As BP CEO Tony Hayward prepares to make his way to the job centre with a pension big enough to make Sir Fred Goodwin blush, I wonder whether BP shareholders and employees are really quite as relieved at his departure as the public expect them to be. ‘Details-man’ Hayward was never God’s gift to oratory or media presentation, or for that matter oil spills, but he did a sterling job as a PR sponge.
BP are by no means out of the woods yet, but having flatlined deep within the pit of US consumer hatred for a good few weeks, it has become clear that the only way is up and – notwithstanding the eye-catching japery of Greenpeace protesters - sooner or later that’s the way they will head with Bob ‘Personality’ Dudley in charge.
When embattled by bad news and scathing criticism, you need a focus for it; a lightning rod to draw out the very worst. Step forward, Tony Hayward. Having demonstrated his utter inability to ingratiate himself to the general public (he’s an oil executive, what do you expect? – Ed.), he simultaneously managed to reflect the sheer futility of attempting doing so in the first place. JFK would have ended up looking like Pol Pot in the circumstances. In other words, he had the impossible job, and so – from a communications perspective – perhaps the best policy was to be bloody terrible at doing it… for quite some period of time.
The result is a BP with the potential to be reborn. The leak is being managed, the clean-up is working, the money has been put aside…oh…and Tony has gone as well. Argue all you want about what an insensitive, incapable buffoon he is or was, but when the incoming boss thanks Tony for all his hard work, he for one will really mean it.
