"The Gulf" Soiled By BP's Greed!

The tragedy in the Gulf is directly attributed to a breakdown in leadership. Now, British Petroleum's leadership finds itself marred by a global conscensus of ineptness in decisioning and the perception of greed. As the company raked in windfall profits, upwards of the 10's of billions, quarter after quarter and year after year; BP's leadership continued to ignore the signs of disaster that culiminated in the platform explosion and the ongoing spill, an environmental disaster beyond the scope of the Exxon Valdez of Alaska.

Leading up to the spill, BP's leadership front broke down like the Maginot line of the Great World War. Like the "visionary leadership" of the French at the time, BP's management operated with a great deal of arrogance, classically displaying a failure of communication rooted in a pompous attitude and disrespect of maintenance communications from the field. This behavior augmented by steady record profits only bostered the authority of management. Stockholders and major investors continued to allow BP's executives to steam-roll their management philosophy to the top, displacing any counter philosophy or intuitive proposals. This silent ownership validated management by bankrolling their performance and offering 100's of millions in bonuses.

If we look at BP's operations, we can see a great deal of their operating philosophy is predicated on oil exploration, drilling, refining, collection and distribution of the product. Very little investment has gone into examining how oil seepage affects the environment or in technologies to advent in case of disaster. This operational strategy is not just unique to BP, rather it is a strategy that defines the Oil Industry. The lack of consistent and meaningful maintenance hallmarks the strategies of most fortune 500 companies, as the view from above is that maintenance is not revenue generating and therefore, should not see equal funding. Disproportionate budgeting of maintenance in Corporate has reached an unprecidented point and so to in government as our nation's infrastructure continues to crumble.

In contrasting the two, I would add that it is much easier to make an unpopular decision and appropriately budget for maintenance in Corporate than in government. I say this recognizing the political stakes of public leadership and red tape of government where reaching a conscensus in congress will represents a huge hurdle for any adminstration. Over the years, political parties have registered their position on industry regulation, "less or more?" I think the answer is obvious, especially as one party which stakes it's economic policy on less regulation attempts to over-criticize the federal government's response to the disaster. As the Republicans have invested much effort in pushing for less regulation (in particular in the Oil Industry), I guess we can say that "you get what you pay for!" Leadership from both the private and public sector failed, and the Gulf is soiled because of their greed!