'Turn-Around' an Illusion for British Petroleum

 AP Photo

Tony Hayward's angst is no illusion. Guy's stand-up, especially to the likes of Henry Waxman.

Sooner or later the pundits will start their 'turn-around' stories and advice on how to go about it.

The experience of a chief executive will include proof that there is no such thing. By the time one turns around, the moment has passed and the opportunity is gone. It's not possible to go back in time. One's actions have changed the landscape and the old plan must be forged again in the furnace of opportunity and resistance. The path to this knowledge is narrow and precipitous. There is no blame to be laid on the inexperienced. Jimi Hendrix had a taste for beautiful and Tony Hayward has it on the tip of his tongue.

The lesson begins with the leadership of John Browne, Baron of Madingley, Hayward's predecessor at British Petroleum. The turning point came in 2006 after difficulties in Alaska and the deadly explosion in Texas City. Hayward was quoted by The Daily Telegraph (London) at a Houston town-hall in 2007 meeting as saying, "We have a leadership style that is too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well. The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying."

"Boom," John Madden would say. The baron was pushed out early, even though his mandatory retirement was imminent, and his protegé, Hayward, took over. Doubtful Baron Brown's sexual preferences had anything to do with matters. That was three years ago.

British Petroleum employs eighty thousand (80,000) people in one hundred (that's right, 100) countries. Let those figures rattle around a bit. Imagine! How many languages do they speak?

The writer does not remember the early shoddy work on the Alaska pipeline, only now aware thanks to the Discovery Channel. Even more astounding is the antiquated thinking of the day, "Oh, hell, we can just lay the damn thing on top of the permafrost." Hard to believe, but it wasn't that long ago. "Let's just dump that nuclear waste crap in the ocean. Won't hurt anybody."

So Baron Browne's business practices are held in the closet and BP reaps the rewards. Enter Tony Hayward.

Tony's smart enough to know he's not going to be turning around anything. His job will be persuading those eighty thousand people that there is a simpler, softer way that is better for everybody. That's the opportunity.

The resistance is the 'old-guard' in the trenches (hold on, ladies, you're just as guilty) that have sandbagged every management initiative since they could crawl. "We can just wait this guy out. There'll be a new CEO in here before you know it." Witness the federal bureaucracy. Did you see the Fed's inspector general on CSPAN? Never mind.

The point is how powerfully 'corporate culture' unfolds in the work place. The early reports from the disaster in the gulf reveal a tug-of-war between reason and the 'way we've always done it'. It's difficult for leadership to listen if no one's speaking up. We may never know what happened until all the litigation, and all the lying and all the 'cover-yo'-behind' has died down.

This case needs 'fast-tracking' to the business schools. Royal Dutch Shell has broken ground in training executives to use their powers of perception in the field, to take advantage of the decision-support systems available to them, to collaborate and to seek consensus. It's doubtful that Americans are listening.

The BP guys and the Transocean guys must have been close to a fist fight. The regulators must have been shaking their heads. The only thing that's clear is that the White House has a lot to learn from Tony Hayward. Listen up, gentlemen, ...ladies. Mr. Waxman? What about you?

Bring our boys and girls home, dammit!