Deepwater Horizon – A Crisis Management Disaster

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig not only caused the tragic loss of 11 lives, but is now the most catastrophic environmental disaster in history. It’s appalling to think that the initial explosion occurred on 20 April and there’s still an estimated 20,000 barrels/day pouring into the Gulf of Mexico (see BP’s live feed) with no end in sight. To-date, oil/tar balls have been discovered in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana even though the USG has recovered over 338,000 barrels of oily water and continues to conduct booming and skimming operations to protect the coast (click here for a map of the impacted area).

In the world of crisis management/contingency planning/risk management, this catastrophe was a foreseeable event. At some point, BP should have asked the question “what if we have a catastrophic break one mile down?” The next question is “what are our options for the worst case scenario and what’s the timeline for each of those options to avoid/minimize environmental/human impact?”

Unfortunately, because of the lack of good planning, we are seeing ad-hoc crisis management play out and it’s not going very well. Not only is BP failing at crisis communications (click here for more), but they’ve now been pushed into a defensive posture by the growing stable of lawyers from the Justice Department; thus, are less likely to take necessary risks to stop the spill for fear of further liability.

It’s hard to believe that with all the amazing technological advances and the brilliant minds we have around the globe, there wasn’t a prioritized list of options within 24 hours of the explosion and we still haven’t come up with a good fix over a month later. We’ve heard “top kill”, “top cap”, “relief wells” and “blow out preventers”, but nothing is working and most of these options are being developed in the heat of the moment (not a good plan). Now we see the growing slick extending from Louisiana to the Florida Keys.

So where do we go from here? We learn – hopefully. Some of the lessons learned from this crisis:

• Understand your risks: if you say “it will never happen”…it will. An oil rig that’s connected to a mile long pipe going into the floor of the ocean (and down another couple miles) can break and may break in the worst place possible. Know what the worst case scenario is and at least talk about it!
• Establish the Incident Action Plan: start with the immediate damage assessment and quick reaction clean-up (e.g., booms and skimmers) to the off-the-wall course of last resort (a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, MOP, bomb or nuclear weapon).

* If you communicate the options early, especially the least desirable/most controversial, you’ll have less resistance if you have to employ the most controversial option.

• Communicate: don’t hide the facts – they will come out and your company will lose in the court of public opinion or worse. Open, honest communication with the press/public is critical. Empathize!

* An executive saying “I want my life back” when people died and many lost their livelihood is not only terribly insensitive, but creates another PR crisis for the company.

• Collaborate: consider engaging experts from various disciplines. Nobel prize winners and scientists may not have the practical experience or ability to “expand the box” to actually come up with the right fix.
• Analysis: no mitigation plan can be too outrageous. Have a process to analyze and disposition ideas so good ideas can be harvested quickly.

*If people/companies offer ideas and they feel they are being ignored, they’ll go to the press and make it look like the company isn’t doing everything possible to resolve the crisis.

Two appropriate quotes to close from Benjamin Franklin and Elbert Hubbard:

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” and “A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience”

Prepare and learn from mistakes…excelsior

Remembering 9/11 – Peter A. Gay

This blog entry is part of the Project 2996 initiative to remember the victims of September 11th.  It will be a placeholder until a fitting tribute page can be assembled.

September 11, 2001 changed the lives of countless people in the U.S. and around the world. That beautiful sunny Tuesday started out normal for most of us. We drove to work admiring the cloudless fall day in the northeast and went about our business. The same holds true for all the innocent people boarding the jets in Boston and Virginia that would ultimately be taking over by homicidal radicals and used as missiles against symbols of our nation’s economy, military, and government. Thousands of innocent lives were lost that day and today we pay tribute to each of them and assure they will never be forgotten.

Peter A. Gay was 54 years old on that fateful day. He was married and the father of two sons and a daughter. He was also a brother, son, son-in-law, brother-in-law, friend, colleague and leader. Besides being a wonderful family man, Peter loved to run, fish, boat, and was a well respected and admired leader at a major defense contractor where he worked from the time he got out of college.

