit the peak of their ability. So why not with seafarers? It’s happening, watch this space.
T
hey are called the Seeds of SIMAC, twelve young and youngish guys who have been identified as probably the maritime leaders of tomorrow. Leading what and when is something only time will tell, but for three crammed days they were put in positions to understand what leading is all about.
The course they are on at SIMAC is a talent development programme, but unlike the X Factor all these participants go on to win if they want to.
skills into operation. A scout leader, he immediately could see better ways of approaching situations that demand focused management for the best results.
Kenny Kastrup a dual cadet with Maersk says that he won’t even have to wait to get to sea to put some of his new leadership
The students are part of navigation and engineering courses that last over five years, but the three days under the 4
tuition of Jesper Nielsen were memorable and not for just what he said. The leadership gems were interspersed with bursts of physical action. Without warning Jesper would stop in mid lesson, usher everyone into a group and for a few minutes have them break their focus with a totally different challenge, one that
normally involved limited but strenuous exercise. Then it was back to where they had left the lesson. The ’seeds’ themselves were drawn from a mixed packet – some had seafaring backgrounds, some from families with no maritime tradition at all, many
’We were given fantastic competences to use in the future.’
with ‘sen’ on the end of their names, some with names drawn from further east. There was a discernable edge of competitiveness either as individuals or as teams. During the three days they were exposed to different styles in order to deal with different 5
leadership situations – they were given fundamental changes on how to approach issues because of cultural differences and expectations. Seed Daniel Muhlhausen said, ‘We were given fantastic competences to use in the future.’ ■
The Kaiser’s New Clothes Job titles are becoming increasingly vague and, in many cases meaningless. The clear term ‘caretaker’ for instance, one who takes care of something has evolved into ‘building inspector’ one who inspects and that’s where the duty ends. Then there are other embracing titles which are used so much they have lost any focus – like what really is a consultant? 6
W
hen he walks into a consultancy environment, Morten Kaiser is mentally naked. In his own words, ‘I come in with nothing, I lie with a pen.’ Of course he’s visually respectable, but what Morten means is that he doesn’t want to walk in on a situation with a ready-made solution. No prejudgments, he wants a clean sheet to start with; he doesn’t want to be constricted by preconceptions. For those paying the fee this might seem a bit of a cop out, but it’s his way of saying I’m not here to lecture, I’m here to listen. Morten is a consultant – one of today’s ‘in’ titles, so ‘in’ it is often over-used, abused and consequently misunderstood. The dictionary broadly describes a consultant as an expert sharing their expertise, for a fee. To Morten his form of consultancy is not about transferring knowledge it is about triggering change. It is a concept that many misconceive
‘To be a consultant you need to grow big ears and the ability to appear to know nothing.’
and misplace in the ‘fluffy soft skill section’. He had an example of a full day meeting with a company. ‘For the first four hours I was constantly thinking and said nothing. They were probably wondering what was I doing there, adding no value, being paid and not contributing anything to justify it. Then they ran into a problem and I asked them a question and within five minutes I’m sure they felt they had their money’s worth.’ OWN GOALS The irony is that consulting in the People Skills arena that Morten works in, suffers from a bit of an own goal. They can look at other companies and identify solutions whilst their own image is often under communicated. That’s because there is a strong distinction between consulting and educating, one that is often misread at the highest level. They are both horses often kept in the same stable, but breed for very different roles.
