Bp Management’s Handling of the Crisis
BP Management’s Handling of the Crisis
Josh Jimerson
MGT262T
Instructor Conklin
April 27, 2016
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was detrimental for BP as a company and their top management. The company had a hard time finding a solution to the thousands of gallons of oil spewing into the ocean for months. BP was very slow with their initial response to the spill and even the CEO, claimed to be “out of the loop”. In my opinion, that is a very intolerable response to a catastrophe of that degree. BP still continues to deal with the damage caused by the spill.
There are a few steps BP could have taken to minimize the repercussions of the disaster. For example, the BP Board should have selected a CEO or Top Management member that can naturally be reactive to a crisis, and would manage the situation accordingly. The second step could’ve been to train all top management on how to react in these situations, but praying it would never actually happen. Those are just a few examples of how a company like BP can be prepared for the worst.
Regardless of the response time, the spill had adverse complications to the marine habitat for thousands of species and it even effected human lives and livelihood. According to Wikipedia, on April 15, 2014, BP claimed that cleanup along the coast was substantially complete. But, the United States Coast Guard responded that was not the case. BP funded the state of Louisiana to regularly test the marine habitat and those results regularly showed measureable levels of Dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a chemical used in the cleanup.
There have even been several health consequences of the oil spill and BP has made efforts to provide assistance with health evaluations to people that were exposed to the spill. There was a wide range of people that were exposed to the spill, from cleanup personnel to local residents. In 2013, scientists and government officials met in New Orleans to share the research on the effects of the spill. According to an interview transcript between Steve Curwood and Mark Schleifstein, studies have provided a range of issues from mental and respiratory to skin problems. Mental health issues seemed to be the most problematic issue that was discussed at the gathering.