addressing Change

Not too long ago, I watched a recorded video of Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas, PETRONAS president making his address at the annual town hall event, where he’d spoke in front of most if not all PETRONAS executives working in and around KLCC.

He started by saying that the results of a nationwide survey regarding change indicated that Malaysians need it to be repeated approximately 11 times before it gets accepted. Welcome to the national mentality of Malaysia. With ever changing global scenarios facing the oil & gas industry and all business at large, changes happen all the time and adjusting to isn’t something everybody does well all the time. With PETRONAS comprising mostly of Malaysians, it is an area of concern.



With the period of easy oil discoveries over, a lot more technologies and money is needed now to drill for oil. Its a big challenge for all oil majors, and these external pressures are forcing PETRONAS to be more efficient than it is right now.

Although many Malaysians won’t be aware, PETRONAS is truly at a crossroads of its history. It is now facing a time where transforming from good to great is not  something desirable, but absolutely necessary if it is to remain relevant, especially with Malaysian resources not at its richest anymore. Just to explain, local oil production is indeed slowing down and while there are initiatives such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), the very mention of those words tell you that future long term prospects isn’t too bright for Malaysia.

PETRONAS is being forced to be a lot fiercer in competing with companies like Shell, CNPC, ExxonMobil, Sinopec, Gazprom and the like. In recent times it has aggressively pursued assets overseas, winning bids for areas in Iraq and recently buying over a Canadian company for its interest in shale gas. Expanding globally is a big part of future plans, yet carefully selective, as it doesn’t have a bottomless pit of money it can throw at every opportunity. PETRONAS needs to grow outwards, but even making one mistake while doing so would be very painful.

That is why remaining at current standards is not enough. The president was quite firm in his address, saying that there are underachievers in the company that have been pulling down the performances of exceptional achievers and these people will be removed. No nonsense allowed.

Operational effectiveness is just one part of the picture though. Within the next ten years, approximately 50% of petro-technical professionals are due to exit the workforce. We all know that’s a lot of people, and the talent war will surely intensify beyond what we know it to be right now. The importance of attracting talent and retaining will definitely increase, and so making PETRONAS a place where the best want to work as one of the top priorities. That’s one of the reasons that PETRONAS upped entry level salaries for executives in recent years.

Many young people have entered PETRONAS in recent times and the president observed a phenomenon where older seniors are reluctant to guide these youth, fearing being replaced by them someday. He noted the need for a change of mentality to accept mentoring as a responsibility and duty to the company. He advised for the older people to avoid from being overbearing and to be more nurturing. All these statements just go to show that even now PETRONAS is going through a transition of passing bigger responsibilities to its younger employees.

Bringing it all back down to earth, just reading through what I’ve typed in this entry so far, I’m beginning to see that I’m really a part of all this. I only need to look as far as my own department to see that my manager and maybe even my senior manager will be due for retirement within the next ten to fifteen years.

It makes me wonder for a bit where and what I’ll be when that happens. What I know is that I want to be part of a successful change for Malaysia’s Fortune 500 representative. I’m inspired and part of it is due to a president whom you can see just through his speech that he’s a no nonsense kind of person and he really means serious business. Here’s to disproving the sceptics and gunning for the best.