The former spend their time transferring the information from their heads into the heads of others, the latter listens, nudges and motivates, hopefully creating change in behavioral performance. ‘To be a consultant you need to grow big ears and the ability to appear to know nothing.’ The problem is that anyone can be a consultant in any field, it is situation that muddies the waters 7
for those who want to clarify exactly what they can do. Rather like the overuse of words like senior, executive, professional, there are times when it fits the bill, times when it is just egotistical pampering, or over marketing or as a justification for high fees. Morten reaches for a book, he calls it his Bible, a title a little more catchy than that given by its editor, but it does contain many gems, including what Morten sees as the definitive definition about consultancy. Management consulting is an independent professional advisory service assisting managers and organization to achieve organizational purposes and objectives by solving management and business problems, identifying and seizing new opportunities, enhancing learning and implementing changes. Management Consulting – a guide to the profession 4th Edition – Milan Kubr
‘It starts and ends with the customers ambition, what do they want to achieve,’ says Morten. ‘To inspire customers to see and challenge their problems with a different view. Quite often leadership teams are stuck, they are trying what they can and are doing their best to achieve an ambition or vision such as incident-free or team zero but they are not achieving it and they can’t, from their current position figure out how to go about it.’ There’s little wonder there is so much confusion about the job. If you Google ‘What is a consultant?’ you are at the bottom of page 14 before the answers start to dry up. THE THIRD OPTION Consultants, at the very least, fall into three areas. One is technical or medical, where years of experience are turned into advice that you would ignore at your peril. Brave or stupid would be the doctor who didn’t react to the consultant’s advice, or the
‘Top management hate that I’m there to rock the boat, but that is what they need.‘ Wall Street rookie who dismisses advice from a veteran. The second is more ethereal and much harder to convey or measure. It’s like calculating the value of insurance if you never have an accident, or marketing a product that might just have sold anyway. It is a valuable contribution, but one always open to skepticism. What Morten and his team deliver is a third option. It is perhaps easier to equate to the sporting rather than the business
world. The world’s top football teams, golfers and tennis players all get to the top through another set of eyes blessed with the drive and ability to cultivate talent. Call them the manager or the coach, it doesn’t matter, what they do is to act as consultants, only that their heads are on the line for anything less than success. ‘Our heads should also be on the line,’ says Morten, ‘we’re quite happy to take a punch, the problem is that people often misread “soft skills” as being what they sound like. It is frustrating because the value is lost in the phraseology. Nobody belittles what makes their computers work simply because it is called “software”.’ It is not thinking outside the box that makes a consultant, it is being outside the box. In the human factors side consultancy could include training, facilitating workshops, seminars, it could also include 1on1 coaching teams and mentoring.
‘I think that the best results come when we stop dictating and we start asking some of the questions that make problems disappear.’
‘Top management hate that I’m there to rock the boat, but that is what they need. Sometimes supporting, sometimes challenging, sometimes inspiring them so that they dare to get out of their normal way of thinking. Decision making is down to managers not consultants. However consultants should have an opinion and stand by it and more importantly be given the opportunity to express it without penalty. We can support and challenge, but it is down to them to decide.’ THE PLUS FACTOR ‘The trap some organisations fall into is that they get course bound, they have all the answers and they can dictate them word for word. But I believe you can get more out of people with physiology and other skills. I think that the best results come when we stop dictating and we start asking some of the questions that make problems disappear.’
What helps is the unique setup that Morten’s team of four, with an additional six externals, has at Maersk Training. They have access to technical experts 9
and some of the world’s most sophisticated simulators. ‘No other consultants have the benefit of going into the next door office and seeking advice from someone with 20 years maritime or offshore experience and then be able to pressure test participants in almost ‘real-life’ scenarios in the simulators. ‘We have the technical DNA, people who know what it is like to be in the dog house, engine room and discuss leadership with them.’ It is a combination that has proved to be the tipping point for some organisations in selecting a company destination or employee learning path. It is a path that Morten sees as a clearly marked dual carriageway. ■
If promotion is based on seniority, do square pegs find themselves struggling with round holes?
Exposed and Isolated Lonely at the Top B
ut it needn’t be argues Susanne Slotsager. What makes a leader and what makes leadership so difficult is something highlighted in the ultra-harsh offshore energy seeking and gathering world like nowhere else. Few positions are as exposed as the role of the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM). A rig or platform offshore is an isolated community doing
a difficult and potentially dangerous job often under the most trying geological and unforgiving geographical conditions. The manager’s role often amplifies the isolation. It is something that Susanne Slotsager has been looking at up close. For the past year she’s been rig hopping around the world, delivering leadership courses in
the warmth of the Indian Ocean and cold of the North Sea. She’s witnessed the demands, trials and peculiarities that offshore leaders face daily. She sees the solution in focused training, but then she would as one of Maersk Training’s People Skills instructors. On the other hand if you wanted to improve the food in a kitchen, wouldn’t you ask a top chef? What she has witnessed is leaders buried in paperwork and wave after wave of new procedures. The danger is that many use this as a screen to hide behind, creating a barrier between them and the people to look to them for direction and guidance.
