CHAPTER 3

Communication Ethics in Action

British Petroleum and Issue Thoughtlessness

Communication ethics in action recognizes issues as foreground situations interpreted with and against a background consisting of historical context, organizational mission, corporate and industry identity, and an organizational culture shaped by a shared value system. Communication ethics in action requires thoughtfulness, reflective engagement with conflicting perspectives on issues and contrasting stakeholder standpoints (Arendt 1998). Leaders acknowledge organizational reality in order to enhance and/or change collective understanding and direction. Heath (1994) argues that communication is central to organizational studies in that it “foster[s] the relationship between the company and internal and external people whose stakes it needs to achieve its mission” (p. 38). Problematic consequences arise when organizations disregard their constituencies through thoughtlessness, a refusal to acknowledge and reflect upon issues that matter. This section incorporates communication ethics in action as thoughtfulness, contrasting it with thoughtlessness on the issue of resource use reflected in lack of thoughtful preventative maintenance.¹ This chapter illustrates the requirement of astute reflection on issues that matter to stakeholders through three key points as demonstrated by an examination of the British Petroleum (BP) and Deepwater Horizon 2010 crisis through:

Long before the 2010 BP oil spill crisis occupied public awareness, there were signs announcing salient issues of significance for internal and external stakeholders that remained unexamined through thoughtlessness. Failure to communicate with stakeholders about key issues assured the possibility of later escalation and potential crisis. Ulmer and Sellnow (2002) argue that organizations that routinely “de-emphasize corporate responsibility prior to crisis will not likely be able to shed issues of corporate responsibility after a crisis” (p. 365). We contend that the issues of corporate responsibility begin long before the crisis. Issue clarity, discernment, thoughtfulness, and reflection define communication ethics in action. Organizations are responsible to and for internal and external stakeholders, responding to prominent issues that call for immediate and future reflective action. The BP oil spill demonstrates the need for thoughtful communication ethics in action while responding to issues. BP’s issue ignorance related to preventative maintenance of equipment is a performative case study of communication ethics in action, highlighting the consequences of thoughtlessness.

Ignorance: Issue and BP

Issue ignorance begins with a lack of acknowledgment of background narratives, foreground circumstances, and stakeholder identities. Background narratives (organizational mission and values) should guide responses to foreground issues of potential concern. Yet, under varied pressures from internal and external constituencies, organizations permit the foreground to supersede the background. Heath (1994) argues that narratives provide a “sense of structure” that “gives shared meaning and coherence to facts that would otherwise be subject to idiosyncratic interpretations by each hearer or reader” (p. 61). He provides historical depth illustrating the importance of narrative and mission in reflective interpretation of and about issues that encapsulate organizational import. In April of 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, owned by Transocean² and operated by BP, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico while drilling into the Macondo well. The eruption created a volatile hole in the Earth’s crust, permitting natural gas to enter the well below the ocean floor (Veil, Sellnow, and Wickline 2013). While not unexpected, this natural gas “blew out through valves and seals at the ocean floor” (Hammer 2010, May 29). The cause of the explosion was a combination of engineering and operational factors, including the use of a defective blowout preventer; BP knew of this faulty part prior to this disaster.

As reported by Hammer, natural gas rose through a/the riser pipe (a pipeline allowing for the vertical surfacing of oil from the ocean floor) to the surface where it exploded and caught fire. The explosion killed 11 rig workers and became the largest oil spill in U.S. history. BP’s thoughtlessness commenced with the failure to engage communication ethics in action; the company did not properly address preventative maintenance. BP’s thoughtlessness affected internal and external stakeholders. The company’s inattentiveness resulted in catastrophe.

This section explores the relationship between issue clarity and organizational success through three key points: (1) historical background, (2) narrative decline, and (3) corporate practices. The key metaphors of historical background, narrative decline, and corporate practices elucidate the pragmatic necessity of recognizing and responding to issues in order to avert crisis.

Issue Ignorance and BP: Historical Background

Lack of knowledge of an organization’s historical background obscures issues, causing leaders to miss what matters to internal and external stakeholders. Issue ignorance emerges from lack of understanding of historical background about what an organization should protect and promote. Heath (1994) argues that narrative form, such as mission and background history, is a “structural undercurrent” in organizational life and “guides” communicative actions of stakeholders invested in an organization. This structure yields an organizational culture focused on history, story, and narrative. This section attends to BP’s history as it relates to the issue of preventative maintenance.

