The April explosion of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and unleashed the largest oil spill in American history continues to be world-wide news. For those of us living on the gulf coast the environmental and psychological effects will continue for many years. Although the drilling rig was owned and managed by a multi-national consortium, the responsibility fell to the corporation in charge, British Petroleum, or BP.
The federal government holds regulatory power over the federal waters where the drilling took place and looked to BP to manage the response to the disaster. The CEO of BP came to the United States to demonstrate to everyone the level of importance they put on the response. Public relations (PR) is the art and science of relating to all people who are or will be aware of a situation. There are experts in this field of PR.
The CEO, Tony Hayworth, apparently listened to corporate attorneys rather than the PR experts. He made every attempt to assure people an investigation would determine culpability, and downplayed the significance of the oil spilling into the gulf with comments such as “the spill is very small in such a large body of water”. After a month in the U.S. he stated he “wanted his life back”, a callous remark to the victim’s families.
As the backlash against BP grew, the Chairman of the Board came to the U.S. to meet with the President and other political leaders. To ensure that the response to the situation was important, he announced that “BP cares about the little people”. One of the largest companies in the world had demonstrated the ability to take a bad situation and with very poor PR plans make it worse.
PR plans are also crucial to individuals. As with companies, the ability to articulate who you are and what you can do should not be done “in the moment”. Most of us have friends and acquaintances that have known us long enough that they develop expectations of our reaction or response to situations. Public relations has a far greater audience and without a lengthy time frame for that audience to know us.
There are individuals who care about people groups. There are people who care about individuals. In the Civil War period it was said that the north cared about the slaves as a people group, while those in the south cared about or for each individual but not the group. If there is any truth to that claim, the point is that the audience of all the individuals combined is the people group. Public relations have to cover both.
In the case of BP, the affected groups are diverse and the individuals in each groups also diverse. The federal government banned fishing in most of the gulf waters. A local fishing boat captain committed suicide, presumably because he didn’t think he could continue fishing. When Tony Hayworth spent a weekend in England watching a yacht race, the fishing group was outraged, since they were stuck at the dock.
As an individual, your personal PR plan starts with documenting your values in life. If an event brings in a huge unexpected audience, the “15 minutes of fame” as it has been called, should illuminate who you are, not change you. Think of it as a microscope on your life with the entire world looking through the lense that you provide. For your PR plan to be that lense, you must know and articulate the values you live by.
As a company, your culture must be established to the extent that all the employees live by those values. For an oil company, the culture of safety first in all things is an expectation. When the resulting investigation occurs after the well is capped, the conclusion will be that financial or timing considerations were deemed more important than safety. Leaders have the responsibility of the culture that determines priorities.
What are the priorities in your life, as seen by those that watch how you live? Do you care about individuals, or just groups? Are there groups that you oppose? Politicians often say one thing, and then do another, usually to try and get elected. The public loses trust in individual politicians as well as their form of government when that happens. Usually people only change slightly over time so don’t expect otherwise.
This blog has covered many subjects over the previous editions. I’ve been recruiting to hire for an open position at work, and several applicants have used these subjects to preview if they want to work for me. My views define me, just as your views define you. A public relations plan applies those views to potential situations in advance so a public response can be anticipated. If a backlash is coming, be prepared for it now, or change.
The drop in the price of BP stock is an easily measurable backlash to how they have handled their PR. At this writing it has cost the shareholders of the company over $100 billion in share price and at least $20 billion in expenses reimbursed. International relationships between countries have been strained. A quality PR plan carried out with discipline would have cost far less. The same lesson applies to your personal PR plan.
