2020 The Year of Sustainability

2020

This will be the year for sustainability. The question is how can we change an unsustainable industry like ours into a sustainable one? When we look at the drastic plans of governments demanding us to be hydrocarbon free within 10 years from now, we must work together to phase out the transport, storage and use of hydrocarbon based products and replace them with non toxic, non CO2 emitting substances. When we look closely we all know that our storage and transport industry is unsustainable in its current form for the long term. But how can storage terminals which depend on the storage and distribution of oil, gas and chemicals survive when its business model will be rendered obsolete within 10 years? There is a saying which I find very appropriate: ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it too’. This means that we have to make a choice and ask ourselves in which direction will our industry be heading? If we can’t ship, store or pump environmentally harmful products any longer, we have to start phasing them out and replace them non harmful ones. From history we can learn that centrally planned goals such as no emissions or the United Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG’s) won’t be achieved, because they do not allow real time correction, or adaptation. We have seen this for example with the Millennium Goals 20 years ago.

Fact is that a young generation is on the barricades. The expectation is that they will buy, use and burn less toxic products, drive electric or hydrogen or solar powered cars. They will not buy plastic products anymore which end up in rivers, seas and oceans. The question you and me have to ask ourselves is; what is our plan? I believe that a sustainability thinktank, for example ‘sustainable storage’ needs to be formed, to research new ways and new applications for our industry. A couple of years ago I suggested that our terminals could be converted into drinking water storage facilities. The availability of clean, fresh, potable water is a global problem. Let’s think about this for a moment. Water can become the next commodity. Entire countries in Africa and Asia now depend on bottled water. They don’t have a drinking water supply network in cities and villages. Water is needed to grow crops, improve health or sanitation. To ensure water is available for everyone, a price can be asked to store, distribute and provide it, because the ability of the governments and people to pay for that service increases. This is just one idea, but we have to start thinking very hard. In physics we talk about a ‘wicked’ problem and that is why TTT offers a sustainability training course for tank terminals and refineries where one can learn how to solve such complex problems. So as I always tell my students: ‘a wise man comes prepared’. See you at StocExpo in Rotterdam where we will discuss Sustainability for Tank Storage Industry at the conference.

Information = Energy

Energy and information obey the same laws of physics like everything else. Information is the energy to create order and structure, not only in the cosmos, but in organisations, business, politics, body and mind. Therefore, our training programs are based on information theory and cybernetics, because without using all relevant feedback a system is not able to learn and can’t be adapting in real time. This is a major breakthrough and is used by us as a non linear Risk Management tool of Complex Systems. The erasure, denial, ignoring of information increases disorder (entropy). Information reduces uncertainty. Just look at our world today and you understand why it is in chaos.
Training your people will then become much easier; we can ask 'do you have enough information to manage and control your operations? We can determine what is there and understand what is needed?
This makes training much more effective.

Why are we behaving the way we do?

I’d like to tell you something about behavioural safety. As a professional trainer in our industry I developed a two-day course called BBS, Behaviour Based Safety, which in fact is a voyage into oneself. The course concentrates on self-reflection and psychology because students don’t often ask themselves why they behave in a certain, sometimes dangerous manner. Neither do they often realise that stress can lead to narrowmindedness.

Ethics is a condition for safety, because it means ‘doing the right thing.’ But what happens when someone who believes he is doing the right thing is doing it wrong? People are not flawless, they make mistakes or perceive situations differently. A good start is to understand ourselves and specifically our own brain.

Different parts of the brain have different responses to decision making. Understanding that people actually have three brains might help.

1. If the decision has to do with what is perceived as danger, the first, Reptilian brain will respond fast and instinctively.

2. If the decision has to do with relationships and emotions, the second, Mammalian brain will take more time to respond based on feelings and emotions.

3. If the decision has to do with an analytical challenge, the third, Neocortex brain weighs options and demands careful deliberation.

Reptilian Brain – Instinct (survival, breathing/swallowing/heartbeat, startle response). The brain stem is the reptilian brain. It is a remnant of our prehistoric past. The reptilian brain acts on stimulus and response. It is useful for quick decisions without thinking. It focuses on survival and takes over when you are in danger and you don’t have time to think. In a world of survival of the fittest, the reptilian brain is concerned with getting food and keeping you from becoming food. The reptilian brain is fear-driven and takes over when you feel threatened or endangered. Fear is a survival mechanism. It triggers the Fight, Flight or Freeze response: faster breathing, increased heart rate, higher blood pressure and metabolism, muscle tension, dizziness, headache, alertness, improved hearing, seeing, getting stronger, faster by stress hormones (adrenaline) (these reactions are unconscious).

Limbic System – Emotion (feelings, relationship/nurturing, images and dreams, play). The modules that lie beneath the corpus callosum are known as the limbic system. This area is older than the cortex in evolutionary terms and is also known as the Mammalian brain because it is thought to have first emerged in mammals. This part of the brain, and even that below it, is unconscious, and yet has a profound effect on our experience because it is densely connected to the conscious cortex above it and constantly feeds information upwards. The limbic stem is the root of emotions and feelings. It affects moods and bodily functions.