BP’s history is a remarkable evolution that illustrates the importance of background in clarifying issues. The chronicle of BP began in 1908 when a group of British geologists discovered oil in Iran. The Shah of Iran allowed William D’Arcy, oil tycoon, to commence drilling, resulting in the formation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Almost 50 years later, in 1954, the organization became the British Petroleum Company. Up until 1979, the Iranian deposits were the core of BP’s growth and central to its identity. However, from 1973 (the Yom Kippur War) to 1979, a series of political events resulted in the loss of Iranian deposits, threatening BP’s position in the rich oil fields of the Middle East. The United States led efforts to resupply Israel during the conflict. Oil-producing nations protested this alliance by refusing to sell oil to the United States, exiling Western oil companies from the Middle East and inflating prices. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution led to the expulsion of BP from Iran, where its largest oil fields were located. BP suffered significantly, losing its identity as well as financial resources, an event that undermined BP’s thoughtful consideration of issues such as preventative maintenance.

During the 1980s, BP sought to balance the unpredictability of oil markets and compete in a global market through diversification, securing many unrelated businesses to rebuild revenue streams. The increase in businesses led to a lack of focus, forcing BP to sell those businesses. By 1987, investors in BP, like the British government, sold their stakes, flooding the market with over two billion shares and causing BP’s stock to plummet 11 percent overnight. The late 1980s witnessed increasing polarization of oil companies and political society. For example, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the fisheries off the coast of Alaska. The disaster sparked public distrust of oil companies, eradicating support for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, something BP had counted on to reinvigorate its business. BP found itself in an environment of mistrust directed generally at the industry and specifically at itself.

Issues of preventative maintenance preceding the 2010 BP oil spill perpetuated a political climate of earned mistrust. Shari Veil, Sellnow, and Morgan Wickline (2010) argue that two events prior to the 2010 disaster disclose the continuing issue of preventative maintenance that would lead to this crisis. First, in 2005, an explosion at a BP “refinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 employees and injured many more” (p. 361). In 2006, a “corroded” pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, led to the destruction of “16 miles of wilderness when oil began drizzling from neglected cylinders” (p. 361). The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation cited serious preventative maintenance failures as responsible for these incidents. This historical background continued to unfold through BP’s thoughtlessness, including through an inability to maintain attention to emerging social and political issues. Thoughtfulness requires knowledge and use of practices, which function as communication ethics in action; a narrative attentive to everyday preventative maintenance cannot preclude problems but will most certainly minimize their occurrence. For BP, lack of preventative maintenance demonstrates narrative decline, issue escalation, and thoughtlessness in action.

Issue Ignorance and BP: Narrative Decline

BP’s history is a tumultuous progression of financial and political burdens that shifted thoughtful attentiveness to thoughtless ignorance on issues of preventative maintenance. The role of narrative and communication ethics in action understands issues as emergent problems/opportunities tied to corporate mission and values. Narrative decline jeopardizes organizations’ ability to thoughtfully respond to emerging issues. Beginning in 2000, BP stressed five core values that were to structure their organizational narrative and goals: (1) Safety, (2) Respect, (3) Excellence, (4) Courage, and (5) One Team (British Petroleum n.d.). Leading up to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP faced volatile industry conditions and a changing sociopolitical climate that led to cultural agnosticism and thoughtlessness toward these five core values. The actual causes of the 2010 disaster trace back to 1979 with the loss of Iranian deposits and identity. The background issues surrounding the explosion—“corporate responsibility, business ethics, and leadership”—were the results of a long-term corporate narrative decline (Lustgarten 2012, p. xvi).

Lustgarten notes that the late 1980s “marked a geopolitical transformation” in the oil producing and consuming world, sparking narrative decline for internal stakeholders. Energy consultant, economist, and author Daniel Yergin called this period a shift “from ideological to economically driven priorities” (pp. 12–13). The sociopolitical climate became more pro-environment and more untrusting of oil producers, while petroleum companies became more economically driven. At a time when people demanded more regulation and attention to environmental stewardship, the oil industries could not afford the financial luxury of responsible oil production. Greater risk in drilling set against impatient short-term investors made the issue of preventative maintenance inevitable. BP’s history as a private oil company demonstrates the lack of access to supplies of oil across the world, which created a need to discover new oil fields in order to appease short-term demands of investors. The new discoveries were in dangerous and challenging locations, requiring more investment, planning, and patience. The volatility of oil production diminished investor confidence, yielding less revenue but greater demands for further capital investment.