‘The same safety messages are repeated over and over again during toolbox talks, pre-tour meetings, drills and safety meetings,’ writes Susanne, adding, ‘it seems like these talks have very little impact on improving the safety culture. The monotonous repetitions are in danger of creating safety fatigue and people becoming immune.’
onshore staff qualify to visit. This adds to a mental boundary that contributes to one of the biggest issues, the ‘onshore/offshore, them/us’ factor. The solution to many problems is seen in some quarters as yet another opportunity to introduce new procedures; these add to the piles of paperwork that heighten the barriers between the OIM and his crew. Susanne has heard off and witnessed OIM’s retreating into their offices to deal with the paperwork, causing a gap between the leader and those who expect them to lead.
THE BITTER CHILL OF ISOLATION Those offshore endure two forms of isolation. The first is geographic, a remoteness expanded by accessibility and flying conditions. Then there’s a more extreme isolation cause by the certification that means very few people, including most
There’s another level of personal isolation for an onboard leader. There is no physical break from 11
the job. There is no car journey home to the family, no free space and time for another life. It is just a short walk to the cabin where the problems at the desk are still there at the bunk. No adjustment. Susanne argues that the adjustment should be made through training. Just because someone is a good technician or driller or navigator doesn’t make them a good leader. The results of good leadership filter right down through the entire crew, not to fine tune the person at the top jeopardizes the whole organisation. ■ For a pdf version of Susanne’s full article please click on the link.
Copacabana to Lehnskov Karina and the Waves What’s the biggest move you’ve made in your life and to your life? Could you face the prospect of a totally foreign experience? Karina could.
12
Karina and the Waves
O
ne hundred and ninety-eight times smaller than her native Brazil, the day she got a job with a Danish company Karina checked on a map to find Denmark. In August she marks one year of swopping Copacabana beach for Lehnskov Strand just outside Svendborg. A lifestyle as different as day and night, Karina de Carvalho Barcelos, has totally embraced the challenge.
the crime rate is so high. Walking home at 2am in the quietness, not hearing guns. Life here is free and on a very fair level. In Brazil, usually what you are born with you stay with, it is very hard to break out. I don’t think Danish kids, with not just free education but being paid to learn, are part of a spoilt society. It is not easy, but fair and right. Kid’s here are privileged, not spoilt.’
‘In Brazil so many people are chasing so few jobs, I thought having something special, like working abroad, on your CV would be helpful,’ says Karina. Her elder sister had shown the way, working offshore as a third engineer for a Norwegian company and with that the Scandinavian seed was sown.
If life is a bed of roses, then roses also have thorns. Karina, now has a Brazilian colleague and flatmate, together they are Odense’s Latin Quarter, but for eight months she was on her own. ‘I remember going into work after the weekend and thinking that I hadn’t spoken a word out loud, heard my own voice, for two days. It’s not real loneliness because I can cope with it, but it was a strange realization.’
‘I got to the final round of interviews with Maersk Supply Service in Brazil and then got in to Maersk Training as they were setting up in Rio three years ago. I started a month before in reception and in an office of great
energy and change found myself working quickly upwards.’
as hot as Danish summer days, fitting into a tight-knit society, facing a language that is more like a code, have all provoked doubts, but through it all Karina sees life in Denmark as a big plus.
Today, in Maersk Training’s headquarters in Denmark, she is Commercial Coordinator for the Group. Of course there is a downside to such a dramatic life change. Putting family and friends a very long flight away, saying goodbye to winter days that are
FEELING SAFE ‘I was walking home to my new flat in Odense after a night out, thinking I couldn’t do this in Rio, 13
There have been times when she realized how alone she was, like the time she arrived home to find the door handle to her flat broken. ‘I couldn’t get in. Back home I’d
Karina and the Waves
have rung friends or family or someone with tools. But here I was with the landlord telling me he couldn’t help until the next day. In the end I tapped on doors, reading the names and being unable to pronounce them. Eventually I got a neighbour to help.’ In Brazil it is common for a single girl of 28 summers to still live at home, so the solitude took a little getting used to. ‘When I came back from a family Christmas I realized that making daily contact with home was only making the situation worse, so I limited myself to texting every two or three days. I wanted to become comfortable living with myself.’ TOUCHY TOUCHY, NO NO It was symbolic of the cultural difference that she’s encountered. Brazilians are very tactile. ‘I found it strange not to hug and kiss everyone when meeting – we are very touchy, Danes and I presume most Europeans, formal, well the northern ones. I haven’t travelled that much, yet.’
