BP's CEO Tony Hayward can't cut a break. He does something to“get his life back,” but that something happens to be yacht racing.And who should be there, but the media.

Here is another CEO who doesn't appear to have a clue. How didhe get to be CEO in the first place? No one is saying he needs tosacrifice his life to this disastrous oil spill, but he could laylow, at least until the leak stops!

It looks like none of this will be a problem for long, however.BP wants him, and the poor public persona problem to “go away,” butit can't even get that right. BP's chairman announced Tony isexiting his oil spill command to be replaced by Bob Dudley. Othercompany officials, however, have indicated Mr. Hayward may remainat his post until August, after the spill is stopped.

What a PR nightmare. Either there is no public relations plan inplace there, or the heads of the company are flat-out ignoring it.Both scenarios are bad for the company and its image at thiscritical time.

As for Tony's recent botches, such as his yacht outing and hissullen mono-syllabic answers in the recent hearings, I have towonder, doesn't he watch U.S. reality television—AKA televisedCongressional hearings? Didn't he watch the Enron execs, orrecently the heads of the failed U.S. banks, have their days on thehot-seat? Like dolts, there they sat, either not recalling anythingor denying knowledge of a situation's existence.

OK, so maybe the CEO doesn't always know everything that goes onin his (or her) organization, that's understandable. But sincethere generally is ample notice of a hearing, my advice to theseCEOs would be this: for Pete's sake, study up. Pull a fewall-nighters if need be. Talk to people in the organization andfind out what went wrong, why and when. Constantly saying you don'tknow or don't recall only leads to embarrassing questions like, “Doyou know what day this is?”

Most of all, listen to the people in your organization who canhelp you to do your best, or at least put up a front—your PR team.Listening only to lawyers, after all, will make you appear to beinsensitive. Ask Kenneth Feinberg after his work with the familiesof 9/11 victims. After being publicly trounced for his callousattitude towards victims' families, he took a hard look at himselfand admitted that as an attorney he had a lawyer's demeanor towardspeople who were suffering. He changed his attitude and in the endwas seen as a hero of sorts.

Reputation risk, especially in this age of the Internet, isright up there with every other risk. For some reason, it's alsothe risk that gets ignored during a crisis, such as BP is goingthrough. Possibly because some CEO's think they are above listeningto anyone, and possibly because a contingency plan was notexercised. In any case, the results can be disastrous.

As one risk manager recently told me: It can take 30 years tobuild up a company's good name and only a day to destroyit.