The shift in industry climate created tension with the need for proper planning and funding, which affected the corporate practices within BP. Complicated preventative maintenance issues, resulting in problematic expectations, further perpetuated difficulties with attentiveness and responsiveness before, during, and after the crisis. In general, corporate practices become directives for internal and external stakeholders. These practices generate issue clarity when financial resources are reserved for proper preventative maintenance. However, long-term thoughtlessness of communication ethics in action results in corporate practices void of long-term consideration of consequences.

Issue Ignorance and BP: Corporate Practices

Corporate practices are a product of background/narrative that affect foreground behaviors, decisions, and communicative patterns. The changes in the oil industry climate had a direct effect on BP’s corporate practices. John Browne, CEO of BP from 1995 to 2007, began his stay with the company in Alaska, adopting an “entrepreneurial spirit of innovation and experimentation” (Lustgarten 2012, p. 17). Initially, he was deeply committed to environmental responsibility. Later, he acknowledged the conflict of interest between “rising taxes, higher running costs and more onerous regulations worldwide” (Browne 1986, September 14). The demands of the industry eventually led Brown to abandon his overarching goals of safety tied to preventative maintenance; instead, he opted for risk and aligned BP’s emerging corporate values with short-term investors.

British Petroleum’s new pillars became exploration and production with an emphasis on high-risk, high-reward ventures. It abandoned small-profit and unexplored oil fields, choosing to focus upon “elephants,” an industry word for an oil field containing over 100 million recoverable barrels of oil, freeing up capital and personnel to focus on exploration and production. Additionally, BP established a new, more cost-efficient management structure, streamlining communication throughout the organization. In the end, BP sold off more than 80 percent of its existing oil fields to chase after “a few well-informed bets” (Lustgarten 2012, p. 22). Browne set out to establish BP’s new identity through risk. Embedded into virtually every part of Browne’s new strategy was “an overarching ethos of controlling costs” (Lustgarten 2012, p. 23). At the bottom of every accounting sheet was a simple oil production metric of net income per barrel. If an activity did not work to increase this ratio, it was subject to cuts. Browne (2016, February 6) rationalized this strategy in The Times, stating that “volume and price are uncontrollable. The only controllable variable is costs.” And so was born a new BP, one with an identity tied to risk, ruthless cost cutting, and short-term gains, lacking acknowledgment of background/narrative and effectively changing its corporate culture. BP allowed temporal issues to construct its identity while continuing to emphasize, in the foreground, lack of preventative maintenance for the sake of cost cutting and enhancement of its position in the marketplace.

Summary

The corporate communication insights of BP’s background, history, and corporate practices illuminate the beginnings of issue escalation. This section centered on three major considerations:

The 2010 BP oil spill elucidates the need for unifying background/narrative and corporate practices for maintaining prominence in the marketplace. BP’s practices illuminate the practical necessity of communication ethics in action, aligning background and foreground in an effort to construct identity and to reach out thoughtfully to relevant stakeholders in a timely and appropriate manner. Theoretical discussions of thoughtlessness reveal the unintended consequences of unreflective communication ethics in action.

Thoughtlessness: Unintended Consequences

Communication ethics in action necessitates engagement in reflective behaviors that consider background structures in order to be ethically responsive to foreground situations. The 2010 BP oil spill demonstrates the negative consequences of corporate and stakeholder issue ignorance and thoughtlessness regarding implications within the public sphere. Heath (1994) argues for the centrality of communication in organizational life and issue discernment. He contends that communication creates organizations “meaningful” to internal and external stakeholders. Issue discernment arises in the process of communication where internal and external stakeholders identify the meaning and saliency of issues. The 2010 BP oil spill exemplifies the force of communication in issue discernment.

This section considers the foundations of issue discernment by examining BP as a case study centered on three major points: (1) corporate responsibility, (2) high reliability, and (3) attention and response. These key metaphors co-inform one another, illuminating the problem of thoughtlessness/lack of attentiveness to stakeholder relationships.