I’m completely free, I live in a new country, a new society with a job in a great company, great team. I love it, it is amazing.’
happiness in the situation you are in rather than waiting for the summer to be happy. It’s not easy, but still if you are rational and you say this is what I’m in and I can’t really change it, I want it, I don’t want to cry for help, so I have to find the happiness. I’m completely free, I live in a new country, a new society with a job in a great company, great team. I love it, it is amazing.’ ‘Amazing’ is one of Karina’s favourite words. On Tuesday’s she leaves work early to go class to learn how to say ‘fantastiske,’ which is Danish for ‘surpreendente’ in her native Portuguese. Over the next few months she’ll decide if the language is a barrier or a wall.
‘So it is winter, it is minus three degrees outside, it is completely dark and I don’t have anybody around, so how do I get happy with that? You chose it, you have got to be rational about the situation you are in. Finding
‘It’s amazing, I’m always comparing to what you can have here and what you can have in Brazil and it is completely different. I talk to some Danes and they say it is not equal, but compared to Brazil it is. Here 14
everybody has access to the same things no matter where your parents come from. You turn on the news here and it is all about taxes and political, in Rio it is just a list of crime, just bad news.’ The one year mark is the halfway point in Karina’s work visa. This time next year, what happens then? ‘I’d like to stay. My mum is completely sure I’m coming back. I say “I’m getting a car” and she says “why, aren’t you coming home?” They support me and say that life in Brazil is getting harder, violence increasing, but they never mention that I should stay.’ Karina arrived with a backpack and two 32 kilo cases, her life on a baggage trolley. ‘I’m the girl who’s got nothing!’ she joked. If and when she goes back, she’ll be taking a lot more and leaving a bigger gap. Amazing. ■
School’s Out – but not forever Educational Business Development Manager Samantha Finch – degree in history at university of chester, worked in education. Operations Manager Gareth Edwards – continuous CPD, Chartered Health and Safety out of forces 2009. Customer Support Manager Emma Pattison – graduated 2003,
Schools out forever for tens of thousands of kids. What they don’t quite realize is that they may well not have said goodbye to learning, indeed it’s really just begun.
M
anagers are not born, they are made. Sometimes the decision to become a manager isn’t the result of a planned career, but situational. It’s what they call ‘accidental managers’,
those whose skills have taken them down a path that they might not have recognized themselves. Whatever the evolution process is, good businesses, require good managers. 15
In 2015 the UK Government brought in a Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship. Based on five requirements, knowledge, interpersonal excellence, personal effectiveness, skills
School’s Out – but not forever
and behaviours, applicants could apply for a course taken in conjunction with normal work. The Government would pay fees of £18,000 per participant with the remaining nine thousand coming from their company. For Maersk Training in Newcastle, who have a healthy history in backing government-sponsored training for those trying to get into the job market, it opened the door of opportunity for those who normally help others receive qualifications. For the company it is the perfect anecdote for those who question the value of training. Three members of staff were successful in their applications and they have targeted obtaining their degrees in three years. The course programme is built on modules and the vast majority of work is conducted in private and at the discretion of the participant, but driven by delivery dates. There is a fair amount of pressure and for many the discipline of it is the hardest
What does it feel like to have to bury your head in books and write essays again?
hours up front to catch-up with the rest of their class. ‘We were a full module behind, that’s eight to ten weeks,’ says Ed, ‘so we had to compress everything to catch the rest of the group.’ None of them are as late as Leo Plass from Oregon who dropped out of college in 1932 as a twentyyear old before finally graduating at the age of 99. However what does it feel like to have to bury your head in books and write essays again?
part of getting back into an educational framework.
Sam with a degree in history ‘from quite a time back. It was hard getting back into it. But once you get that first essay done it is OK, it was the thought beforehand that was quite daunting.’
