Transcript:
Welcome to our first episode of Chemical Processing's Distilled podcast in 2025. This podcast and its transcript can be found at chemicalprocessing.com. I'm Traci Purdum, editor-in-chief of CP.
I, like many folks, use the new year to reflect on the past year and find inspiration for the next 365 days during the “Bermuda Triangle” time between the holidays and New Year. You know those days that all mesh together, and you don't know whether it's Tuesday or Saturday, and you've just had a handful of cookies for breakfast? Well, I decided to listen to past episodes of Distilled. I came across many auditory pearls of wisdom, and I whittled them down to four things I plan to work on this year. Maybe you'd like to join me.
Embrace Opportunities
The first nugget comes from Anne Berg, BASF's, vice president of manufacturing, Agricultural Solutions Americas. I chatted with her about her recent induction into the Women in Manufacturing Hall of Fame. I learned that during her 28-year career, she has worked in leadership positions in Germany, Belgium, Spain and the United States. I asked her about her nomadic career path and what advice she would offer younger folks just entering the chemical industry. Here is her advice. (Here is the full podcast.)
Anne Berg: My first advice as always, be open and grab opportunities. So there's a balance between, in my opinion, what you can plan for and what you might want to decide spontaneously along the way. And my career was largely unplanned. I know not everyone wants to have that unplanned, and I think a little bit more planning might not be a totally bad idea, but I grabbed the opportunities when they were there. I was open to that and I was motivated to do that, and I also had the ability to do it. That's not always the case. And a little bit of a plan is definitely helpful, but I think not having a too clearly outlined path and only one straight line in mind, but to allow for what could be another option, what could be a turn that I might want to take. And then let's see where it leads me as a good idea.
Avoid Fixation
Next. I was reminded of the challenge to work on my own shortcomings in terms of what I call “know-it-all syndrome.” Dave Strobhar, our founder and principal human factors engineer for Bevel Engineering and founder of the Center for Operator Performance, refers to it as fixation. I think everyone can fall into this trap, but once it's pointed out to you, you can then start to recognize it and work to resist the temptation to abandon the facts. Here's how Dave breaks it down.
Dave Strobhar: So fixation is where we come to a solution or a concept that defies contrary evidence. We believe that this answer is correct, or we have a belief that, well, this is the way it is, and people can throw out all this contrary evidence and it doesn't butt you. And that quote is because it's wired into us how we as human beings tend to function just like visual issues we have or auditory issues, it's in there. And we can't help but get caught up in this problem of fixation, used to call it confirmation bias, which kind of has a little bit thing, which means obviously once I come to a conclusion, I'm biased against it. I seek out information that supports my conclusion and I dismiss information that goes against it. And then before that, I used to call it tunnel vision that, hey, I quit taking in new information. I just, I'm just going to use what I have right now. Don't cloud the issue with facts because I'm confident in what's going on. That's what we are calling fixation today.
Traci: As you pointed out, we all fall into that very much. But let's talk a little bit about why this is a problem, especially for operators and for folks in the industry here, and are there examples of it happening? I'm sure you have plenty.
Dave: Oh yeah. So it is definitely a major stumbling block in decision-making, just human nature in general, process operators. When I was working at Three Mile Island, one of the causes of that particular incident with the operators were so sure that the problem did not have to do with this stuck relief valve off the pressurizer. That even though more and more evidence was indicating, Hey, that's the problem, they weren't going to take it. They're like, no, no, no, no, that's not it. We checked it. It's not part of the problem. So we see this numerous times where operators, they become, they say, Hey, we know what's going on. I was in one control room and the console is showing it's a fired reboil, and it's showing that it's really hot. And for some reason, the operators didn't believe what they were seeing on the screen. The head operator went out with a heat gun and all sudden he comes running back in, he's going, it's real. It's real. Cut the heat. Cut the heat. So we get into that, and again, we can't help it, but that's where we're trying to do things to not have that happen.
Maintain Basic Skills
Continuing on with words of wisdom from Dave Strobhar, I'm going to embrace technology but also practice my trade and craft as if it's the eighties and I'm still sporting my Aquanet-infused hairstyle. Getting back to the basics and knowing how to function without crutches is important. Dave explains why.
Traci: Now, technology, obviously blessing, but also a burden. And I think of my GPS. If I'm traveling someplace, I just rely on my GPS, and if I get lost or the GPS blinks out, I panic because I don't have those. I have to think about it now. And the problem solving and the critical thinking of, do I go north? Do I go west? Where am I? How do I get my bearings? How do you develop that type of problem solving and critical thinking skills with this newer generation who is somewhat reliant on technology?
Dave: Well, and that is a problem. Most plants have seen that there's a skill degradation as you increase automation. So the more automation you have, the less the person is doing any skill. If you don't practice, it will begin to degrade, including problem-solving and critical thinking skills. So you used to get the practice from real life. It happened enough that I was staying proficient just by daily things happening to these compressor trips every day. So I'm used to starting it up because we do it every day. Well, now it's like, well, this compressor hasn't tripped in a year, and I've lost a skill as to how to restart it. The key is practice. And that's where there's a couple different ways where you can make this practice happen. There are decision-making exercises. Center for Operator Performances has created a guide for how you create these that take operators through various decision steps and allow them to practice their problem solving and critical thinking skills. On the other side, on the higher priced end, you now have simulations in virtual reality of fired heaters. So I want to teach an operator and have them practice on starting a fired heater, putting the flame in. And so now I can do that in a virtual world where if I do it incorrectly that I'll blow up the simulator heater, but not the real thing. So practice is critical in maintaining skills, whatever that skill is.
Promote Psychological Safety
And finally, I'm going to hold space for psychological safety. I interviewed Dennis Banks, vice President of Syncrude Maintenance at Suncor Energy Incorporated for the "Diversity Isn't a Dirty Word" article I wrote last year. Here's his hope for the industry.
Dennis: I would love for our community to focus less on the optical illusion of diversity. Really embrace the concept of diversification, of thought, of backgrounds, of ideals, and really how that combined with a true embrace of psychological safety can create spaces where each and every employee of the organization comes to work every day feeling like they can be themselves and contribute to the success of the organization. And why is that so important? You know how exhausting it is to play a role their drain. I have a cousin who's an actor. He's drained at the end of a performance because he has to put on this persona that's different from his own and go and perform for a number of hours in a play or on set of a particular filming. Think about that for employees in different companies who each and every day have to leave home and put on this costume, this disguise and wear that disguise eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, how exhausting that is and how that energy that could be better spent on the work, on the contribution, on the output is then divided between all these different things that don't contribute to the success of the individual or the organization.
Thanks for listening, and here's to a prosperous and safe new year. Subscribe to this free podcast via your favorite podcast platform To learn best practices and keen insight, you can also visit us at chemicalprocessing.com for more tools and resources aimed at helping you achieve success.
