The merger between Woodside and BHP petroleum in 2022 triggered a need for an organisational change within the operations division. Due to the sudden increase in assets held in Australia and Globally, it was no longer appropriate to have centralised teams supporting the entire operations division. The organisational change came with a lot of new role titles and role changes, and impacted everyone in operations, maintenance, and engineering.

I lead the change for one of Woodside’s key Australian assets - the Karratha Gas Plant. There was a lot of pushbacks against the new organisation, which was challenging to navigate. I had just completed my MBA so put what I had learnt into practice including the 8 steps to a successful change, and the emotional reaction to change model. During the transition, it was important to track key asset metrics to ensure integrity, safety and efficiency continued at a high standard, without anything falling through the cracks.

We’ll walk through the following 8 steps we employed:

1. Establishing sense of urgency
2. Creating guiding coalition
3. Developing vision and strategy
4. Communicating change vision
5. Empowering broad-based action
6. Generating short-term wins
7. Consolidating gains and produce more change
8. Anchoring this new approach in culture

Key take-aways and learning will include:

1. How we lead the organisational change for the Karratha Gas Plant – using 8 steps to a successful change and emotional reaction to change
2. Learn how we tracked of key metrics to ensure continuity during the transition period
3. Celebrated success stories of the new organisation to show the benefits and encourage people to get on board with the change