Neocortex – Thought (including planning, language, logic & will, awareness). The neocortex is the most evolutionary advanced part of your brain. It governs your ability to speak, think, and solve problems. The neocortex affects your creativity and your ability to learn. The neocortex makes up about 80 per cent of the brain.

This is the latest in a series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com. Those interested in responding personally can contact him directly at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com.

Mind the learning gap

During the last eight years I have trained many marine tank storage operators on how to control the ship/shore interface and achieve operational excellence. The first thing I do is ask a simple question: are you really in control? After that I ask them ten relevant questions. Too often I come to the conclusion that full control has not yet been achieved.

To control any operational or management system, the first part is to become aware about the risks and vulnerabilities of the operational system. What I observe is what is called ‘compartmentalisation’. People tend to focus on a part (their task) of the organisation. Operators do the operators’ job, loading masters theirs or management ‘manages’.  People usually look at ‘parts’ because they don’t understand the ‘whole’.

If I train them to understand how the whole system should work, amazing results are achieved. I show them that if feedback (information about their responsibilities) is shared and communicated, the operations can be controlled much better. It means that people in the terminal, refinery or transport company have an obligation to learn much more about the entire system. Focusing on their tasks alone and not understanding what the duties of others are, limits the ability to run and control the operations fully. It is all about an overall view.

You may ask: who is responsible for learning? I’d say there is a shared obligation to learn as much as one can. Management can order that people need training, but people must demand they are trained as well. The best scenario is that anyone working there should be motivated to reflect on his or her own awareness, knowledge or skill: ‘I don’t seem to know enough, I will make sure I will learn more.’ To assist companies, we observe people during operations and test competencies. Only when all needed capabilities are confirmed can we certify that maximum control has been achieved.

As a training company we notice that investments are made primarily in equipment, automation, tanks or technology, but that investments in learning is overlooked. This is an error of omission: things that should have been done have not been done. No matter how much management wants to reduce costs, people must not be ignored as a decisive factor when incidents or accidents occur.

People steer the operations but can do much better if they are taught how to think in systems. When they develop an overall view of their operations and learn that every task, duty or job is interdependent and interconnected, overall excellence becomes possible. It means that everyone must understand the law of requisite variety: a terminal generates tremendous variety and tries to control them through HSEQ rules, checklists or regulations. But that is not enough.

A terminal needs to develop internal requisite variety to be able to absorb (counter-balance) ‘outside’ variety (risk). This means having the people with the combined knowledge, experience, expertise and influence to do so, sharing all relevant information, and thinking in systems.

This is the latest in a series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com. Those interested in responding personally can contact him directly at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com.

Training, reading, learning by feedback

 01 FEB 2019

Share 

 
 

What is in store for us this year? Can we predict what will happen? Yes we can, and no we can’t would be the right answer.

As I wrote some columns ago, when we want to predict the future, we become Cassandras. She was able to foresee what would be happening merely by looking at all the facts, the circumstances, information, capabilities and intentions – but she was inevitably ignored.

Our industry can also foresee that its operations and manufacturing systems can be maximally controlled by using ‘all’ information, i.e. by feedback.

Training and education is what I do. I have always been very interested in companies and their employees who are somehow unwilling to read and therefore also unwilling to learn. They are making the same errors over and over, because facts are easily forgotten, overlooked or purposefully ignored because they hinder a pre-set goal.

Training and constant learning are therefore requisites for any organisation or person. Norbert Wiener, the founder of the science of cybernetics, put it this way: “Feedback is a method of controlling a system (your organisation, but also yourself) by re-inserting into it the results of its past performance. We then have a process which we may call ‘learning’.”

Those of you who have been reading my columns and blog will know that all I want to show and prove is that, by learning, one can become adaptive to all new situations. There is a saying, “a wise man comes prepared”. A wise man or woman, who is open to new things and new situations and who is willing to listen, will always have an advantage as he or she will know more and have more information by which to govern themselves or their organisation.

When I train people I tell them that human beings, as living systems, are innate learners. But no one will ever know everything – that is impossible in a creative, self-learning, self-maintaining and ever-evolving universe. I tell them that their bodies and minds are always learning from their environment, through interactions and by conversation, because if they did not they would not be sitting in my class.

I teach by learning from them, rather than telling them how things are done. I ask them: how would they do those things? I don’t teach them as students or pupils but as learners, and explain that we are all just trainees, learning how to live and how to stay alive. I compare the one who reads the manual for safe operations with the one who has not read it.

So, I do tell them: please read the manuals, guidelines, instructions. Collect all information before you start working with complex equipment or perform risky operations.

I have trained hundreds of loading masters to date, but what I have noticed is that few have read the manuals, because no one told them to do so – or maybe they just weren’t listening.

This is the latest in a series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com. Those interested in responding personally can contact him directly at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com.