One of the greatest challenges that a company can face is dealing with a public relations issue. Such issues often posit catastrophic outcomes ranging from litigations charges to a destroyed public images. Such was the case for BP during its involvement in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It is often the role of a public relations team to advise and inform a company on appropriate measures and strategies that can be utilized. BP, however, chose to go with it CEO as the leading spokesperson during the crisis.
BP's Response to the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Following the oil spills of Gulf of Mexico, BP had to come up with a decision and response to salvage its public image. The handling of the case not only indicate a lack of competency in handling public relations crises but also lacked any prior experience with such situations. The gravity of the issue is to be seen in the financial beating that BP received during the crisis. Not only did the company experience political interference but that the serving president went ahead to ask for the firing of the company's CEO. This came after a series of mistakes had been made by the company's CEO Tony Hayward. While the company took the great responsibility of owning up to the oil spills, what they did not prepare for was the inability of its, CEO to handle the crisis that did arise.
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First off, he began by predicting the outcomes of the crisis. Like any other crisis out there it is essential to work on managing the moment to moment relations of the crisis rather than predicting how it will turn out. For instance, he went on to claim that the oil spill would have a modest impact. Further on, he claimed that the spill amounted to about 1000 barrels a week. When his predictions were countered by scientific data that asserted tremendous leakages ranging from 5000 barrels to 60000 barrels per day and that the impact was destroying the lives of thousands of people in the Gulf region, the company was left flat-footed in its defense. The outcome of this mistake frenzy by the BP CEO was a decimated company image, one that quickly resulted in a decline in the company's market share and profit margin (Boatright, 2012).
BP’s Mitigation Approach
The company's commitment to owning up to the Gulf of Mexico crisis came about through the compensations that were accorded to the victims. This did not, however, restore the company's image. The best solution that the company would have adopted would have been to hire a professional public relations team. The mandate of this particular team would have been to ensure that it advised the company as a whole on how to go about the crisis. One massive mistake of the CEO was the inability to anticipate possible scenarios emanating from his course of actions and decisions. The lack of previous skills or experience in matters regarding public relations predisposed the CEO to the mistakes he made in response to the crisis.
One way of dealing with such a crisis would be to embark on a campaign that seeks to inform the public on the efforts that have been taken by the company in combating the oil spill. This would alleviate cases of focusing on elaborate speeches and words. The company would have focused on highlighting the depth and extent of the efforts it had curbing the crisis (Boatright, 2012). This would have gone a long way in restoring the faith of the public. Such a campaign would have gone as far as creating the much-needed information on the progress that was being realized through the company’s strategies and approaches (Boatright, 2012). By choosing to focus on the CEO as the sole spokesman of the company, BP ideally shot itself in the foot, following the public wrath that it went on to receive.
Possible Recommendations for CEO Anthony Hayward
One of the fundamental elements that the BP’s CEO needed to understand was the impact that public perception has towards a company’s market position. Hayward’s mistake was failing to make a direct link between public perceptions and market positions. In this case, therefore, it would have been wise to begin by advising the CEO on the role of public views and reactions to market and financial outcomes. While his duties as a CEO primarily revolved being able to ensure company goals had been met, he had not prepared to deal with the needs of the real public who also happen to be consumers.
It would have been prudent of the CEO to appreciate the fact that he was no longer faced with a board of governors or company executives by real emotions and feelings of the people out there. By choosing to respond to an ongoing crisis as a normal event, the CEO failed to capture the emotions and feelings of the people who felt the company had a far much bigger responsibility to the people. The CEO should have instead taken the opportunity of adopting a campaign comprising of advertisements and video coverage of the ongoing processes and strategies for dealing with the oil spill. It would also have been vital for the CEO to invest in public relation capacity building for the entire company. It is vital that a company be wholly prepared for any challenges that might arise in its course of operation. In such a scenario, therefore, it is necessary to ensure all staff is trained on how to manage a public relations issue as they tend to arise spontaneously.
References
Boatright, J. R. (2012). Ethics and the conduct of business . Boston: Pearson.
