{"id":2,"date":"2010-06-07T05:53:11","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T05:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html"},"modified":"2010-06-07T05:53:11","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T05:53:11","slug":"the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html","title":{"rendered":"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
When corporate accidents happen, people look to the CEO for answers.  And in the case of the recent oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP)<\/a>, the company has covered all the right public relations bases.  Tony Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive, has been actively interviewing with dozens of media outlets and the company’s website posts frequent updates on the spill and containment efforts.  And, his employees are working hard to rectify the problem.  But is this enough?<\/p>\n

Back in September 1982, seven people died in the Chicago area after taking
\ncyanide-laced capsules of Extra-Strength Tylenol, the painkiller that
\nwas Johnson & Johnson’s best-selling product.  James Burke, the company’s chairman, exhibited unusual honesty and sensitivity by recalling 31 million bottles of Tylenol<\/a> and
\noffering replacements free of charge.  <\/p>\n

But more than 20 years have passed since that accident and in today’s business environment, forthrightness isn’t enough.  The US Geological Survey<\/a> estimates that 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil are being leaked into the Gulf each day, and that the spill has affected the coasts of 4 U.S. states.  Some Florida residents have reported that BP’s efforts are largely limited to the leak itself, and that BP has little or no presence on the hundreds of beaches on which globules of tar- and oil-soaked wildlife is washing up.  <\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Hayward told the BBC<\/a> that BP would, “return the Gulf Coast to the position it was in prior to the event.”  In this one statement, Hayward’s lack of leadership can be viewed most clearly.  Even after the leaking well is contained and most of the oil is removed, the Gulf Coast will never<\/i> be the same. [After all, this spill is estimated to be at least 10x larger than the one caused by the Exxon Valdez in the eighties, whose effects are still being seen.]<\/p>\n

Leaders don’t manage a crisis; they enable a company to be transformed by it.  When James Burke took the extraordinary step of recalling and replacing Tylenol, he taught an entire industry to put consumers first.  Tony Hayward’s actions may be effective at stemming public curiosity, but he isn’t making choices that will change an entire industry’s approach to handling an environmental disaster. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When corporate accidents happen, people look to the CEO for answers.  And in the case of the recent oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP), the company has covered all the right public relations bases.  Tony Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive, has been actively interviewing with dozens of media outlets and the company’s website posts frequent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authentic-leadership","category-by-taz-tagore"],"yoast_head":"\nThe BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis - The Inner Cubicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis - The Inner Cubicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When corporate accidents happen, people look to the CEO for answers.  And in the case of the recent oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP), the company has covered all the right public relations bases.  Tony Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive, has been actively interviewing with dozens of media outlets and the company’s website posts frequent…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Inner Cubicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-07T05:53:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA-thumb-120x80-14595.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Taz Tagore\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis - The Inner Cubicle","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis - The Inner Cubicle","og_description":"When corporate accidents happen, people look to the CEO for answers.  And in the case of the recent oil spill caused by British Petroleum (BP), the company has covered all the right public relations bases.  Tony Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive, has been actively interviewing with dozens of media outlets and the company’s website posts frequent…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html","og_site_name":"The Inner Cubicle","article_published_time":"2010-06-07T05:53:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA-thumb-120x80-14595.jpg"}],"author":"Taz Tagore","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html","name":"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis - The Inner Cubicle","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA-thumb-120x80-14595.jpg","datePublished":"2010-06-07T05:53:11+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-07T05:53:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/#\/schema\/person\/c2393b784e5f472625d978bb020c826a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA-thumb-120x80-14595.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/innercubicle\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/06\/120px-BP_Oil_spill_Chandeleur_IslandsLA-thumb-120x80-14595.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/2010\/06\/the-bp-oil-spill-business-leadership-in-a-crisis.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The BP Oil Spill: Business Leadership in a Crisis"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/","name":"The Inner Cubicle","description":"Mindfulness at Work","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/#\/schema\/person\/c2393b784e5f472625d978bb020c826a","name":"Taz Tagore","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c4c\/c4c06a99dbc079c90fd215a0bdf2dff5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c4c\/c4c06a99dbc079c90fd215a0bdf2dff5x96.jpg","caption":"Taz Tagore"},"description":"Taz Tagore is a leading social entrepreneur, author and leadership expert. She founded the award-winning non-profit called The Reciprocity Foundation that helps homeless youth access higher education and start innovative careers. She also actively writes about and teaches leadership to senior executives at Fortune 500 corporations and at universities including New York University and the University of Toronto. Taz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work has been featured in countless publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and she has been featured on a wide variety of nationally broadcast television and radio shows.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.laboroflove.typepad.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/author\/ttagore"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/innercubicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}