Marathon Oil

Need:

Marathon has been producing oil and natural gas in the U.K. for 20 years and is ranked as one of the top companies in the North Sea in operational efficiency. Like most companies in its sector in the late 1990s, it wrestled with deflationary pressures on price, industry consolidation, and escalating costs of exploration. It became clear to the senior team that in a commodity business people are one of the few assets that could offer competitive leverage. Marathon’s European management team believed strongly that leaders should be evaluated not only for their business results, but also for how they behave in achieving these results.

Solution:

To address the development needs of its people, Marathon partnered with DDI to design a comprehensive program for managers that combined classroom training with 360 feedback and online performance support. Initially, 100 leaders went through the program. To help pinpoint individual development needs and establish benchmarks for measuring development progress before going through the courses, the leaders received 360 feedback, using DDI’s Leadership Mirror® multirater survey tool. The leaders also completed two Global Leadership Inventories that identified personality traits that would impact their development. The program then offered courses from DDI’s leadership development system, Interaction Management®: Exceptional Leaders . . . Extraordinary ResultsSM (IM: EXSM)—Coaching for Success and Coaching for Improvement—which were delivered over a two-day period. And, because senior leaders don’t always support the learning back in the workplace, Marathon also asked DDI to roll out a similar program with the next-in-line managers, so they could understand the concepts and the language involved in the training. This training, which incorporated another IM: EXSM course, Influential Leadership, allowed participants to work on a live issue they face in their jobs.

Results:

The comments of a team leader attest to the implementation’s success: “The feedback was very positive about the content and the trainer. People agreed it was a good investment of their time, and met their individual needs. It has created a common language and common understanding of what leadership's about in Marathon. It’s more sustainable too, because their managers understand and support the same ideas.”