Eyes on the Ball Offshore

By Mike Bethea, CEO Offshore Technical Compliance

I’m a competitive tennis player.  It’s not my occupation of course but it is my favorite pastime.  If I could…I would play every day.  I have been on recreational teams that have won local, state, sectional and competed for national championships.  As such…I spend a lot of time trying to improve.  Recently, an instructor told me the most important thing in tennis is exaggerating the amount of time you keep your eye on the ball.  Seems rudimentary…right?  Well…you would be surprised how often even the best players fail to do this properly.  The same instructor told me of a story about a top junior player who actually closed her eyes at contact.  No one had ever noticed.  He did.  “Imagine how good she would be if she kept her eyes open!” he told her parents.  The funny thing about watching to ball with such focus is that it forces the rest of your body to do what it needs to do to prepare.  Turns out it’s easier to see the ball clearly when you are in the correct position.  Focusing on watching the ball in this manner speeds up footwork and anticipation and decision making.  It has a domino effect on the rest of your game.

This got me to thinking, as I often do, about how this lesson might translate into the business of offshore oil and gas drilling and workovers.  Does our team at OTC have its eyes “on the ball” to a point of exaggeration?  If so, what does that look like?

OTC is transforming the delivery of compliance related services by combining expertise in rig compliance, digital pressure testing, verification of compliance and compliance training into one package.  We can deliver more with the same personnel offshore than anyone has ever considered.  This saves our client’s money and increases value.  In order to do that with efficiency, accuracy and quality…our entire management team is intimately involved in every job we encounter.  For example, BOP test plans are developed, checked, checked again and then reviewed again upon completion not only in the field, but by our engineers and project leads onshore.  For OTC, this is part of the process for exaggerating keeping our eye on the ball.  The result is in the feedback from our customers.  This comes first and foremost through repeat business.  This is what keeping your eye on the ball in business looks like.  But there is much more to the story.

Keeping our eye on the ball also means providing key performance indicators back to our clients.  Providing “a-ha” data back that shows where our clients operations may be able to improve by looking at the data we provide.  It’s making sure we are positively affecting quality improvement internally and externally.

We are keeping our eye on the ball offshore for our clients because that’s what we do.  It’s not just our job…it’s our passion.  It’s our culture.  What does “keeping your eye on the ball” look like for your business?