FIRST ON THE SCHOOL BUS Samantha and Ed were the first two to join the course, Emma, needs to wait for the next ‘school bus,’ so will hopefully start in September. It is an annoying delay she’s happy about, not because she can see how the other two pace themselves, but because her current workload as Customer Support Manager, is pretty hectic. Even Sam and Ed were a little late and had to cram in some extra
For Gareth, known to all as Ed, from his surname Edwards, it was a different proposition. He left school before his ‘O’ Levels, the basic qualification level in the UK, and went straight into the army, the Royal Engineers. There he stayed for 23 years 16
rising to the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major. Since coming out of the forces in 2009 he has pretty continuously done CPD, Continuing Professional Development, largely focused on health and safety. THE BIG QUESTION There’s one hanging question over the decision of a company to invest in training. What do they get out of it? A better workforce or staff who become open to offer on
Once you get that first essay done it is OK, it was the thought beforehand that was quite daunting.’
School’s Out – but not forever
In the States last year corporations spent $70 billion on training.
LinkedIn. In the States last year corporations spent $70 billion on training. That is a statistic of no anchorable significance, but what is, is that over the past few years it has been a growing figure, in 2014 alone it went up 15%. One figure that does matter is that 40% of employees who receive poor job training leave within a year. Here of course we might be talking about working in a burger bar – the State’s top company in terms of offering training is a lubrication franchise. The reason they are top is nothing to do with striving for safety or technical excellence. A series of undercover exposures showed that staff had frequently taken short cuts and charged for services that hadn’t happened.
me. That’s what I take away from it,’ says Sam whilst Ed adds, ‘I’ve been here three years and what the company has demonstrated to me is that they are prepared to take a risk on people, to promote and to invest in SPD.’
At a managerial level replacing someone take approximately two and a half times the annual salary. Clearly there are risks, but there are also huge pluses. One is staff attitude ‘It is good for me to see that the company believes in me enough to put me through this, enough to want to invest in
Emma saw a unique opportunity. ‘It’s the chartered bit at the end, not so much the degree that interests me’ Emma. I’ve always wanted to become chartered, but is costs a fortune to do it and you have to have the company support so it is a perfect time to do it.’ ■
What does Chartered mean? A Chartered professional is a person who has gained a specific level of skill or competence in a particular field of work, which has been recognised by the award of a formal credential by a relevant professional organization. Chartered status is considered a mark of professional competency, and is awarded mainly by chartered professional bodies and learned societies. Common in Britain, it is also used in Ireland, the United States and the Commonwealth, and has been adopted by organizations around the world. Chartered status is a form of accreditation, with there being a grant of a protected title but no requirement to be
17
chartered in order to practice a profession (making it distinct from licensing). In the UK and other countries that follow its model, the professional bodies overseeing chartered statuses have a duty to act in the public interest, rather than in the interests of their members, ensuring that chartered professionals must meet ethical standards of behaviour. As a status, rather than simply a qualification, a chartered title may be removed for failure to adhere to codes of conduct, or lost through non-renewal. Wikipedia – edited version. ■ * For a different view of how managers are created and the problems caused, read Susanne’s article on Page 10 >
Gerard ‘Ged’ Thompson has always watched things go round and round. It used to be the hands of the clock in the pensions office he worked in, now it’s the giant blades of a wind turbine.
Clock Wise O
n leaving school at the age of 16 he didn’t know what he wanted to do. His home in Wallsend is in one of the UK’s more challenging areas to find employment, especially for men. It was straight into a job in a warehouse which was followed by temporary contracts in customer relations. When they
18
ended a period of job searching ended with him securing ‘a desk for life’ at the Department for Work and Pensions. So there he was, suit, shirt, tie, and there he could have remained, but for the lure of the small hand hitting five. ‘Sitting in the pensions office was not for me,
e
it was mind-bogglingly boring and the money I make and the experience I get today from going round the world and meeting people with this hands-on job is right for me. But it is not secure.’
‘By paying I was actually in profit before the three month training would have finished because I got a job within days of completing the course. So it worked out well,’ he says.
‘I’m 30 but when I get to 60 I think my body will be willing to give up. I don’t have a pension scheme, hopefully I’ll make enough money to put into property so I can retire when I’m sixty, let’s hope,’ says the former pension adviser without a pension.
