Case Study: Deepwater Pathfinder

The Challenge

The Deepwater Pathfinder was the first drillship ever to operate in 10,000 feet of water. A bold project by ConocoPhillips and R&B Falcon, it was designed to be a game-changer. But within its first 120 days:

• The derrick was dropped.
• The BOP (blowout preventer) was lost.
• The vessel had to return to shipyard for five months—bringing operations to a halt and piling on massive rebuild costs and lost productivity.

Despite cutting-edge equipment and high expectations, there was no structure to integrate the complexity of deepwater systems or align the crew with safety and performance.

The Solution

What We Brought: A Shift in Leadership Mindset

We weren’t hired to plug gaps. We were brought in to create a system that could turn the crew from risk factors into the key to performance.

Our approach was based on a belief:

People are the lever. Free their minds and they’ll move the system.

We built a Cycle-Time Learning System rooted in crew participation and daily operational reflection:

• Morning – Workers identified what might impact performance—from their perspective.
• Midday – The team paused to ask: What’s changed? What needs adjusting?
• End of Day – “What surprised you?” became a trigger for team insight and feedback.
• Capture + Reinforce – Daily discoveries were fed back into processes, shared across crews, and became part of a living playbook.

This wasn’t a training program. It was a shift in belief and behavior—from top-down control to bottom-up insight. We helped management trust the crew, and gave the crew a system to think, adapt, and lead.

Achievements

The Results: A Cultural and Financial Win

• Zero injuries during the transformation
• Drilling cost dropped from $1,200 to $825 per foot
  → On a 20,000-foot well, the savings were in the millions

• Reputation turnaround: From crisis to most efficient deepwater drillship in the world

• Economic value unlocked:
  • The vessel became a prized asset
  • Day rate climbed to $650,000/day
  • ConocoPhillips was able to leverage the vessel to other contractors, multiplying ROI

What This Really Was

This wasn’t just a recovery—it was a leadership transition.

From:

• Managing tasks
• Reacting to problems
• Top-down control

To:

• Trusting people
• Structuring feedback
• Using daily learning to drive performance

By focusing on the worker—not just as labor, but as a source of insight—and giving them space to think, act, and own results, the entire operation changed.

The Deepwater Pathfinder proved that economic value follows when you believe in potential—and build systems to capture and scale it.