Good evening all awesome Lions and
@stillsmokin from a -2 New York City evening ...sipping on my hot cocoa and checking out what the Lions are talking about ...
So I wanted to share a few stories at my time at BHP. Yes, I worked for BHP in Perth as a Strategy consultant. Although it's been over 6 years now and out of my non disclosure period , still will be slightly vague
I joined BHP as a strategy consultant as the consultant who was there before me wanted to resign so I was the sub in ... My 1st interview went good and got through it easily . But for some reason the out going consultant interviewed me as my 2nd interview with another BHP senior executive. The senior exec was good with my interview. Then a few days I hear that the original Consultant has decided to take back his resignation??? Well apparently the consultant thought they cannot find someone better and also wanted a higher rate so if he cried Wolf and resigned they will ask him to stay and pay him more !!! So who brought him in, was his Exec friend so nothing to do with capability but through mates ...
The other Execs pushed him out and I joined ...
1st strategy meeting I did the analysis as Iron Ore prices were to fall due to issues with China and various factors so solution options. Us Americans were sending our Southern fleet to station near Perth so China was up in arms ; and BHP was being hit hard in regards to profits
so I suggested alternatives
OMG!!! the Execs looked at me as if I was an alien !!! Sorry to say a bunch of "Antique thinking" people around the table (nothing wrong with alternative thinking but their justification was We have done this for decades and the markets will stay that way !!! thinking was not strategic at all? ) That meeting went pair shaped
Then after 6 months being there I was questioning why I was actually there ? if they are not going to do any strategy at all?
Then I realised why... Senior Execs from London and US were coming down and they wanted to say they have a strategy division. Only in name
Extremely toxic environment!!! Depression filled floors
It's only a place for mates mate and their mates with no capability at all ... seriously they had meetings to plan for more meetings , bureaucratic
no preparation, no actions, no agenda ,
too heavy project management processes not light and nimble at all ... A US Tech Silicon Valley company would run rings around them !!!
Every time I suggested a new approach or diversification I was shot down ( cancelled meetings , Execs not showing up , sending messages through their mates )
A nightmare of a place ... seriously
Probably the worst experience in my strategy consulting life ...
I had to leave to keep myself sane ... I was being asked to join Chevron and their strategy for go to market faster so I left BHP and joined Chevron ; and boy it was totally different
Just wanted to share my total disgust for a seriously manipulated Top heavy no management BHP ... still gives me goose pimples in a bad way every time I think of them ... A place of you are any good you really need to leave ...
I doubt they would have changed much ... such backward thinking is hard to remove ...
But the people I actually met in Perth were very nice and moved from George street apartments to the Perth Hills in Bickley ... loved it there !!!
They moved to Sydney after ...
So that is my short story of Perth ...
Hope you all have an amazing weekend and our Lion starts roaring
We are LionTown!!!
best regards
OrdFin
(20min delay)