All Ged’s previous jobs had been at ground, or sea level. Now he faced something different but his parents focused him. ‘I said beforehand to my mom and dad that I was nervous about the heights and they said “do you know what you could be sitting in that office in the DWP answering the phone and looking at the clock.” Now I’m standing in a field somewhere in Europe looking at and about to climb a 100 metre high turbine, it’s a fantastic feeling.’
HAND IN POCKET There had to be more out there so like his father, a welder in the offshore sector and his elder brother, a bolter, he followed them. After a year the jobs went ‘flat’ as he describes it. Someone recommended a course at Maersk Training to him and he took a bold decision. One choice was to apply for a Government funded three month course; the other was to pay £1,600 and do it in two weeks. He put his hand in his own pocket.
to hurt anybody. When I was in Scotland there was an electrician went into the tower next to the one I was working on to fix the box and he heard a noise, a rattle and for some reason he went to the bottom of the ladder and looked up. A clip had come loose and broken free and it fell and hit him. The helmet took the impact but he was knocked unconscious. The helmet and good safety practice saved his life.’
CLIPPED On the subject of exchanging office skills for manual dexterity at 100 metres, Ged observed ‘I’m making flat-pack furniture at home at the moment and I keep dropping screws, but working I’m a more focused and don’t want 19
A safety culture is something to save lives, but an open mind and desire to push yourself is something that changes them. Ged’s done that, but he’s not looking too far into the future. ‘You wouldn’t do it but for the money, the money helps, I’ve never had so much in my life. But other than that it is a massive experience.’ ■
T
Do your remember your first job, your first boss – did you ever get the chance to sit down and chat with him or her, or was the gap between senior management and junior apprentice such that the door was always closed? Amanda Nygaard Frisk got that very opportunity. Here she reflects on a one-to-one meeting with the boss where she did the interviewing.
he name Maersk has a certain ring to it. The same way Danish children grow up with bedtime stories by H.C. Andersen and playing with LEGO, we are brought up with an unconscious respect for the Maersk brand. I don’t recall the first time someone mentioned Maersk in my presence. I knew the company the same way in which a child knows that the pet-able furry creature
on four legs is a dog and the huge box with a big star surrounded by blue, was a Maersk container. From the outside it seems as if a company, such as Maersk, is a highly refined system. Every centre, every department, every employee appears to be reaching for the same goal. In that case, every person is essential, like a chain that is only as strong as the weakest link. It can be
Branded at Birth 20
challenging for a new member of the staff to set foot in this welloiled machine. Last summer I took those first steps. My role was within the administration department, the area responsible for the smooth day-to-day working of the centre and indeed that of a global group. My long-term desire is to enter journalism and having voiced that I was presented with the opportunity to do an interview with Claus Bihl. Given this chance to understand the firm better, I wanted to know how Maersk had made such a strong name for itself and exactly what within Maersk Training made it possible for me, the office junior, to have a one-onone with the CEO. THE VALUE OF VALUES I quickly came to learn that those two things were very much intertwined. Claus, who has been with Maersk his entire career, finds that the success of the brand and
interaction between employees comes from the values of Maersk.
senior managers then trained 200 ‘value coaches’ including Claus, who then went out and conducted seminars for the firm’s 100,000 employees.
These values were defined by Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller summing up the way in which he went about leadership. All of it rooted in a strong family tradition. Claus explained how the values came into existence. ‘It was Mr Møller and his father who produced the values. Not verbally or in writing,’ says Claus. ‘It was about leading by example.’
As one of the early ambassadors Claus had a firm grip on what Mr Møller wanted to convey and a quarter of a century later still sees them as the rock foundation of the company. He explains that a Maersk employee should first and foremost work hard. By doing so one should create quality, which is another aspect of the values. When combining the two, one might find it easy to brag about these achievements, yet the values states that the staff should remain humble and loyal. It was clear to me that the humility was one of the reasons as to why I was able to have a chat with Claus.
‘Mr Møller realized that the unwritten values might die with him, he then sat down and wrote them, as they look today. He called all his senior management to his house one evening in 1993 and explained to them why he had done it. They discussed it and he asked them to buy into these values.’
It was also the first indication as to why Maersk is so acknowledged within Danish society, why I’ve always known what the white star meant and why the name has a certain ring to it.
