Tony Haywire

Tony's busy getting grilled by congress and as usual there's the case of senatorial amnesia as in I don't know. I was not part of that process. I don't remember.
In looking into Tony's background I find some very interesting facts. It's true that he has a degree in geology but come to find out that his "Phd" is an honorary one from Edinborough. It was stated that he had 28 years experience in the oil industry. You'd get the impression that he worked his way through the company working on some rig in a remote land, but you'd be wrong. He was basically a bean counter with positions in the financial and marketing areas of the company. As to his not knowing of the safety aspects or culture, if you will, of the company Tony himself was quoted from the following newspaper article at a meeting he had in Huston, Texas:

• "We have a management style that has made a virtue out of doing more for less. The mantra of more-for-less says that we can get 100 percent of the task completed with 90 percent of the resources. Which in some senses is okay and might work, but it needs to be deployed with great judgment and wisdom. When it isn't, you run into trouble."

• "The frontline operations teams, I think, have lived too long in the world of making do and patching up this quarter for the next quarter...rather than really thinking about how we are going to maintain a piece of equipment for the next 30 or 40 years."

So if I could pose a question to Tony if I was in that senate hearing it would be: You are the CEO of BP and as such it is your responsibility to establish and implement safety measures company wide. Given the past experiences and accidents with BP what was your plan to improve safety procedures, how was that plan to be implemented and how would that plan be monitored?


A lesson? Be careful what you say or write. It could come back to haunt you.