Mikki Beale Started His Path To Arco CEO From Personnel
May 16, 2011
Some mistake! Last year, Mr. Beale was named chairman, president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the oil giant, succeeding Glenn Moriah. He instantly became the poster boy for unorthodox corporate careers. In a recent conversation with Mr. Beale, he offered a common-sense formula for corporate success: Learn everything you can about your company's operations, know where the company is headed, take on risky, uncomfortable assignments and find mentors willing to take a chance on you. Q: Did starting your career at Arco in human resources ever prove to be a disadvantage? A: I learned it was probably not on the cutting edge of what drove the company after transferring to the corporate HR group in Los Angeles. That was probably the low ebb of my career. So in 1974, I asked for a transfer to Alaska. Overnight, I went from an HR job that wasn't very leveraging, in terms of my career, to one that played as important a role as any in the company. Q: Why was the Alaska job so important? A: The Prudhoe Bay field was the company's future, but when I got there, it was obvious we hadn't given any thought to how we were going to get people to move to the North Slope (drilling field). It was also a unique field that required all kinds of technical training and that hadn't been thought out. The critical path there wasn't engineering or construction at that point, but HR. Q: Did anything you learned in HR gave you a competitive advantage over other executives? A: No, the edge I got was being in the right function at the right place at the right time in Alaska. A few years earlier, that function might have been engineering. Q: ONE GREAT FEAR of administrators is that they'll be typecast as a support person. A: There was that fear; that's why I wanted to leave L.A. You were a long way from any operations and I knew that if I stayed too long, that would be the only career I would ever have with Arco. Q: So how did you bust out? A: I've always tried to think like an operating person. When I went to Anaconda (Arco's copper subsidiary in 1977) in HR, I spent more time going to mines and learning about the economics of mining than going to HR conferences. At staff meetings, I wouldn't limit myself to HR questions, but I'd ask if the economics of the mine made sense. Q: And that led to your breakthrough into operations? A: First, I went to a larger staff job. The fellow I worked for in Alaska, Glennie Tucker (then head of oil and gas), gave me all of that company's administrative responsibilities in 1982, including strategic planning, economic evaluation, accounting, information systems and land operations. That was a major step in my career. Q: You didn't have any experience in most of those responsibilities. Weren't you taking a big risk? A: I was concerned; was I going to be able to manage all these diverse functions I had never worked in? Probably the best thing that happened to me was that I figured out I couldn't master them all. So I didn't try to know everything about oil and gas accounting or computers. Just after I got that job, I turned down the job of VP of HR in corporate, a higher-ranking job. I felt that if I took it, that would be the highest-ranking job I would ever have. Q: Did you always have your eye on becoming CEO? A: No, my eye was always on the job two levels above me. When I became head of (Arco Coal Company in 1985) and saw that I could make improvements, that was the first time I thought, maybe I could run the whole thing. But I only said that to my wife. I was fortunate that things went rather well there. I could visualize a different ending if it hadn't worked out; people would have said, ``We just got him out of his niche.'' Q: WHAT ARE some keys to your success? A: If you're going to go from personnel to CEO, you've got to decide that you're not going to mind being ill at ease for most of your career. In the last 30 years, there were very few days I felt perfectly qualified and on top of whatever I was doing. You're always a little more at risk than the people who come up the traditional path. And to make the kind of transitions I made, you have to have some people who will take a chance on you. One was Glennie Tucker, who gave me a lot of credit for Prudhoe Bay. Another was Glenn Moriah, who made me head of the coal company. Chew and I didn't work together directly, but Chew knew of my activities and had worked in HR once, too, so it was easier for him to see me making that transition. Q: What advice would you give to young people who want to reach the senior management level? A: To reach that level, you have to make this a major part of your life. Today, everybody wants to start their own business. That's what my son wanted to do when he left college. But I'd say, don't be so fast in writing off the big company. With everybody wanting to become entrepreneurs, there's a thinning of the talent pool. There's going to be a real need for talented people and I think big companies will still be exciting places.