HUMILITY – KEY TO THE DOOR As he told me the story Claus pointed to the framed valueposter hanging in his office. The 21
Personally Claus sees that he has an obligation, as the CEO, to lead by example but every member of the staff should still live by these pillars. It is clear that though it is unsaid, there is a strong sense of unity within these values. THE FUTURE On the other hand, throughout the last year there has been a lot of changes within Maersk and one might wonder how that sense of unity will be carried on now that the firm is splitting into two. As Claus sees it, one need not worry. The people in charge have, like him, been brought up in the Maersk tradition. It is at least clear to me that these values are deeply rooted in Claus as a person both personally and professionally. One must assume that this is a general tendency and that the torch will be carried on in the Maersk tradition. ■ Amanda Nygaard Frisk
Big, Bigger,Biggest D
espite humbleness being one of the five driving values of the Maersk organisation, it proudly holds at least three world records in terms of size. As you read this it has the world’s biggest container ship and the world’s biggest drilling rig all part of the world’s biggest fleet. Of course it depends when you read, for
records change, particularly in the world of shipping and offshore.
modification rather than just getting bigger, the Madrid Maersk carries 20,568. When attached to a truck, disembarking at Esbjerg, nose to tail you would end up with a single queue of lorries stretching 50 kilometers beyond Malmo! A total of 380 kms! In containers that’s the north/south length of Denmark, on one ship.
In 2013 we wrote about Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller, the first in the Triple-E class, as being the biggest – since those words eighteen other vessels have equaled or bettered her 18,000 TEU* size. Today, through design 22
QUARTER OF A MILLION TONS The giant rig Maersk Invincible is likely to hold on to its title for a little longer. The world market in drilling being what it is, means that it could be sometime before anyone anywhere builds a bigger one. It is labelled a XL Enhanced, but in truth, if it were a shirt it
how big a container ship is – it is not gross tonnage or length, but what it can carry. Strangely the 20 foot container, which is actually short of that measurement by one and a half inches (381 mm) to allow for stacking, is the least carried size onboard. The 40 ft container represents 81% of those carried, the rest being made up mostly of 45 and 48 foot containers.
would be XXXL. She weighs a quarter of a million tons. It is figure hard to grasp, as is the fact that it floats. Three giant legs support the metal mass and 54 electric engines power the gears to lift it above water. The legs are over 200 meters tall meaning that she can work in areas others can’t.
The advancement in the XLE class means that crew members for the first time have their own cabins. Previously in two bunk cabins, one person had the cabin for 12 hours and then they swapped. An extra deck of accommodation bringing the rooms up to 180 is what marks out Invincible from her three sisters. The extra rooms
are needed for platform staff as for the next five years Invincible plugs and abandons** wells in the Valhall field, Norway’s most southerly. ■ * TEU is a rather clumsy way of sizing a container. It stands for Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit and is the universal way of determining 23
** P&A, Plug and Abandonment is a vital process in order to shut in and permanently isolate a dead well. There are regulatory requirements but in most cases it involves placing a series of cement plugs in the wellbore, with inflow or integrity tests to ensure hydraulic isolation. A failure to do so could result in dramatic geological action. There have been reports of the earth crust dropping 6 meters in some areas. The potential consequences are enormous.
Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make... T
he year is 2030, 60% of the workforce is at home, working, locked on to docking zones that track their every thought and action. Another 25% are on leave, a flashing moving dot on a screen indicating their current location indicating how happy/miserable they are. The remainder are sitting in an openplan office, half of them wearing VR goggles. A portable AED heartstarter moves silently across the floor, vacuuming as it goes. It stops next to the head of finance’s door – he’s having a bad day.