Thoughtlessness: Corporate Responsibility

Corporate responsibility, according to Coombs and Holladay (2012), is a convergence of strategic means and socially responsible ends, yielding financial returns and “sensitivity” to stakeholder concerns and expectations. Stakeholder demands and experiences create “perceived obligations” for an organization, which is then responsible for a thoughtful construction of responses. For Coombs and Holladay, corporate responsibility is a “voluntary ethical and discretionary” set of practices concerned with the larger “public good.” Incorporating communication ethics in action, corporate responsibility is a reflective attitude toward the thoughtful integration of leadership, stakeholder engagement, and attentiveness to emerging issues.

The 2010 BP oil spill disaster demonstrated a lack of leadership and disregard for stakeholder commitment through the thoughtless issue ignorance on display related to preventative maintenance, which aligns with issues of safe working conditions. Veil, Sellnow, and Wickline (2010) suggest that corporate communication is a tapestry of relationships constituted by trust. They argue that the 2010 crisis transpired due to a “profound misalignment of values that place[d] profit above safety and environmental quality” (p. 376). Corporate responsibility requires concern for stakeholder issues. BP’s history of thoughtless decisions included the disregard of issues relevant to preventative maintenance; their actions yielded profound failings and problematic practices outside the scope of communication ethics in action.

Thoughtlessness: High Reliability

Attentiveness to central issues is an important characteristic of all organizational leaders. High-Reliability Organizations (HROs) require thoughtful consideration of issues in order to maintain socially responsible corporate practices. Attentiveness is even more important for HROs because issue ignorance can have catastrophic consequences for stakeholders. HROs refer to organizations that avoid catastrophes or disasters in situations where accidents are often unavoidable. Initial research on HROs focused on aircraft carriers, commercial aviation, and nuclear power plants. Charles Perrow³ introduced the term “normal accident” in 1984 as an “unanticipated interaction of multiple failures” occurring in complex technological and organizational systems. Perrow assumed that accidents happen in increasingly multifaceted environments. Later research⁴ underscored characteristics of safe HROs, arguing that organizations can be both high-risk and effective. Only thoughtfulness toward issues of preventative maintenance can minimize accidents and problematic escalation.

Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (1999) argue that successful HROs have a common infrastructure, consisting of five characteristics:

Weick and Sutcliffe (2001) later describe these cultural environments as processes of “collective mindfulness.” This increase in attentiveness is key to discerning and responding to central issues. The first element of HROs, preoccupation with failure, illustrates BP’s lack of attentiveness to issues of preventative maintenance throughout its history (e.g., Prudhoe Bay, Texas City). Organizations must examine their failures or potentially suffer catastrophic results. BP’s use of faulty safety equipment illustrates unreflective decision making, which minimizes adaptability and responsiveness to potential issues.

The second element, reluctance to simplify, acknowledges that HROs are organizationally and technologically intricate. HROs embrace complexity and scrutinize critically any attempts to simplify. BP, by contrast, ignored questionable test results and dismissed preventative maintenance employees prior to testing specific aspects of the Macondo well, disregarding the complexity of the situation. BP placed an undue focus on economic cost cutting at the expense of safety precautions. Additionally, the third element of HRO infrastructure, sensitivity to operations, acknowledges the interdependence of internal and external stakeholders within operational procedures. BP’s executives applied constant pressure to cut costs, over the history of their tenure disregarding the expertise of many stakeholders concerned with issues of preventative maintenance, which resulted in a multitude of problems and accidents.

The fourth element, commitment to resilience, suggests that organizations must anticipate problems, correct errors, and act quickly to improvise solutions. BP did not foresee a design flaw in the Macondo well until drilling had commenced. While on-site amendments could have ameliorated the situation, experts at the well did not deliver a full analysis. There were also early warning signs of an unstable well wall, acknowledged by BP’s chief drilling engineer, Mark Hafle (Gold, Casselman, and Tamman 2010, May 30). Only days before the explosion, Hafle applied modifications to the drill plan, including two additional casing liners. This modification was one of a number of last-minute permit revisions. BP failed to anticipate problems and correct errors in a timely fashion.

