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Dissecting Tony Hayward
June 18th, 2010 | 
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All brands in this new age require a long-term strategic overview of every potential threat. The corporate vicissitudes being thrown up by the 21st century means that communication and PR skills must be, of necessity, embedded in the captains of industry. After all they are the brand custodians. But looking at BP, and Tony Hayward in particular, that lesson has clearly not yet been learned.
Problems can no longer be brushed under the carpet – corporations need to be fearing the worst and preparing to deal with it in public. The brand narrative of the big corporations needs to be played out transparently and in public.
BP in particular has neglected to consider how devastating a corporate crisis – especially one so mismanaged from the top – can be in this age of instant opinion, globalised rolling news, social media and febrile politics. They were still locked into a comms crisis planning scenario built in the 1990s in the wake of the Brent Spar disaster when the spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred. They had not planned any new PR approaches at all.
BP and public relations have had an uneasy relationship over the last 100 years; they have fallen out in public with everyone from revolutionary nationalist leaders in the Middle East to the United States. But the new age demands a front and centre spokesmen who can make the audience feel like he is listening and actually gives a damn.
But Tony Hayward, facing the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on “The Role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill”, doesn’t seem to have learned a great deal about being inclusive, about engaging with the public and the politicians. Accused of stonewalling, he stonewalled. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer most of the questions he was presented with. In fact, he looked like a tired undertaker who was rather bored with having to look mournful.
Given that a woman held up proceedings earlier in the hearing shouting protests at Hayward, it would have been advisable to show some regret rather than say he felt “a great deal” of responsibility for the oil spill and that it was “a tragedy” with all the emphasis and enthusiasm of an autistic sloth.
It’s impossible to make a hearse driver an F1 champ and so it is with Tony Hayward. The man has the communication skills of a tax inspector; dry and arrogant. It’s incredible that one of the most important corporate jobs in the world has been entrusted to him. This crisis, combined with the corporate downturn, is a game changer. Nothing will be the same in the wake of Hayward’s responses to the Energy Committee.
Other companies who sail close to the edge must be thinking hard about the sort of CEO they get for the new globalised media world. They cannot get anyone as callow and frail as Hayward – one disaster and they could fall apart.
Hayward has reportedly been undergoing training in front of a “murder board” of legal experts to groom him for the aggressive questioning he might face from the Congressional Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee in Washington, but he could not hide his terror. If this is how he copes, even with the best training money can buy.
Tony Hayward says the wrong thing at the wrong time, has turned his back on the green energy revolution, is universally loathed and is clearly utterly afraid. On this evidence, he is just not fit for purpose. He is surely not long for the CEO’s job.
An edited version of this blog appeared in today’s Telegraph.
Posted in Mark My Words, THE FAME FORMULA or In Search Of The Sons Of Barnum | 
Tags: autistic sloth, bp, brent spar, CEO, committee, deepwater, energy and commerce, F1, fit for purpose, gulf of mexico, middle east, murder board, oil, politics, PR, social media, tony hayward, tragedy, united states, washington
I don’t suppose Borkowski will be getting any work from BP or Tony Hayward then. Shame, they need some decent advice. Good blog.
Mark, your analysis is harsh, Hayward is an easy (almost the only) target and ‘universally loathed’ is cruel and unfounded conjecture – of which more later. Everyone is angry and rightly so. None of course are more angry than protectionists who perhaps see an opportunity to potentially part bp with its US based assets which can then be sold to a US rival, even possibly at a knock-down, fire sale price.
My view is that by and large CEO’s build around them a team of people who should be ‘Best of Breed’ with complimentary skills covering all the bases – whether it be the accts / the marketeers / the sales force etc. This also applies to the PR people. Time will tell if Tony Hayward can or cant take the heat but the person right now who should be clearing his desk is the bp External Communications Director. It is the job of the Ext. Comms. Dir / Head of Ext. Comms. to formulate and put in place a strategy to deal with ‘worst case disaster scenarios’.
You mention F1 – F1 and all F1 teams have very strict crisis management protocol for a ‘worst case scenario’ unfolding in the event of say a life-threatening crash, as of course do all significant corporations.
At bp there appears to have been a total failure to ensure the Chairman and the CEO are properly equipped with facts and figures to deal with the enormous media challenges a disaster such as this throws up. As we know conjecture in the media, unless countered by fact, gains unstoppable traction and soon becomes ‘fact’ to an increasingly insatiable media more interested in sensation.
Clearly there is an overwhelming case for bp to have been and going forward, to be more transparent but this should have been laid out in the crisis protocol. Had they been properly briefed ‘getting my life back’ and ’small people’ comments would not now be the focus of a rabid media. Formulating protocol to ensure this does not occur is neither the Chairmans’ nor the CEO’s responsibility, it is the responsibility of the Ext. Comms. team, who at this level are handsomely remunerated – they have failed.
It is clearly in no-ones interest anywhere to see the demise of bp and it remains one of the peculiarities of this disaster that so little reference is made of the role of various US companies, who are all rather ungallantly rushing to defend their positions, distancing themselves from bp, when presumably 6 weeks ago their position was as a ‘real partner with bp’. Their is an obvious pun here which I will avoid using.
After so much vitriolic rhetoric from Obama it would be good to see all parties properly working together to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. I don’t believe that firing various board members at bp and in particular Tony Hayward is likely to speed up that process and in time such an action would be seen to constitute a pyrrhic victory.
Totally aside from the spill and its hideous consequences, for those of us who try to help heads of organizations wake up to why they might need some media coaching, Tony Hayward is a godsend.
As a now public figure, I can’t think of anyone who could have handled the job of the public spokesperson more pathetically than Hayward, and become such an incredible example of how NEVER to do it.
Before the BP daily follies, had we asserted that someone actually and repeatedly uttered the kinds of PR blunders Hayward used, they’d accuse us of making it up. They’d bet big money that we were just hyping it to scare CEOs into spending money with us to be coached.
Long after the spill is contained and cleaned, (we only hope it will be) it will only take a mere mention of BP and all of the stunning gaffes immediately will replay in people’s minds. They simply nod their heads. Enough said. Totally understood.
We used to use the Exxon Valdez, Ford and Firestone, Toyota, etc. as glaring examples of why media coaching is not an option, but a job requirement. When you say “…the new age demands a front and centre spokesmen who can make the audience feel like he is listening and actually gives a damn,” that sums it up cohesively.
If only the top honchos in every organization would learn from this. Even with the reputation-obliterating consequences of BP and its blunders, most won’t–and this part of history will unfortunately repeat itself.
-Neal Browne http://www.ExpertMediaCoach.com