Changing CEOs Will Not Improve BP's Reputation

BP announced that it was changing CEOs--not now though, but in October. The Board was supposed to show that it was fed up with the leadership or lack of it from its CEO and move the company forward. Why October? Why not now?

It seems clear that BP has a flawed culture. This is a company that does not seem to really get it. Even Dudley, the new CEO, suggested that he has never seen evidence of problems in his career with BP. He indicated that the Gulf accident was a total anomaly for the company. This assertion despite the fact that BP has more federal violations for its drilling operations than almost any other company. Something is wrong and replacing Hayworth--the seemingly arrogant CEO who never seemed to express anything other than the fact that this was just a big bother for him--with Dudley will not fix it.

The rest of the oil industry has now turned on BP. The others have indicated that they would never have run their drilling operations the way BP had done. Everything that has been learned shows that BP had little real regard for safety. The fire alarm on the platform had been turned off; it rejected warnings from those working on the platform that the drilling was not going well; it did not plan for a true disaster. All of these things add up to a company that has an internal culture with little regard for doing things right. The fact that Dudley has never seen this likely means that he is too blind to see things the way an outsider would. He is a BP "lifer". We can just expect more of the same--amazement that anything has gone wrong.

BPs disaster has impacted the entire oil industry and has put a moratorium on deep water drilling. Their cavalier attitude and denial of what went wrong just makes things worse for all. It is really time that shareholders change this board and get them serious about changing the culture at BP.