Finally, deference to expertise deals with authority, placing emphasis on officially sanctioned knowledge and devaluing organizational hierarchies. On-site experts often make critical situational assessments. Working under Transocean’s top drilling official, Jimmy Harrell, drilling technicians had the authority to perform an “emergency disconnect,” carried out by the “emergency disconnect system” (EDS). By pressing a button, a signal is sent to the blowout preventer, deploying fail-safe shearing devices or “shear rams” to cut through the pipe and free the rig from the volatile pressures from below. This action would not have prevented the subsequent oil spill, but it would have saved the lives of 11 employees. BP’s issue ignorance and thoughtlessness related to preventative maintenance resulted in problematic choices, including lack of action related to EDS.

Weick and Sutcliffe (2001) stress that “mindful organizing” is the foundation for employees to develop, refine, and update an understanding and appropriate reaction to volatile situations. Mindful organizing is a proactive approach to issue management. In a “mindful” organizational environment, internal and external stakeholders are attentive to practices—in this case, issues of preventative maintenance. Everyone must participate in the creation, maintenance, and recreation of the organization’s safety culture.⁵ HROs develop responsiveness by creating a culture of mindfulness. By planning for expected crises, organizations engage practices they had learned earlier during unexpected problematic developments.

Thoughtlessness: Attention and Response

Attention and response signify thoughtful communication ethics in action, permitting HROs to ensure a culture of safety. Communication ethics in action emerges through the protection and promotion of values enacted through reflective decision making and response. Issues surrounding BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster illuminate the lack of acknowledgment of the need for preventative maintenance, which affected internal and external stakeholders. BP’s thoughtlessness resulted in stakeholder questions about BP values before and after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

At the start of the Deepwater Horizon drilling project, BP’s attention and response to issues of preventative maintenance lacked immediate consideration and foresight. BP knowingly downplayed the risks associated with the Deepwater Horizon drilling project while applying for an inspection exemption by the Department of the Interior. BP claimed “a spill was ‘unlikely,’” and, if it did occur, would cause “no significant adverse impacts” (Eilperin 2010, May 5). BP used a blowout preventer made by Cameron International, a company associated with Schlumberger,⁶ despite warnings from Transocean, Minerals Management Service (MMS), and BP engineer Mark Hafle. Transocean identified 260 “failure modes,” or errors in the design of the blowout preventer, while others questioned its ability to “cut through … pipes in a deepwater well” (Lubin 2010, June 1). BP lacked attentiveness to significant issues. The blowout preventer had a multitude of shortcomings that failed to properly address issues that could have prevented what we now term the BP disaster (Mufson and Faherthold 2010, May 13, p. A01).

BP’s focus of attention on “consolidation and cost cuts” lacked attentiveness to the issue of preventative maintenance (Lustgarten 2012, p. 59). BP paid $1 million a day to operate Deepwater Horizon, and yet, following the explosion, the investigation revealed that BP was six weeks behind schedule and $20 million over budget (U.S. Department of the Interior 2010, July 1). During the hearings following the disaster, questions were raised about pressure to “cut corners” due to inflating costs (Hammer 2010, May 29). For example, BP did not implement a “cement bond log,” a costly and time-dependent resource that could determine “the actual effectiveness of the well’s seal” (Hammer 2010, May 19). BP hired Schlumberger to perform tests on the effectiveness of the well’s seal; however, according to Schlumberger spokesman Stephen T. Harris, BP sent the crew home before they were able to perform the cement bond log. Transocean blamed failing cement seals for the blowout. They contended that the lack of a cement bond log made preventative maintenance impossible. Transocean tried to assist; for example, Transocean worker Jimmy Harrell tried to run a mandatory pressure test when BP refused to do so. The results, however, were “inconclusive” with noted “discrepancies in pressure” between various pipes and the line blowout preventer. These variations should have generated immediate action if the issue of preventative maintenance was a central consideration (Mufson and Farenthold 2010, May 13, p. A01).

Summary

The theoretical discussion of the repercussions of thoughtlessness elucidates the problems emergent in lack of thoughtful communication ethics in BP’s actions. This section centered on three major considerations:

For any HRO, attending to the infrastructure of the organization is crucial. Organizational identity originates from leadership. BP’s thoughtlessness on preventative maintenance and safety violations highlights the 2010 BP oil spill disaster as an exemplary case study of lack of communication ethics in action. Thoughtful leadership practices clarify opportunities for timely issue responsiveness that demonstrates care for stakeholders and counteracts issue escalation.

