TOSSING THE HOT POTATO — BP STYLE
QUOTE OF THE MONTH: ”It is far, far better to be approximately right than to be exactly wrong.”
– Warren Buffet
With the past six weeks of news centering on the tragic and incredibly sad story of the explosion/fire and resultant oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, how could I write my monthly e-zine about anything other than this crisis? With so many news commentators, print reporters, and bloggers writing volumes, I hope that I can add something of value. What I want to weigh in on is the concept of responsibility.
THE OEFP WAS IN HIGH GEAR EARLY ON
You say you’re not familiar with that acronym??? It’s one that you often see in operation in times of crisis. It stands for the Office of Emergency Finger Pointing. In early May, I was attending and exhibiting at the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care Conference in Miami. That was when chief officials of the three companies at the center of the disaster - BP, Transocean, and Halliburton - were seated next to each other on one side of the table, facing a bunch of very angry members of Congress in a televised hearing.
Had the situation not been so deadly serious (especially in light of the 11 fatalities caused by the initial explosion), it would have been almost comical to watch how the three of them tried to shift responsibility for the accident from one to another. Halliburton had recently completed a cementing operation, but pointed out it was at the behest of Transocean, the operators of the deepsea oil rig; Transocean claimed that they were operating it at the request of — and under orders from — BP who leased the facility; BP said that all of the operations on the rig were under the control of Transocean, which had the responsibility for safety of the equipment. It was hard to keep your eye on the hot potato!
Each of these three men obviously had been advised by corporate legal counsel to try to minimize their liability in what was already then known to be a huge case. Many people with whom I spoke at the conference were appalled at what they saw. As companies which often hire subcontractors to carry out specific work in their special areas of expertise, they knew without a doubt that this potato was going to fall squarely in the lap of BP, the owner. Their attempts to sidestep this responsibility made them look really bad.
In an early interview on CBS, BP CEO Tony Hayward was still trying to avoid having the hot potato land in his lap. He said, “This is not our accident, but it is our responsibility to deal with it, to arrest the leak, to deal with the oil on the surface, to ensure that there is no or minimal environmental damage. And where there are legitimate claims for business interruption, we will make them good.”
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT?
Go back and read what he said again. I realize that you are reading it more than three weeks later and we all have the benefit of hindsight. However, a wise communications professional could have helped him keep his foot out of his mouth here.
First, he was still trying to make the point that the accident wasn’t their fault. With the investigation into exactly what happened just getting underway, why would he want to go out on a limb like this and state it so unequivocally? From what I’ve heard in recent days about the various investigations that are underway, it appears as if poor BP management decisions aimed at saving money may have played a very big part in the explosion. Even worse, when Transocean workers brought concerns to the BP managers on site (like finding chunks of an important rubber gasket and rising pressures shown on gauges), they were summarily told to follow BP’s orders. The rig operators were arrogantly told, “This is how it’s going to be!” Tony Hayward had taken over as CEO of BP in 2007. At that time, he was interviewed about the changes he was going to make to a company that had been roundly criticized for serious deficiencies in their safety culture. These had led to the tragic explosion in Texas City, TX that took the lives of 15 workers and injured many more. Mr. Haywood said, “We have a leadership style that is too directive and doesn’t listen sufficiently well.” It seems little had changed in that regard in the ensuing two to three years.
The other major problem with the statement is that Mr. Hayward said BP would “ensure that there is no or minimal damage to the environment.” Excuse me??? ”Ensure?” How could he believe, even back on May 4th, that a pipe gushing oil out at an unprecedented rate with no known ways to control it, would not have a major impact on the environment? Surely as he toured the beaches in Louisiana a few weeks later and saw the globs of oil fouling the heavily damaged wetlands, he would not dare to characterize the damage as “minimal.” Even a junior PR associate could have come up with better “weasel words,” as some people call them. Something like, “We will be doing everything in our power to try to limit environmental damage,” would have been better than his “ensure.”
When you have two major problems like this in a statement, it makes people wonder about the credibility of the man who says, “Where there are legitimate claims…we will make them good.”
BUT THEN THERE IS TAKING ON TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY
I cringed more than a little when I heard President Obama say in his news conference on May 27th, “I take full responsibility.” I’m sure his political advisors had been telling him he had to play more of a central role in dealing with this disaster so it would appear he was doing all he could. However, I couldn’t help but wonder why he chose to repeat those words so many times. Maybe the clips I saw on the TV news didn’t do his full statements justice. Maybe he did, when his comments could be heard in their entirety, say what I think he should have said.
It’s not that he should take full responsibility for the explosion, or for figuring out how to stop the gushing oil or for organizing the clean-up. He could have said he was taking responsibility for bringing the best technical minds of industry and government together to brainstorm how to stop the gushing (I can’t bring myself to call it “spilling”) and try to protect the environment. He could have admitted that he should have worked harder to bring to an end the cozy relationships between industry and the regulators when those concerns first were recognized. (Note: In line with the principle that, after a crisis, some heads need to roll in order to show action, the head of the Minerals Management Service was fired.) He should have said, as he did, that this oil disaster is on his mind all day long. It was good that he stated that it was his responsibility as chief elected official of this country to provide leadership of the governmental response. He did say, which I think was his major point, “The federal government is fully engaged.” But to see the TV news story about his news conference headlined with the words “I take full responsibility,” will, I believe, come back and haunt him in the future.
WALKING THE FINE LINE
Admittedly, there is a razor-thin line here when talking about responsibility in a crisis. People do not like it when you try to shirk responsibilities that rightly belong to you. But your lawyers will be all over you not to say anything that sounds like admitting liability. And you don’t want to take on more responsibility than you rightly should shoulder or admit mistakes that weren’t yours. This is why I always caution my clients, when faced with a question of “Whose responsibility is this crisis anyway?” — especially in the early moments — to say something like the following. ”It is way too early to try to affix blame for this incident. Right now, our company is focusing on responding appropriately, dealing with the people who have been injured, and doing all we can to protect our employees, the local citizens, and the environment. We are cooperating with the authorities who have jurisdiction in this matter. Here is what we are doing right now…”
I certainly hope you never have to face anything like this nightmare. But if you have any kind of serious incident, especially one that involves loss of life or serious injury or damage to the environment, hopefully these words of advice will stand you in good stead.
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NOTE: On this Memorial Day, I hope each of you have taken an opportunity to take some time out to remember the debt of gratitude we owe to our Veterans and those currently serving in the U.S. military services. We owe them so much.
SPECIAL REQUEST: Just today it came to my attention that another college (which makes 12 that I know of) has begun using my book “Keeping Cool on the Hot Seat: Dealing Effectively with the Media in Times of Crisis” as a textbook or supplementary reading. I have to say that I much prefer selling my books 20-30 at a time! I’ve promised myself that one of my summer projects will be to reach out to a lot more professors at colleges/universities to encourage them to ask me for a complimentary review copy. It occurs to me that many of you may know of a school whose curriculum in business or communications or PR should deal with how to react when something bad happens to their organization. If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you would let them know about me — or let me know about them! Thank you.
Until next month…KEEP COOL!
Judy Hoffman
jchent@earthlink.net
www.judyhoffman.com
1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145
JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA
