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Anne Gregory

Preparing the ground

The profound change in the way BP does things began long before there was any apparent need. In 1990, the then chairman Robert Horton kicked off the culture change process. The aim was to transform the company culture from one of secrecy to one of openness, from a culture where information is power and therefore jealousy guarded to one where sharing and comparing information becomes second nature. It is a culture based on genuine trust: clearly not something to which a secretive oil company takes naturally.

And while these might have been wonderful concepts in the heady days of the mid to late 1980s when a barrel of oil was worth more than $20 on the open market, it was much more difficult for both management and staff to create a trusting organization at a time when costs had to be drastically cut and people were being made redundant. BP Oil’s core international head office, for example, shrank from 400 people to less than 100 between 1990 and 1995.

Yet the culture change process might never have got off the ground had BP been able to rest on its laurels. Why change if you’re doing well? Then came the events of 1992, with all three of BP’s main activities at the bottom of their business cycles. The resulting financial loss, the high level of debt, the dividend cut – and the profound sense of shock among BP employees at Horton’s resignation – forced the realization that BP was just as vulnerable as any other company even though it had been around for more than 80 years.

Figure 2. 1. Organizational philosophy

Trust

Learning organization and continuous improvement

The culture change process was launched with the powerful acronym OPEN: This stands for:

That was in 1992 and people in BP are still using it as the embodiment of what BP’s culture should stand for.

A second factor helping to prepare the ground was the result of a global attitude survey. When BP asked its employees where they wanted to get information on their jobs and their company the answer was: ‘The Boss’. This result is echoed in the attitude surveys of most companies. Despite the grapevine, despite the immediacy of electronic mail, people still wanted to hear what was going on from their bosses. That answer held true right round the world, a world that for BP Oil takes in a rich mix of countries and cultures in Europe, the US, the Middle and Far East, Australia and Africa.

Yet where did employees get their information? Here is a sample of responses from line managers:

‘I haven’t got time.’

‘I’m trying to run a business.’

‘There’s a house journal.’

‘They get memos.’

‘We’re on e-mail.’

‘Yes I communicate, I try to hold a meeting once a quarter.’

‘Don’t they read the papers?’

The third factor that made imperative the need for change in the way BP Oil communicated was the sheer impact of technology. Most staff in BP have access to a personal computer and hence to electronic mail. If you can imagine an electronic grapevine linking 35,000 people around the world with gossip and rumour in real time, you will realize as BP Oil’s managers did, that their communication processes had to change. Electronic mail is a very powerful tool. It cannot be ignored, it is there and it has to be managed as part of the communication process.

This combination of bad results, the attitude survey and universal e-mail systems gave BP Oil the tools to unblock communication channels between management and staff.