Marathon Oil
Background
Marathon Oil Corporation is a Fortune 100, independent international energy company based in Houston, TX and engaged in worldwide exploration, production, refining and processing of crude oil and natural gas. They are among the leading energy industry players, using innovative technologies and unique partnerships to deliver value.
Challenge
Prior to facilitation training from Leadership Strategies, most facilitation at Marathon was done on an informal, ad hoc basis. But when the company began to see the immediate and positive impact of facilitated Strategic Project Planning Workshops, they realized they needed a team of internal facilitators that could effectively lead these sessions.
Solution
The company decided to ask several key employees to develop the skills to facilitate these workshops. Jeff Heath, along with one other coworker, took The Effective Facilitator class from Leadership Strategies in Dallas, TX.
Since then, a number of other Marathon Oil employees have taken the class. As word spread about their great results, the demand for their facilitation services began to grow, increasing on average 50% a year. Now, Marathon Oil has an entire department dedicated to running facilitated sessions to support improved project performance. The projects they work on range anywhere from small software acquisition and process reengineering projects to $10 million exploration wells and $1 billion production facilities construction projects.
Results
As a result of his training and improved outcomes, Jeff Heath was chosen to head the Drilling and Development Project Management Services Group at the Houston headquarters. His title, Manager of Project Management Services, reflects what he and his team do best. They get people together from across all their business units and functional areas, to work better at delivering value for Marathon Oil and their shareholders. His group speaks their language on a technical level. They know all the ins and outs of how the business works and what each department brings to the table. And they use their facilitation skills to get people to communicate effectively with one another and get results from the projects they work on. Jeff and his staff are known throughout the company as the people to call to run effective meetings.
