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 did he get to be CEO in the first place? No one is saying he needs to sacrifice his life to this disastrous oil spill, but he could lay low, 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,” but it can't even get that right. BP's chairman announced Tony is exiting his oil spill command to be replaced by Bob Dudley. Other company officials, however, have indicated Mr. Hayward may remain at his post until August, after the spill is stopped.

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

As for Tony's recent botches, such as his yacht outing and his sullen mono-syllabic answers in the recent hearings, I have to wonder, doesn't he watch U.S. reality television—AKA televised Congressional hearings? Didn't he watch the Enron execs, or recently the heads of the failed U.S. banks, have their days on the hot-seat? Like dolts, there they sat, either not recalling anything or denying knowledge of a situation's existence.

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

Most of all, listen to the people in your organization who can help 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 be insensitive. Ask Kenneth Feinberg after his work with the families of 9/11 victims. After being publicly trounced for his callous attitude towards victims' families, he took a hard look at himself and admitted that as an attorney he had a lawyer's demeanor towards people who were suffering. He changed his attitude and in the end was seen as a hero of sorts.

Reputation risk, especially in this age of the Internet, is right up there with every other risk. For some reason, it's also the risk that gets ignored during a crisis, such as BP is going through. Possibly because some CEO's think they are above listening to anyone, and possibly because a contingency plan was not exercised. In any case, the results can be disastrous.

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

Special Reports /

Reality TV A Lesson For BP CEO?

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