Leadership: Missed Opportunity

The leadership in place at British Petroleum during the 2010 oil spill squandered significant opportunities to address emerging issues in the public sphere affecting internal and external stakeholders. For BP, cultural assumptions and values claimed no rigorous attentiveness. Heath (1994) argues that cultural values and meaning emerge through rhetorical coordination of activities, where internal and external stakeholders “define, influence, sanction, and reward each others’ behavior insofar as it is vital to coordination” (p. 45). Leadership misses opportunities to contend with corporate cultural issues in the public sphere by disregarding and ignoring circumstances. Communication ethics in action requires discerning issues through thoughtful coordination of meaningful activity in organizations, attending to internal and external stakeholder needs.

This section explores the relationship between the coordination of activity and thoughtful communication ethics in action through three key points: (1) misconnection, (2) misunderstanding of organizational culture, and (3) misdirection of resources. These key metaphors reveal the potential for issue escalation when leadership demonstrates thoughtless interaction with issues of importance to internal and external stakeholders.

Leadership and Missed Opportunity: Misconnection

Attentiveness and timely responsiveness to issues are the signs of exceptional leadership in the marketplace. Leaders identify opportunities to manage issues in order to strengthen and maintain stakeholder relationships. Missed opportunities to care for these relationships result in the compromising of organizational position in the marketplace and the violation of corporate responsibility. Veil, Sellnow, and Wickline (2013) suggest that “organizational crisis” emerges with a “loss of connectedness,” making the organization vulnerable to future crises as corporate actors “misalign ethical priorities” and place profit above community. As the authors suggest, “a cut-throat organization will eventually cut its own throat” by its commitment to profit above consideration of stakeholders (p. 377).

BP’s decisions to thoughtlessly ignore issues of preventative maintenance demonstrate missed opportunities that emerge when leadership fails to respond to stakeholder concerns and demands. BP historically opted to cut financial corners at the expense of care for safety conditions, resulting in several crises and the 2010 catastrophe. BP lost its connection to its external stakeholders and misaligned “ethical priorities” by ignoring issues of preventative maintenance at the expense of stakeholder safety (Veil, Sellow, and Wickline 2013). Leadership had many opportunities to correct misaligned priorities, but they ignored expert suggestions to fix corroded or unsafe infrastructure.

Leadership and Missed Opportunity: Misunderstanding of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture reveals a set of corporate practices rooted in corporate value. The communicative culture within an organization creates a thoughtful engagement of behaviors that highlight what an organization protects and promotes. Leadership is responsible to connect and substantiate organizational communication with actions that remain consistent with its mission. The 2010 BP oil spill reveals an obvious disconnect between what BP said and what it did; Edgar Schein’s (2016) Organizational Culture and Leadership offers insight that assists in understanding BP’s cultural transition and inclination toward increased thoughtlessness.

Schein’s model (see Figure 3.2) illustrates complex elements of organizational culture within the public sphere. He emphasizes three distinct cultural levels:

Schein contends that internal and external stakeholders differentiate these cultural levels via perspective and standpoint. Level 1 in Schein’s model of organizational culture consists of artifacts and symbols, which generate initial impressions. Slogans, signs, furniture, communication style, attire, work environment, manner of decision making, and forms of technology are examples of the initial level of Schein’s model. He looks for patterns and meaning via the artifacts. During John Browne’s tenure of CEO at BP from 1995 to 2007, a problematic era began to unfold that contradicted BP’s public commitment to “safety, respect, excellence, courage, and One Team” (British Petroleum, “The BP Brand” n.d., 3) In 2000, BP launched a rebranding campaign that introduced the Helios (see Figure 3.1) as an organizational artifact, representing “energy in its many forms” (3). Coupled with their espoused values, BP’s brand became the symbol of “everything we do” (3). While a symbolic representation of BP’s organizational culture, core values, and brand image, the Helios no longer accurately depicted the actual corporate environment.

Level 2 consists of espoused values that frame the manner in which one ought to respond to issues. Schein contends leaders have immeasurable impact on the “expressed values”; however, espoused values are often different from observable behaviors, artifacts, or symbols. According to Schein, if there is a strong correlation between behaviors and espoused values, cultural assumptions are present and influential. If there is not a strong connection, then the values are rationalizations or future aspirations. BP employees characterized the organization as lacking leadership and focused only on cost cutting.

