In this industry there is a constant conversational flutter around the word ‘innovative’. It’s how we describe our products, our people and our places.
And rightly so. It’s what the industry pioneers used to create the offshore landscape and the North Sea’s global reputation. It’s what cemented Aberdeen’s position as the oil capital of Europe.
But now as we transition to a new era and begin discussing ‘extending the North Sea’s life’, I wonder if innovation alone is still enough?
I don’t think it is.
Instead, I think we need go back to the basics – the step before innovation. I think, now more than ever, we need courage. The courage to go against convention, the nerve to take a gamble and the pluck to make a decision no one has dared to before.
This is can be a hard thing to digest and even harder yet to follow through. But it has to be done.
When the other co-directors and I left our jobs with a multinational, FTSE 100 company and founded Accord we tore up the rule book. We didn’t want the conventional oil and gas set-up. We cut our teeth on the conventional. We had been part of companies which started as an imaginative start-up before being grown to a million pound turnover capability and then sold-off. The only winners there were the people at the top who benefited from huge pay-outs.
All of the other employees, who had dedicated their time and talents, were left with very little other than a new employer they might not even like.
Instead we had one overriding goal; we wanted to establish a company that was owned by its staff.
We were the first company in Scotland to create an employee ownership business from start-up. We were also the first in the industry to found a company on its principles. What we were creating didn’t just go against the grain it circumvented the grain all together.
As other companies fend off talent poaching with inflated salaries, we’re keeping ours by giving them a vested interest in the firm’s day-to-day operations and ultimately its future.
Hard work, enthusiasm and loyalty are rewarded by substantial shares and an influential voice in the running of the company.
Sometimes the brave decisions, the ones that take courage – like giving a share of your hard-won company to a group of other people – end up being the easiest ones you could have made.
As we continue to battle the same problems and historical hurdles as an industry – the skills shortage and aging workforce just to name a few – I think it’s time we give courage the same airtime we bestow on innovation.
Alan Spence is a director at Accord Energy Solutions.
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