Leadership: Vision, Guts, and Decisions

Filed in archive Energy Issues on May 30, 2007

Whether you look at Toyota developing a prototype for a Hybrid car back in 1987 or Suncor in Alberta making a decision to develop the tar sands when the price of a barrel of oil was headed towards $5/bbl each CEO had the vision and guts to make a decision to invest in technology when everyone else doing the opposite.

We made the decision when crude oil was at $12 (U.S.) a barrel. And that was within a month of when the Economist put out a front-page Story saying it was going to $5 a barrel.

Being a leader means going with a set of facts and making sure you do your homework. But at the end of the day you're never going to have a full set of facts to make every decision.

You've got to know enough about your industry - from the ground up, not from the top down - to intuitively know the direction you should go. Via Report on Business

This story in The Report on Business is worth reading for the gems of wisdom from Rick George.

There are three or four hundred oil companies in this town and they tend to move in a herd. Part of that is because if commodity prices drop and our costs get too high, it affects everybody.

But I often say that if you ever see that whole herd move in one direction, you'd better look somewhere else because the money usually is being made in a different direction. Via Report on Business