Figure 3.1 The British Petroleum Helios, part of BP’s 2000 rebranding campaign

Figure 3.2 Schein’s model of organizational culture

Level 3 consists of basic assumptions, difficult to locate and explicate because they are taken-for-granted assumptions about organizational identity. Organizations share core assumptions, constituting a collective vision for “how the world works.” The basic assumptions at BP were twofold, one based on perception and the other on executive directives—each led to increasing misunderstanding of internal and external stakeholder expectations.

Schein’s model applied to BP manifests questions about organizational cultural assumptions and values. Good leaders understand the importance of the relationship between internal and external perceptions of organizational culture. While former CEO Browne was an excellent efficiency manager, his leadership exemplified missed opportunities to engage narrative in dealing with issue escalation. The center of Browne’s culture was net income per barrel, which is an oversimplification of success. As BP continues to restore the Gulf of Mexico to normalcy, there remain lingering issues of preventative maintenance. Schein’s model of organizational culture recommends thoughtful allocation of resources, which requires leaders’ discernment and responsiveness to stakeholder issues and desires.

Leadership and Missed Opportunity: Misdirection of Resources

The leader reflects on central corporate issues, clarifies them, attends to them, and communicates about them in a timely manner, ever responsive to internal and external stakeholders. To be attentive to these central issues, a leader must possess knowledge of both an issue’s background (cultural memory and identity) and foreground (issue management). Allocation of resources influences the uncovering of issues and enhances our understanding of BP’s issue ignorance related to preventative maintenance. The leadership of BP focused attention on cost cutting and timesaving at the expense of preventative maintenance and safety precautions.

Grunig, Grunig, and Ehling (1992) contend that an effective organization is comprised of many different facets. Among those aspects, organizational theorists articulate a “resource-dependence perspective,” arguing that organizations communicate and act in a manner attempting to control the environment (p. 77). Successful organizations secure “resources from constituencies” that enhance, ensure, and support an organization’s position in the marketplace, including its reputational growth. From this theoretical perspective, organizations must meet environmental ambiguity with unrelated markets, which shifts the focus of attention toward economic concerns. BP’s concern with cost cutting emerged in a historical moment when external environments were uncertain and increasingly hostile (e.g., BP’s expulsion from the Iranian oil fields). BP failed to respond to a perceived issue. They demonstrated thoughtlessness of communication ethics in action. They missed opportunities to respond to stakeholders and to enhance their position in the marketplace.

Summary

Lack of leadership consists of missed opportunities that eventually manifest themselves in and through public consequences. This section centered on three major considerations:

Chapter Summary

The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster uncovered central issues that should have generated ongoing conversation between internal and external stakeholders about organizational leadership long before that crucial moment. Veil and Sellnow (2008) argue that deterring issue escalation and/or responding to emerging problems/opportunities invites organizational learning, a process of “detecting and correcting errors” that facilitates organizational change and the pursuit of excellence. Organizational learning emerges through the identification of issues that appropriately provoke conversation between internal and external stakeholders. Such discourse ensures necessary shifts in future decisions and action. When conversation partners (internal and external stakeholders) have differing opinions on facts, values, or policy, there is a mandate for constructive argument.

Part II examines the failure of attentiveness that invites argument internally and externally and generates organizational confusion and lack of identity clarity. Chapters 4 to 6 will discuss, both theoretically and practically, the importance of argumentation in the move from issue to argument to conflict to crisis.

¹ Lustgarten, A. 2012. Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. The book provides a more detailed description of BP’s past for an in-depth look at its historical background.

² Transocean is the leading provider of offshore contract drilling services. Their organizational structure can be found at http://deepwater.com

³ Perrow, C. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books. *Perrow spends much of the book examining events leading up to the Three Mile Island disaster, along with other accidents, including those at chemical plants, aviation and naval accidents, earthquakes, military accidents, and other highly technical operations using tightly coupled processes.

⁴ Examples include: Weick, K.E., and K.H. Roberts. 1993. “Collective Mind in Organizations: Heeding Interrelating on Flight Decks.” Administrative Science Quarterly 38; Schulman, P.R. 1993. “The Negotiated Order of Organizational Reliability.” Administration & Society 25, no.3; Schulman, P.R. 2004. “General Attributes of Safe Organizations.” Quality and Safety in Health Care 13, no. 2; Roberts, K.H. 1990. “Some Characteristics of High-Reliability Organizations.” Organization Science 1.

⁵ See Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

⁶ Schlumberger is the world’s largest oil and gas industry services company.