There are several tributes for Peter that were already done, so I’ll ask that you visit the links below to see what a great man Peter was:

9/11 Victim Honored by Hometown

http://www.legacy.com/Sept11/Story.aspx?PersonID=91796

http://www.southofboston.net/specialreports/sept11anniv/pages/remember_1.shtm

http://www.wickedlocal.com/taunton/news/x289109198/Logan-memorial-honors-victims

Remembering 9/11 – that horrific day

Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” – words that have been attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Two centuries later, Gen. Douglas MacArthur stated “no man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” We often hear these words paraphrased during times of great challenge (e.g., 9/11), but the attention level is often too short and the message is sometimes completely lost.

Today, the economy is in crisis and it’s easy to allow it to monopolize the news and all of our efforts, but we still have a persistent cyber and physical threat that can not be left unattended.

In many contact sports, it’s not a good strategy to go in thinking you are going to deliver a knockout punch or a submission hold to win right away. You need to break down your opponent’s defenses, hurt him, then go for the knockout or submission.

The economic crisis has broken down our “defenses”. We are down and hurt, but far from out; however, our enemies are seeing an opportunity. They know they can’t deliver the one shot knockout or submission – they tried and failed on 9/11, but if we are already hurt, they have a better chance at coming in for that shot or two and getting closer to a victory.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that we are seeing increased provocation. Maybe it’s a strategy to see if America is still powerful enough (or willing) to keep the world’s troublemakers at bay. Regardless, there are threats that we can’t ignore. Iran has helped create and sustain crises in the Middle East while they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon. North Korea is preparing to take their next step in testing a long range missile and Venezuela and Russia continue to provoke us any way they possibly can.

We’ve often heard it’s not a matter of “if”, it’s “when”…I submit that it is also “who” is going to be the first to test us and see if we can handle another crisis.

We must take every threat as a clear and present danger or we will pay the price. None of us know what the next attack will be, but it will probably be something asymmetrical and we better be ready to respond with speed, agility and decisive fury.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.  Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Middle East in Crisis (again) – Is Iran Preparing for Battle?

Originally I was going to write about what I believe are two of the most immediate and dangerous threats to America:  first, Africa due to  the many lawless hot spots that are harboring and training terrorists. It’s becoming Afghanistan on steroids and we need a clear strategy on dealing with the issues. The second threat is Mexico – not only because of illegal immigration, porous borders, etc., but because of the drug trafficking and brutal killing that has been occurring. Drug lords are decapitating victims, including children, and displaying their bodies to terrorize citizens. They’re also using other methods of torture and murder that I won’t describe here – you can research by googling “mexico drugs murders”. It’s disturbing and it’s carrying over to the U.S. and must be stopped.

While Africa and Mexico are still a clear and present danger, recent actions in the Middle East combined with the timing (U.S. POTUS transition) may be a warning shot that this particular crisis is about to escalate.

Iran has blood on its hands in nearly every conflict in the Middle East. They support Hezbollah, Hamas and several other terrorist organizations that provoke conflict at an opportune time that reduces pressure and attention toward their nuclear program and other covert activities. It appears that Iran is once again behind a terrorist proxy (Hamas) provoking Israel with missile strikes as they did with Hezbollah in 2006 , which led to the Israel/Lebanon war. Any kind of cease-fire or semblance of progress toward peace in the Middle East, along with success in Iraq, spells doom for Iran; however, when the world is focused on other crises, Iran can continue to work on their nuke program and be confident that international sanctions will be limited.

So, why not throw a few bucks at Hamas and order them to break the cease-fire and get things fired up again? At the same time, why not instigate and fund protests around the world to make it appear that the world is condemning Israel. Why would Iran do that? In addition to refocusing international attention, could it be that Iran is setting the stage for an attack on Israel in the very near future?

The Israeli response to Hamas breaking the cease-fire may have been unexpected and the nominal reactions from other Arab countries may have been disappointing to the Iranians, but Iran may have things in place to take the opportunity to launch an attack. With a fresh Israeli offensive, an agitated Arab/Muslim community, and a U.S. in government transition – this may be Iran’s chance to take on Israel.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this, but not be surprised.