Posted byOf course, major accidents have bad outcomes. Now, many CEO’s should feel less secure after the recent BP Deepwater Horizon accident outcomes.
What and I talking about? Tony Hayward is “Standing Down” and accepting retirement after his leadership was questioned (see the BBC report at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10434908).
Previous BP CEO, Lord Browne, also “stood down” after the BP Texas City accident and a lawsuit over court testimony (personal in nature and not related to his BP work).
There are heated debates in many quarters about the criminal and personal liability that CEO’s should have for accidents at their companies, these developments should make CEO’s think about the risks that their employees face and their efforts to improve safety and environmental performance.
We already know that the BP Deepwater Horizon and BP Texas City accidents were preventable. We already know how to set up a world class performance improvement program. We already know how to apply advanced root cause analysis to analyze small problems and prevent big ones.
A CEO should make sure that his/her company is applying these improvement techniques and stopping major accidents before they happen.
What if they don’t?
They risk following in the footsteps of Lord Browne and Tony Hayward.
Category: Accidents, Current Events, Investigations, Performance Improvement
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Lord Browne lost his job after he was exposed for trying to cover up an affair. His integrity and character were called into question. TC might have been contributory to his departure, but it was his personal fall from grace that despatched him.
Tony Hayward’s departure would have been decided as part of the overall strategy at the earliest point after the Gulf expxlosion. He probably volunteered to occupy the role of bete noir to satisfy the slavering hordes of US press & politicians and their need to demonise someone outside the US (I still don’t see anyone standing up and admitting that the lax permitting and monitoring arrangements in the region were at least partially to blame). It could even be possible that BP and the US government have agreed the public approach whilst being far more accommodating of each oher in private.
If Hayward was being sacked for the failures of recent months he would be unceremoniously dumped and wouldnt be headed for Russia with a massive pay off in his hip pocket
Comment by Chris Black — July 28, 2010 @ 3:52 am
All the BP executives in line between the Texas City plant manager and the CEO also left after the BP Texas City accident. Many were Americans. None were “fired.” But all left in about two years.
Who was fired? The guys at the pointy end of the stick. 5 operators and supervisors were fired for “not following procedures.” BP tried to make them the scape goats.
When you read the CSB investigation of the BP Texas City accident, you’ll find that the operators and supervisors routinely “modified” procedures to operate the plant. You’ll also find that the key level gages had NEVER been calibrated since the plant was converted to it’s new purpose (over a decade before the accident). Thus not a single startup in the plant’s history could be “by procedure” since the startup procedure required calibrating these gages (which was always marked “NA” (not applicable).
The BP Texas City accident was caused by management failures that went all the way up the chain to Lord Browne. I have no doubt (after hearing days of testimony) that BP Deepwater Horizon will have similar causes.
This isn’t a US vs UK thing. This is an oil company with repeated safety and environmental accidents of the first order. I don’t care who was in the chain – American or British, if their performance lead to the deaths of workers and environmental damage of the first order, they deserve to be sacked.
No major corporation really “sacks” their CEO. Even the worst leave the company with golden parachutes to comfortably cushion their retirement. The same can’t be said for the operators and supervisors at BP Texas City.
Tony was sacked for bad PR. “I want my life back” and “focusing on safety like a laser” but being unable to admit that BP made mistakes cost him his job. The deals made behind closed doors with Obama will probably never be known, but the day after the Chairman of the Board returned from that meeting, rumors started about a new CEO search at BP.
Ah well. Perhaps we will never learn that senior management DOES have a role to play in obtaining operational excellence.
Comment by Mark Paradies — July 28, 2010 @ 8:36 am
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Comment by Laurette Selim — July 30, 2010 @ 2:42 pm