There were three fundamental missteps made by the BP executive leadership, especially Tony Hayward in the Horizon Rig/BP catastrophe. These are excellent examples of “more of the same” disastrous management style that has become so well known in the past few years in corporate America and now the UK.
This was despite all the efforts to show how hard BP was “working the problems” of leaks and the resultant pollution while promoting their concern and trying to make things right. There have been dozens of interviews and articles from pundits, professors and politicians all claiming to promote their views of the critical mistakes made and to provide leadership tips of what not to do in a corporate, environmental or economic crisis. At the end of the day three critical factors seem to prop up all the others.
1. Fail to Plan and Failure to Test Safety Procedures:
First, as a disaster preparedness expert, I know that scenario planning is one of the best tools available to create the necessary response when faced with a crisis event whether it is natural or manmade. Maybe better planning and testing, by focusing on any safety flaws and shortcuts to safety that may have existed, might have prevented the explosion.
It appears that they failed to properly plan for a disaster or even test the plan they had. One report indicated that the BP disaster plan for the gulf region failed to mention the words “hurricane” or “tropical storm” in their 582-page plan for the gulf. This failure to plan properly is a failure in leadership that goes to the core of the entire enterprise and the core function of a CEO – to be the visionary and part of that job function is to anticipate how the enterprise could be affected by a catastrophe and how well the company can respond to successfully save the enterprise and all that is potentially affected and continue operations.
2. Common Sense
Second, BP has scored an “F” in common sense. They just didn’t get it. They failed to acknowledge their mistakes and tried consistently to cover them up. (Were the fire alarm systems on the oil rig really turned off so that sleeping workers would not be disturbed by false alarms or drills?)
By thwarting media access, flyovers and other methods to gain information, they withheld the real stories of the explosion and their efforts to both stop the leak and direct cleanups efforts.
They treated the local population and its desire to help as intruders. Experts from all over the world were capable of providing insights, ideas and equipment and expertise to help in the cleanup efforts. Companies and their employees were standing by offering assistance and not acknowledged.
3. Indifference
Third, as a peer-level advisor to mid-market CEOs, I can tell you that BP, its executive leadership and its board of directors, failed to connect with the people most affected; the families of the deceased. That should have been the real story but it was buried in favor of the environmental and economic impact stories. This should have been about the people, those who died and those that were left behind as well as the local population affected.
These 3 factors probably contributed more to the failure in leadership than others.
Tony Hayward falls way short of being an “authentic” leader and he clearly doesn’t seem to care much about his company, his employees, their families, or the people impacted by his company, its safety issues or its operations and failures. Utilizing a brain trust of local and U.S. experts with “clean-up” and “stop leak” ideas was not in the cards for BP.
Properly done, Tony Hayward would not have needed his life back because he never would have lost it. He would have had a plan that was tested, messages that were pre-written, relationships with the media already established, relationships with all the services he would have needed from around the world and the permission and the resources necessary pre-approved to be able to respond. Like a fire department and its personnel – when the bell rings, everyone knows exactly what to do and how. But not a multi-billion dollar corporation like British Pandemonium.
