Hi Chris -

Mike asked me to respond on his behalf to find out exactly which dates you 
are referring to in your message below.  We were assuming January 3rd and 
4th, but we did not want to assume incorrectly.  If you are indeed referring 
to January 3rd and 4th, please note that Mike McConnell will be out of town 
January 2nd through the 4th, returning to the office on January 5th.

Please let us know if you will be available on any other dates.  Thank you.

Cathy Phillips
713-853-6898





Chris Mahoney
12/26/2000 07:30 PM
To: Jeffrey A Shankman/HOU/ECT@ECT, Mike McConnell/HOU/ECT@ECT, John L 
Nowlan/HOU/ECT@ECT, Don Schroeder/HOU/ECT@ECT, Bill White/Enron 
Communications@Enron Communications, Greg Whalley/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:  
Subject: wed aftn/thursday

I will be in the office on wed aftn and all day thursday.  I would like to 
catch up with all of
you.  not sure of people's schedules but please advise me of your 
availability and hope 
most of you can make it for dinner on thur.  I will list some important 
things to me that I  would
like to discuss and propose some thoughts on positive changes for 2001.

teamwork/communication/teaching/guidance/leadership -   these are the major 
areas we should be
thinking about how we can improve.  

teamwork - I feel we look at each commodity (crude/light distillates/middle 
distillates/heavy distillates/lpg/
petrochemicals) as a separate business.   try to identify team leaders to 
provide direction for that business,
establish resources required to meet proposed budgets, and work on individual 
limits for the traders in those
groups.  

communication - once we have established global teams this should improve 
significantly.  'the road to hell
is paved with good intentions' and until traders bonuses are directly tied to 
the profitability of someone in 
another office I don't think we will communicate as effectively we need to.  
we have very few niche markets to
exploit that provide us with guaranteed revenues or allow most of our 
physical traders the ability to trade well
without a strong understanding of the push/pull forces at work from the other 
centers.   for the last two years
this has been cited a main area for improvement.  to get to where we want to 
be I feel it has to be done through
global books.   

teaching - given that the growth of the group has shifted away from hiring 
from the outside and toward internal
recruiting we need to focus on how we develop and keep young talent.  also, 
given the lack of depth in our
trading group it is important that our best traders be given the additional 
responsibility for development of 
talent in their teams.    


guidance - I feel that if  we move toward smaller business units it will be 
easier for individuals to understand
what the strategy is and what their specific role in that strategy is.  we 
lost a lot of people at this time last year
and the common complaint amongst all of them was they couldn't see where this 
group was headed.

leadership - with a group of 114 people at last count it is important to 
start thinking about ways to encourage
more people to make a greater  personal investment in making this group a 
success.  not just meeting a
budget but also in creating a  business that will survive the exit of  any 
individual.   a business that will have
a competitive advantage and that those involved in it will be highly 
motivated to keep growing.   

if there is consensus on the need to improve upon the above then we can 
analyse how we go about it.
I believe that by going toward global books we could improve upon many of our 
weaknesses.  chemistry
is the major concern on a such move but best looked at in context of each 
group.  

there are many other important issues such as eol, marketing team, research 
group, recruitment, etc
but I honestly think we have to focus first on how do we make most with the 
exisitng group and then
figure out how to try to build upon it.

look forward to seeing you on weds aftn or thursday and please email when/if 
you have free time to
meet up.


thanks,

chris.