June 11, 2007
Stirring words on Sakhalin
My colleague Lucy Kellaway has a characteristically brilliant - and almost persuasive - defence of the widely-discussed motivational email from David Greer, the deputy chief executive of Sakhalin Energy, who leant heavily on the words of General Patton (FT stories require subscription.) The email has also been published on www.royaldutchshellplc.com, an anti-Shell website run by a father and son partnership that has been a long-running thorn in the company’s side.
Lucy writes: "Not only is it not the worst motivational e-mail ever written, it is actually one of the better ones," commending Mr Greer’s honesty and plain speaking.
Many of the comments in the discussion about the memo support her view, and some criticise the FT for reporting the leaked email at all. Contributors who say they know Mr Greer speak highly of his commitment to the Sakhalin 2 project and his management skills.
Even so, the lesson of all this, it seems to me, is that email is by its nature a pretty rotten motivational tool. Even General Patton’s original address to the 3rd Army would have fallen flat if it had pinged into their in-boxes one morning.
As one of the thorns mentioned in the comments made by Ed Crooks (an accurate description), I am baffled that Mr Greer could be commended for his honesty and plain speaking.
Have I missed something? The memorable plain speaking came not from Mr Greer but from General Patton. Mr Greer engaged in a blatant act of plagiarism. That cannot be construed as acting honestly.
Lucy Kellaway said in her article “…I’ve chosen four objective criteria. The first is clarity. On that score, the Shell memo does well. “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way,” Greer says, which is not terribly hard to fathom. The reason the language is so clear is doubtless the influence of Patton, who came from an age in which people still knew how to express themselves clearly”. END QUOTE.
Greer used the quoted phrase to impress, but the entire phrase came from Patton, not Greer. This was rather more than merely the “influence of Patton”. It was Patton, not Greer.Mention is made of the alleged management skills of David Greer. I would respectfully suggest that this was pure spin by Greer supporters and bears no relationship to the truth.
As well as being Deputy CEO of Sakhalin Energy, Mr Greer has also been the Sakhalin2 project manager. Have we forgotten that it was the massive doubling of project costs from $10 to $20 billion (now $22 billion) which gave President Putin grounds on which to make his move against Shell which ended up with Shell losing ownership of the project?
Shell had to downgrade its reserves by 400,000 barrels. Based on an oil price of $65 per barrel, the loss to Shell was $26 billion. That calculation is based on Shell’s already announced figures. The actual loss is likely to be even more.
Surely Mr Greer also bears some responsibility for the fact that his work force is demoralised and has leaked information for over 2 years to my certain knowledge.
Some contributors to the debate about the Greer memo/plagiarism controversy have strongly criticised the FT and our website as the site to which the leaked information was supplied. That surely comes under the heading of shooting the messenger.
Mr Greer’s motivational memo set a bad example to his colleagues and instead of inspiring confidence in his leadership qualities, undermined his credibility.
Posted by John Donovan of the website www.royaldutchshellplc.com
Posted by: John Donovan | June 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm | Report this commentHope you are happy. He’s resigned.
Posted by: Anon | June 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm | Report this commentI take no pleasure from the outcome. It is very sad that Mr Greers 27 year career with Shell ended in such an unfortunate way.
Posted by: John Donovan | July 14th, 2007 at 9:41 pm | Report this comment