Bernie Bulkin

John D. Rockefeller modeled the organization of Standard Oil on the two models he knew to work: The United States Army and the Catholic Church. These are traditional hierarchical models, and hierarchy became the norm for company organizations for most of the 20th century. In this model, authority and accountability...

Just as individuals accumulate files, companies accumulate policies. In earlier times, if you entered the office of an executive, one bookshelf (it might be the only bookshelf!) in his office would contain eight or 10 big binders filled with company policies. So, in principle, if he wanted to know the...

There is a popular model used by many HR folk that conveys to employees, especially those progressing in the corporation, that at the outset of a career a job is mostly technical content (by which is meant specialist content, for example, selling would be technical in this regard), but that...

Some issues are specific to a particular company, a geographic region, or an industry sector. But there are issues that transcend all of these, and these are the issues around the environment. Clean air, clean water, land free of toxic chemicals, acceptable levels of noise -- these are issues of...

Do you think it would be great if you could wake up each morning, pick up the daily newspaper off your doorstep, turn to the financial pages, and check a table to see how much money your company made yesterday? If you do, then you are probably thinking about your...

When I became Chairman of AEA Technology, we were probably less than three months away from losing the Company. Debt was moving beyond our limits with the bank, we had issued two profit warnings in the space of three weeks, we were overstaffed, the person who was Chairman and CEO...

I once went on a BP course called Building Best Teams. It was a group of about 15 of us from various parts of the company, working with two very skilled people, Roy Williams and Dick Balzer, both of whom knew the company (and most of us) very well.

In the very center of BP's competencies for the leadership of the Corporation is "Builds Best Teams." I suppose we would all salute that one. Yes, sure, best teams. Of course you have to be able to do that. But what does it mean? And how do you go about...

Someone once asked me why I thought I had been successful in BP, and upon reflection I said that it was because I wasn't ambitious. I loved the first job I had, and thought I could be perfectly happy doing that job for a long time. So when the vice...

When the temperature goes up, and the humidity does too, we get pretty uncomfortable. To measure this, meteorologists developed the temperature-humidity index, also known as the Discomfort Index. Now, as we know, discomfort can have very different effects -- it depends on the person, the context, and of course the...

I always thought of staff meetings as rather boring times. Sure there are things that need to be communicated, and items to be decided, but once these things are set up as regular occurrences, week in and week out, they tend to degenerate into rather unstimulating affairs.

But when...

We have all seen people do a really poor job at chairing a meeting. Nothing could be easier: Have no idea what the objective is for an agenda item. Lack familiarity with what is being discussed. Ignore people who are trying to be heard. Let others speak for too long...

When I joined Sohio, at an advanced age for a new entrant, I was told that before joining I would attend an assessment center, or at least a mini version of one, where my potential for senior management would be evaluated. Well, I was a good academic, so I did...

Nearly every big company feels that employees must have a grade, that their position must be defined by a number and a title. So in investment banking a new bachelor's degree enters as an analyst, gets promoted (or not) to associate, then vice president, managing director, etc. We have grading...

I wrote a column last week with the title 'Can Science Save the Planet?', and the answer to that question was, 'sure, if you look where the action is in science -- biology and materials science (including nanotech) for example.' Surprisingly, although there were a lot of comments, none of...

The power world is dominated by coal, gas and nuclear, with some large hydropower in selected spots. Most people believe that it is likely to stay that way for some time. But there are more and more stirrings of a science-driven revolution, a transformation in how we generate our power....

'But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.'

'That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'

-- Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

It might appear that nothing is easier than having a speech all...

It is often said that all the great advances in mathematics are made by mathematicians in their 20s or early 30s. Many of the advances in physics are also done by the youngest scientists. By contrast, in chemistry a lot of great work is done by chemists in their 50s...

We all have an image of the office of the chief executive. Big, plush carpet, dark wooden furniture. Some rich, dark red drapes. Besides the big desk, on which there is not very much paper, an area with a sofa and a couple of chairs. Or perhaps a small table...

If we look at the jobs of senior management of a corporation, we might ask whether some people do content, and others process? I had not thought of jobs in this way until someone asked my colleague Tony Meggs, who was Group Vice President for Technology at BP, what he...