Years ago the petroleum industry looked at academic research as producing two products — high-quality graduates and technology — and invested accordingly. During the long years of repetitive downsizing, investing in the next generation of employees was a low priority. The challenge was to survive the present. Now, with high oil prices driving investment in energy technologies of all kinds, we should remember the human product when we evaluate how we invest in research.

In the 2-decades-long decline of investment in future technical talent, all aspects of technology development suffered. As companies fought to reduce costs, they cut fat, then muscle, and then into the bone. Starving patients do not recover overnight, and no amount of micromanagement of the surviving technical experts can replace good nutrition.

One of the top priorities of talent scouts looking for new blood for the industry is critical thinking. Recruiters do not want those who can only parrot back what they have read or been told. They want people with the knowledge and confidence to think for themselves. This type of thinking is not developed overnight. It comes from working problems for which the answer is not in the back of the book or in the notes of last year’s students. It comes from working real problems for which the answers are not already known.

The industry continues to hemorrhage people through early retirement. We seldom hear the real story as to why people are leaving. People who have suffered through years of frustration and increasing micromanagement see freedom when increases in their stock portfolio put their net worth over their retirement target.

With regard to retirees, let’s look at the glass half full rather than the glass half empty. While in some cases retirees continue in the industry, consulting on their own terms, others are in effect lost to the industry. These folks are vanishing resources unless we capture their hearts and minds and recruit them to help develop future generations. We should encourage and assist retirees to work with universities. Industry’s loss can be education’s gain if we enlist these retiring experts and provide the right resources to them so that they can aid in training the future experts.
In Nigeria, people talk about the Nigerian diaspora — those Nigerians who, in search of a brighter future, seek work around the world. Some of these people join the ranks of the world’s technical experts, both as leading industry figures and as faculty at the best universities. The most hopeful sign I saw during my visit to Nigeria was members of the Nigerian diaspora returning to Nigeria and investing their time and their own money in the educational system. We should leverage people like this.

If we want to build a supply of bright young scientists and engineers capable of critical thinking, we must be careful not to micromanage. You don’t build critical thinking with micromanagement. Micromanagement creates a co-dependency that sucks up time and self-confidence. It comes back to the theories of quality control. If someone knows that their work is going to be checked, they are less likely to do a good job of checking it themselves. Instead, we need line-of-sight objectives. Clearly explain what is needed and let people do the independent thinking to determine by themselves how to get there.

Young people want a level of mentoring that we of the older generation find hard to understand. They want someone to work with them on a daily basis. Those of us who joined the industry before all the focus on coaching and mentoring tend to think the young just need to grow up. Could it be that we have created this mentoring dependency by micromanagement? The young have come to expect instant answers and detailed guidance. Are we in a negative feedback loop?

Let’s push more of the training to make good independent decisions back into universities by providing the type of data, equipment and software the students will later develop. Giving faculty and students access to field data and tools will push the learning to work real problems back into the universities. We need to create on-going, interactive relationships between the faculty and industry that do not micromanage the technical work. Provide examples of what good work looks like, but let the students learn to deal with incomplete data sets and ambiguity. We should craft incentives for retirees to coach students when they hit brick walls. While the results may not be as immediate as in a tightly managed project, the long-term products will be better.

If we want to get the most out of our universities, we need to allow freedom to explore in new directions. The seeds for breakthroughs often come from exploration around the perimeter of the main research objectives. When projects are too tightly managed and controlled, we squeeze out creativity. If we want people to think outside of the box, we must give them the time and freedom to do so.

Graduate students working on their dissertations are among the most highly motivated workers anywhere. They are not billing by the hour, but by results — a dissertation that will be accepted by their thesis committee. These young minds, if not crippled by micromanagement, can be highly creative. Experience is a two-edged sword. It provide insights from personal case studies, but it also tends to blind us to revolutionary new approaches. Often, scientific breakthroughs are made by the youngest professionals.

The best approach to academic research is providing clear objectives, adequate funding, and periodic review and feedback. To make major breakthroughs, students should be encouraged and funded to explore novel approaches to big technical challenges. Students need to understand that as the next generation of technical professionals their role is to probe the unknown, where the mentors do not hold the answers.

Eve S. Sprunt is an oil industry executive and past president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

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