BP - a Victim of Certainty?
BP as an organization has been a front page example for months of how things can go wrong in business. In fact, BP has been a poster child over the past 20 years of the negative impact of the oil industry on our environment and our lives. Mother Jones Magazine, an investigative journal that exposes the “evils of the corporate world” named BP as one of the ten worst corporations in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records. Here are just a few headlines about BP over recent years:
- 1991 - BP was cited as the most polluting company in the US based on EPA toxic release data.
- Between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills.
- September, 1999 - BP Exploration Alaska agreed to resolve charges of illegal dumping of hazardous waste for $22 million. The company illegally discharged toxic waste by injecting it down the outer rim of the Alaska North Slope, and management failed to report the illegal injections when they learned of the conduct.
- August, 2006 - BP shut down operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to leaking wells. The company had spilled over one million liters of oil.
- March, 2005 - BP’s Texas City, Texas refinery exploded, causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people, and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered. The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery.
- April 20, 2010 - BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, 11 people were killed, with a monumental environmental disaster requiring a starting fund of $20 billion to make restitution.
As a result of all this, BP has been vilified in various forms. Focusing on BP as an organization, however, gives us limited perspective on what is happening, what might go wrong in the future, or where any resolution of BP’s historic problems might reside. It is the thinking and action of the people, and especially the top leadership, of the organization that hold the key to the future success of the company (see our article on Anthropomorphizing Business).
Given this snapshot of BP over the past two decades, then, it was startling when the outgoing CEO, Tony Hayward, stridently announced that BP was “a model of social corporate responsibility.”
At last we have a clue to this gargantuan business’ stumbling around the globe, leaving a trail of misery. Tony Hayward appears to be a victim of his own certainty.
A Bit About the Science
Human beings are storytelling machines. This is one of our brain functions that is unique to humans - no other living thing on the planet can make up a story to explain the world around it. It served us from the beginnings of our brain evolution by providing a mechanism to make sense of the world and keep ourselves safe. Our storytelling is motivated by the part of our brain that functions to protect us from all manner of danger, and this happens at an unconscious level. By the time our stories reach our awareness, we have begun to believe them as true.
People typically do not intentionally lie or mislead when they tell their stories. It is a natural brain process for us to be build a feeling of rightness about our stories. The stronger our emotional reaction to a situation, the more likely we are to defend our stories as true. It may not be so surprising after all that Tony Hayward, after several months of fierce attack by the media, the public, and government, was soundly ensconced in his story of social responsibility. It is no surprise to have difficulty pulling back from a story that made us feel safe.
Certainty causes very specific problems. As a victim of certainty, we are blind to alternative thinking, actions and solutions. Even when people point out viable alternate approaches, our ability to hear it as viable suffers from our extreme certainty that our story is true. However, when alternatives are eliminated, we are no longer doing our best thinking, making our best decisions or taking optimal actions, and business can suffer.
Let us speculate about an organization that has a CEO who is stuck in certainty.
Recognizing Certainty
There are a couple of obvious clues to an organization suffering from leaders whose certainty has become unassailable.
- How likely is it that anyone working for Mr. Hayward would feel safe challenging his feeling of certainty about BP’s level of social responsibility? It is a reasonable story to imagine that BP is full of capable, well-intentioned people doing their jobs as best as they can. If we can see clearly that something is going wrong but are reluctant to tell our story to our boss (or higher), this is a major clue that certainty has taken a victim. Here is how it works: an employee believes her boss’ certainty will preclude his hearing a new story about a situation. She will act to avoid being the one who attempts to break through the wall of certainty surrounding the boss. With this level of misinformation, mistakes in the business will increase. Assuming he is like everyone else in his victimhood, Mr. Hayward got to his level of certainty not only because of his own internal storytelling but because no one challenged him - a vicious circle if ever there was one.
- Even after the past 10 years of bad news, it may be safe to assume Mr. Hayward was surprised by the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Another clue that certainty has taken squatters’ rights is when we are surprised. “What happened???!!!” is the natural response of someone who was certain everything was going to work out the way he expected.
Fantasy though it is, here is a potential story about BP and its’ leaders: moving fast, getting results, and meeting stockholder expectations have precluded thorough problem solving, sound decision making and the removal of blame from the system. How difficult it would be to continue, year after year, to find your company’s name in the front page headlines, disparaged again and again for damaging the environment or putting employees’ lives at risk. There are many ways to respond to each of these situations, but with a certainty that you are doing what you are “supposed to do,” how can you see options for change?
Reducing the Impact of Certainty in Your Business
If you were a leader in an organization that had fallen victim to certainty, what could you do, right now, to reduce its effects? The best way to overcome certainty is to play the “What if we are wrong” game. Here’s an example. You are in a meeting with the rest of the executive staff talking about the organization being “socially responsible.” Ask the question, “What if we are wrong about that?” The conversation might sound something like this:
“What if we are not socially responsible? I know we think we are, and we may well be, but let’s think for a few moments about what would be true if we were not socially responsible.”
“Well, it would be a disaster in today’s day and age! We’d be poised to have something terrible happen that could cost us dearly!”
“Good. So how would we become social responsible?”
“Well, define it first, I guess. Being socially responsible means, uh, well, making sure we are meeting all the requirements imposed on us regarding environmental impact.”
“And safety! We’d have a great safety program and everyone would be following all the safety rules that we know keep people safer.”
“Yes, even when they don’t want to - like wearing uncomfortable clothing or helmets, for example.”
And the conversation could continue, moving into questions like “how do we increase our attention to safety, then?” Eventually, even though you already feel your organization is socially responsible, you now have done some good thinking about it, may have decided to alter your approaches to some of your processes, and you have possibly increased your level of social responsibility that will save a life or a grassland.
Outside our “certain” view, alternatives become available that were not visible because of our reason being eclipsed by certainty.
