The Journey to Organizational Change

Hi, I am Frank Koczwara, president of CSQ3 Corporation and author of "Achieving Organizational Excellence is Easy."   The book is based on worldwide benchmarking and major performance improvement efforts that changed the culture and performance of a major international corporation.  

In retrospect, life is a journey. To provide credibili

Hi, I am Frank Koczwara, president of CSQ3 Corporation and author of "Achieving Organizational Excellence is Easy."   The book is based on worldwide benchmarking and major performance improvement efforts that changed the culture and performance of a major international corporation.  

In retrospect, life is a journey. To provide credibility to the material on this website, I need to relate my journey.

Family

I am the sixth of seven and my parents had the 7-year itch. My two brothers were born Eddie (wise) and Jim (meticulous), then seven years later, Vicky (artistic) and Margie (athletic) were born, then seven years later, my sister Helen (achiever) and I were born, and then 7 years later, my brother Joe (witty) was born. 

Although we could never afford a true family vacation, and I did not achieve the status of valedictorian or salutatorian, as some of my siblings, I appreciated the diversity in ages, their focus on educational excellence, and to a certain degree the change in my dad's management style.

Purdue University

To gain experience in the real world and help with financial objectives I went for a cooperative education. Every other semester I worked for CBI Industries. I worked in the following areas: Research, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Construction. The experience was rewarding, especially the construction. However, every area was a world of its own and I wondered, how can all these areas (worlds) develop a unified strategic path forward?

I received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree (both with distinction) from Purdue University in Civil Engineering.

Exxon Research and Engineering

After graduation, I went to work with Exxon as a mechanical engineer in the downstream sector of the oil industry. Now, how can a civil engineer work as a mechanical engineer? Well, a bachelor’s degree in civil structural engineering works with beams and columns. A master’s degree in civil engineering works with plates and shells. Plates and shells are piping and pressure vessels, hence the mechanical engineering focus. While at Exxon I traveled the world teaching engineering courses and performing various consulting assignments. I also published a paper in Hydrocarbon Processing “ Simple Method Calculates Shell Tank Distortion” and I was a panelist at a major ASME Convention at the age of twenty-six.

However, the downstream sector (refining in particular) can be limiting to a person’s life expectancy, and my mentors informed me that the upstream sector of the oil industry is the place to be.    

Amoco/bp/CSQ3 Corporation

If you believe in a greater power, check out the probability of this. I was on vacation in Merrillville, Indiana. I originally grew up in northwest Indiana and my future wife lived in Merrillville. I stopped for gas at an Amoco gas station. I met a fellow student from Purdue that I let borrow my Physics 152 class notes. He seemed like a nice guy, we never stayed in touch, and he told me about a job he just interviewed for. He indicated he was not qualified for the position; but I would be a great fit for the upstream sector position. As you may have guessed, I was now working in downtown Chicago (Standard Oil Building).

My new home in the Construction Department was great. The department included process, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, and project engineers. Our focus was to put in place the onshore and offshore facilities necessary to process hydrocarbons anyplace in the world. Typical construction department projects range from $100 million for an onshore facility to billions for an offshore complex.

I was intent on finding the formula to achieve cost, schedule, and quality excellence on our Construction Department projects. All the material I was reading stated that it was impossible to achieve cost, schedule, and quality excellence at the same time, one needed to sacrifice one for the other. When I became the mechanical engineering manager, I led an effort to revise our engineering specs, the specifications were incomplete and outdated. The effort went great. I involved the other engineering managers and their staff and published a set of specifications that are probably still in use today. I also led the development of the “Black Book.”  The Black Book was a set of documents that clearly defined the scope of the Construction Department Project. We shot for an overall project estimate of =/- 15%. Assuming management approval, we would then award the contract(s) to build the facilities.

I had an extreme displeasure for power management. In the upstream sector there were the following departments: strategic (setting the path), commercial (signing the deal), reservoir (finding hydrocarbons), drilling (drill wells), construction (build facilities), and operations (living with the results). It was a power play in all the departments. If things went bad, blame the other department. Employees were focused on the department’s needs and rewards were given to the politically correct.

I wanted the Construction Department to become “Best-In-Class.” So, with management approval I led a worldwide benchmarking effort of our past construction projects. The benchmarking results strongly stated that there was room-for-improvement. Hence, I then directed the various improvement teams that we established. 

The resulting improvement effort changed the overall culture and performance of the entire worldwide organization (both upstream and downstream). Employees became excited and empowered! Productivity gains were substantial.             

The main performance gains came from the following: establishment of work effort teams with personnel from multiple departments (they controlled their own destiny), the implementation of a phased approach to work efforts, the implementation of decision quality workshops (a 2 to 3 day workshop focusing the team and creating a decision table), and requiring management to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a work effort when the work effort goes from one phase to the next. Note: it is better to kill a “bad” work effort; then, to live with the results.

Commercial and strategic personnel strongly objected to a phased work effort approach. Afterall, how can they ensure the successful results of their activities. We were not asking them to ensure success. We were asking them to clearly define what they were going to do before doing it. Both groups became the strongest advocates to our organizational improvement effort!!!

To give you a feel of the broad application of the phased work effort approach with decision quality, the following are a few of my personal consulting assignments (all with extremely positive results):

STRATEGIC

• New Country Entry
• Operational  Strategy – Eurasia
• NGL Strategy – Egypt
• Staffing - E&P Sector
• Regional Studies – E&P Sector
• Alaska – Offshore Development

COMMERCIAL

• LNG and LNG Regas – Trinidad, Egypt, and Turkey
• Oil Field Acquisition and Associated Operations – Bolivia
• Jordan, Iran, and Qatar Deals – Middle East
• LNG Regas and LPG Deals – Brazil

PROJECTS

• 3D Worldwide Seismic
• North America Energy Group – Performance Improvement
• Project Management Improvement – Argentina
• PTA Upgrade – U. S.
• DME Special Project – U. S.
• Deep Water Development E&P – Angola
• Emergency Management - E&P Sector
• Exploration Production Technology – E&P sector
• Multiple Offshore Developments – Trinidad
• Refinery Upgrades and Turnarounds – U. S.
• Global Offnet – Corporate
• Research Center – Corporate
• High Performance Management Team – Belgium
• Offshore Development – Venezuela
• Major Onshore Projects – U. S. 
• Gulf of Mexico Developments – U. S.

I gave a presentation of a paper that I co-authored at the 2nd International Conference on the Dynamics of Strategy at the University of Surrey. The paper “Ideas to Reality” (A High Level look at the Business Processes that make Complex Business Systems work better for you the shareholder). The paper established a three-level system for managing performance. Strategy drives Commercial drives Projects.  Hence, include all relevant work efforts within the system (including team member names/roles and decision tables for each work effort phase) and now you have a simplified system for managing and rewarding performance.