May Shek
May Shek received her B.S. and Honors Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2002. She Immediately upon her graduation, she joined Shell in 2002 where she has held various position with increasing responsibilities: Process Technical Support to Olefins (2002-2004), Control Systems Support to Heavy Olefins and Aromatics (2004-2005), Economics and Scheduling Coordinator to Olefins, Heavy Olefins and Aromatics (2005-2007), Refinery Planner/Supply Chain Optimization Planner in Shell Canada (2007-2009). In early 2010, she has recently returned to Houston after her Shell Canada assignment in Calgary.
Shek currently works as the Investment Planner/Asset Coordinator for the Deer Park Refinery. She has been active with campus recruiting since 2004. Since 2008, she has been on the advisory board of the CEP magazine. She is currently serving as a board member on the Engineering Alumni Association at the University of Houston. Besides working and volunteering, May enjoys playing the piano and practicing pilates. Since her stay in Calgary, she has been bitten by the running bug. She likes to run medium distance races (5k, 10k and Half Marathons). Readers can contact May via e-mail or the social networks below.
In today's world where we are constantly striving to do more with less, innovation is the one of the keys for continuous improvement. In his blog on innovation and business strategy, Paul Hobcraft highlighted the challenges an organization must overcome in order to foster innovation. His blog post can be found here.
Look for innovation everywhere
Hobcraft points out that one of the barriers to overcome is the notion that innovation is limited to only a small sector of an organization. Imagine all the good ideas that will be lost if we only solicit ideas from less than 20% of the organization. In my opinion, today's successful organizations often find ways to channel creativity and improvement from all employees. Lean concept and methodology is one of the ways to foster the idea of continuous improvement to everyone in the organizations. For more background on Lean, please visit this blog entry:Sell ideas to decision-makers
So now we have good ideas, the next step is to sell the ideas to the decision makers. Recall from the series "Talking to your Bo$$," when presenting your new idea to decision-makers, be sure to succinctly highlight the benefits of your proposal (i.e., how much cost savings achieved, how much revenue can be generated, how much risks can be reduced) as compared to the alternatives considered. Equally as important as highlighting the benefits is identifying and anticipating obstacles to implementing your ideas and the possible mitigations. Hobcraft concludes, "Innovation can be remarkable if we want to embrace it fully." Please do check out his entire blog post if you've not read it. In your opinion, what more can we do to foster innovation in our workplace as well as everyday life? What are your thoughts on some of Hobcraft's observations?What are some of your experiences with proposing change/innovation in your organization?
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