This was the vision that struck me on Sunday morning when I woke for my phone to tell me that I’d gone to bed at 10:42, slept until 8:09, had two hours of deep sleep and walked 46 steps to the bathroom during the night, a journey that took three minutes. All this information was anonymous and deeply personal, unless, in order to get the full benefit, you enlist the services of two former nurses. They can recommend diets and exercises and nudge you towards better you. Big Mother. The initiative
is a link-up between Maersk and Danica Pension, the aim to create a healthier, longer living workforce. Goodbye Fatness Dk. It was a bizarre weekend, every step counted, every heartbeat logged. Somewhere along the line I tinkered with the program and unwittingly enrolled the help of a personal trainer. A feisty American lass who for the day it took me to work out how to fire her, kept announcing out loud on my phone my lack of physical progress. Fellow shoppers were 24
amused, but unimpressed, by my 1.3 kms in five hours. DEAD OR ALIVE? Despite her the experience was positive, although the calorie count feature was a tad depressing. You seem to need to do an awful lot to be rewarded with a conscious-free nibble. Unless that is you shop in NETTO. Searching for some sealable food storage bags in a store where logic stops in the carpark, is a prolonged exercise capable of burning enough calories to quality
< The personal gadget that doesn’t read your pulse or count steps, but could save your life. On board Maersk Drilling rigs everyone has a wristband that logs you in to muster stations in the case of an emergency. No need for head counts, lifeboats can be dispatched quicker and central controllers have an accurate picture of who is where.
for steak and chips. A word of caution, don’t use a trolley unless you can steer with one hand, waving the band arm and don’t mind looking a touch demented. The sensor is fooled by the smoothness. An overnight trip to Copenhagen offered the prospect of some serious step counting. You do a lot of walking in the city. A free app on my phone already monitored, and kept private, the number of steps I did when carrying it. I no longer have it for phone calls, just for steps and checking rugby scores. From past experience it promised something in the region of 14,000, six thousand more than my daily target. Surely that would impress Big Mother. In the first few days the only place that I was armband free was in the shower, a dozen or so steps lost in the name of hygiene. I toyed with the idea of putting the band around the cat’s neck, but he’s about as active as my late father-in-law
was in front of the TV watching the Tour de France.
being gaffer-taped to the chair he managed to scare the assailant off with a blowtorch, the murder weapon being dropped in the process. They don’t do scripts like this on Barnaby. At this point I’ll throw in the totally unconnected facts. One that the husband was having an affair with an old girlfriend and who was now pregnant. Also police tracker dogs found no foreign scent in the house or garden.
It’s an action I should have taken, for in the rush for the train I left the armband beside the basin. For 36 hours not a step would be logged or a heartbeat recorded. It answered one question bantered about by colleagues, ‘were we being suckered into an Orwellian world?’ No is the answer, otherwise Big Mother would have had an ambulance at the door to pick up my supposedly lifeless body.
Anyway his story was that the attack happened as soon as she emerged from the drive-in garage, about thirty steps from where her body now lay. Despite being able to operate a blowtorch without setting the house or himself on fire, he struggled with raising the alarm. He was still gaffertaped when the police arrived to be told the murder happened several hours previously and that the attacker was probably in the next state by now. The armband said differently. Through GPS it
CAUGHT BY TECHNOLOGY However, there is an Orwellian aspect to the armbands. In an American courtroom a defendant is currently wishing his murdered wife hadn’t worn one. She’d returned to her Connecticut home from the gym and according the husband an intruder, who had conveniently tied him to a chair, had shot his wife with a gun the husband had just bought. Despite 25
managed to put together her last movements, including the 1,200 feet she travelled after returning home. The murder was in 2015, the trial continues, but maybe for not much longer. Back to the year 2030, or maybe forward: the portable AED which has cunningly been married to the remote vacuum is at the feet of the CFO, it emits a small sound and turns, heading for the sales department. It would be highly possible to create such a scenario even today. The monitored heart and stress levels registered on the armbands governing the movements of the machine, at least those in most destress would have the cleanest corner of the office, a sort of grim bleeper.
Contact Editorial issues and suggestions: Richard Lightbody â&#x20AC;&#x201C; esea@maersktraining.com Karina de Carvalho Barcelos â&#x20AC;&#x201C; esea@maersktraining.com Names and emails of those able and eager to help with specific enquiries arising out of this issue Sales enquiries Aberdeen (UK): aberdeen@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Africa: alexandria@maersktraining.com portharcourt@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Brazil: riodejaneiro@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Esbjerg (DK): esbjerg@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries India: chennai@maersktraining.com mumbai@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Malaysia: kualalumpur@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Middle East: dubai@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Newcastle (UK): newcastle@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Norway: stavanger@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries Svendborg (DK): svendborg@maersktraining.com Sales enquiries United States houston@maersktraining.com
www.maersktraining.com 26