Andrew Morton, Kelvin TOP-SET Senior Tutor, reports on his recent trip to Athens where he led a 3-Day Senior Investigator course followed by a Tutor Development course for the Attiki Gas Supply Company;
I was delighted to be called upon to tutor for Kelvin TOP-SET in Athens. The Attiki Gas Supply Company is a small company, with just over 300 employees. They oversee the supply of gas to Attica, a historic area which includes the city of Athens and its suburbs. So, it says a great deal about the company, and its management, that it has taken the steps to ensure it has a proper and effective investigation system to standardise the process in every respect from start to finish – from planning right through to reporting with recommendations.
Shell, as a part owner of the company, has supported and encouraged this development, and all credit goes to their representative in the company, Rinus Snippe, who initiated and expedited the process.
What a pleasure it is to teach in a new country, with people who are keen to learn. And to be honest, that’s always the case. We rarely have participants on our courses who don’t want to be there. Even when we do, they quickly change their minds when they start to engage with the steps and techniques, which are straightforward, simple to use, but nevertheless challenging on a variety of levels.
The real pleasure is meeting new people, experiencing different cultures and seeing new cities. And because we are working with the local inhabitants, and are not ‘tourists’, we learn much more about the nature of the country and what it’s like to live there. It has to be said, the welcome we receive is always warm and generous.
The course itself has been refined and developed considerably over the past few years, and in my opinion it is the best in the world. Why, because it is comprehensive in its coverage of the investigative process, and because the steps are easy to understand, and the rules few and easy to learn. This makes it easy to translate to other languages, and easy for all to use. The downside is that when you strip away complexity and jargon, some draw the conclusion that it is of less value, when the truth is quite the opposite.
One aspect which is particularly pleasing to me is the standard of performance of the participants in our courses now. All show mastery of the process: they gain high scores in the assessment sections and finish our 3-Day Senior Investigator Course well able to carry out high-quality Root Cause Analyses on their own. This is, for me, what makes teaching for Kelvin TOP-SET so satisfying and rewarding.
