石油公司CEO必須身兼首席安全官
Just when the Deepwater Horizon stopped leaking oil into the Gulf, costing BP $8 billion in direct cost and $70 billion in lost market capitalization so far, another platform owned by another company caught fire and exploded. It reminded us again of the immense oil and gas industry's immense vulnerability. Chief executives throughout the oil and gas industry are now asking their operational leadership for assurance that similar accidents will never happen in their organizations. That assurance can't be given with integrity and confidence, because the industry has lost command over of its greatest source of vulnerability--its organizational culture and leadership.
To prevent another catastrophe like Deepwater Horizon, C-suite leaders must move rapidly to create a culture in which safety is valued as the foundation for every other dimension of performance. Operational integrity depends on having safety define the culture.
To begin this process, industry leaders should develop plans that include at least the following three steps, and they should do so in the next 90 days:
1. Acknowledge that CEOs and their boards rarely receive good information on what takes place at the operations level within their companies. To get at the real picture, CEOs need to cut through several layers of management, talk to mid-level managers, and audit their companies' safety procedures. In the financial audit world, it has become popular to talk about understanding the "tone in the middle." A chief executive who doesn't know the tone on the platforms and shop floors simply doesn't know the company's exposure to catastrophe.
2. Realize that internal records are frequently unreliable. Operational integrity and safety data should be scrutinized to determine their accuracy. The frequency of convenient lapses in safety protocols reported in the case of the Deepwater Horizon is deplorable. In many cases, the results of these reviews will be shocking.
3. As top safety officer, chief executives must communicate throughout their organizations this core cultural value: Sticking to rigorous safety systems and procedures won't cost money; it will save lives and make money. Acting otherwise is unacceptable. When this message is clear and credible, colleagues will not hesitate to call one another on errors in safety practice, and news of near misses will pass up the chain of command without impedance.
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Krause is not saying that the CEO must literally be the safety officer. He is saying that safety requires a CEO who assumes responsibility for the organization's safety performance just as he or she
Read All Comments (7)Post a CommentBoth Exxon and NASA faced similar urgencies after the wreck of the Exxon Valdez and the failure of the space shuttle Columbia. In the latter case, the investigation panel found the cause to be "as much about organizational failure as technical failure." To bring about the change that was needed, the senior leaders of these two complex organizations--Sean O'Keefe at NASA and Lee Raymond at Exxon--launched cultures of caution by taking personal accountability for safety in their organizations. Paul O'Neill did the same at Alcoa ( AA - news - people ) during his remarkable tenure as CEO there.
When CEOs demand absolute integrity, it doesn't mean they think they can avoid all risk. It means they want to know that state-of-the-art operations integrity programs, for both safety and reliability, are in place, that company leaders are doing what they need to do to make them effective, and that exposures to catastrophe are being identified and managed effectively.
Like it or not, in the oil and gas industry and in other industries with catastrophic potential, the CEO must take on the primary leadership role in safety. Without this commitment, federal regulations will be imposed. The likelihood of future incidents will increase. Little progress will be made. Rapid, profound change in any industry inherently involves the CEO. In the new normal, oil and gas CEOs can no longer be effective leaders if they don't lead with safety.
Thomas R. Krause is chairman of the board of BST, a safety performance consulting firm based in Ojai, Calif., whose clients include the major oil companies, NASA, hundreds of manufacturers worldwide, and patient safety-focused health care organizations.
為了防止再次出現(xiàn)“深水地平線(xiàn)”號(hào)類(lèi)似的災(zāi)難，高管們必須快速行動(dòng)起來(lái)，創(chuàng)建一個(gè)將安全視為所有績(jī)效基礎(chǔ)的企業(yè)文化。在“深水地平線(xiàn)”號(hào)鉆井平臺(tái)終于停止向墨西哥灣傾吐原油，這一事故已導(dǎo)致英國(guó)石油公司直接經(jīng)濟(jì)損失80億美元，市值損失700億美元——就在此時(shí)，另一家公司所有的另一個(gè)平臺(tái)又起火爆炸了。它再次提醒了我們巨大石油天然氣行業(yè)的巨大脆弱性。石油天然氣行業(yè)的首席執(zhí)行官們正在要求他們的營(yíng)運(yùn)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人確保類(lèi)似的意外事故將永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)發(fā)生。沒(méi)人能作出誠(chéng)實(shí)無(wú)欺的保證，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)行業(yè)已經(jīng)失去了對(duì)其最大脆弱性來(lái)源的控制——其企業(yè)文化和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力。
為了防止再次出現(xiàn)“深水地平線(xiàn)”號(hào)類(lèi)似的災(zāi)難，高管們必須快速行動(dòng)起來(lái)，創(chuàng)建一個(gè)將安全視為所有績(jī)效基礎(chǔ)的企業(yè)文化。作業(yè)完善性有賴(lài)于企業(yè)文化中的安全定義。
想要開(kāi)始創(chuàng)建這樣一種企業(yè)文化，企業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人應(yīng)該制定包括至少以下三個(gè)步驟的計(jì)劃，且必須在90天內(nèi)完成：
1． 要承認(rèn)首席執(zhí)行官和董事會(huì)很少能了解企業(yè)內(nèi)部營(yíng)運(yùn)層面上正在發(fā)生些什么。想要真正進(jìn)行了解實(shí)情，首席執(zhí)行官們必須跳過(guò)幾個(gè)管理層級(jí)，直接和中層經(jīng)理人對(duì)話(huà)，并審核公司的安全程序。在財(cái)務(wù)審計(jì)中，談?wù)撊绾卫斫?ldquo;來(lái)自中層的聲音”已經(jīng)變得十分流行。不了解這些平臺(tái)以及銷(xiāo)售市場(chǎng)情況的首席執(zhí)行官不可能知道公司所可能面臨的災(zāi)難。
2． 要意識(shí)到內(nèi)部記錄常常是不可靠的。作業(yè)完善性和安全數(shù)據(jù)應(yīng)該經(jīng)過(guò)審核，以確定它們的準(zhǔn)確性。“深水地平線(xiàn)”號(hào)案例中所記錄下的失誤頻率令人扼腕。在許多情況下，這些回顧評(píng)估的結(jié)果都令人震驚。
3． 作為首席安全官的CEO們必須在整個(gè)企業(yè)中傳達(dá)這樣的核心價(jià)值觀：堅(jiān)持執(zhí)行嚴(yán)格的安全系統(tǒng)和程序不會(huì)產(chǎn)生成本，反而能拯救生命并賺取利潤(rùn)。反其道而行之是不可接受的。這一信息被清晰無(wú)誤地傳達(dá)之后，員工在實(shí)施安全措施時(shí)，將毫不猶豫地指出他人的錯(cuò)誤，且險(xiǎn)些釀成事故的訊息將毫無(wú)阻力地上傳至管理層。
埃克森美孚和美國(guó)國(guó)家航空航天局（NASA）分別在Exxon Valdez原油泄漏事故和哥倫比亞號(hào)太空飛船失事之后面臨著同樣的緊急局面。在NASA的事件中，調(diào)查小組發(fā)現(xiàn)，“組織性失誤所占比重和技術(shù)性失誤一樣多。”為了推行必要的變化，這兩家復(fù)雜機(jī)構(gòu)的高級(jí)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人——NASA的肖恩·奧基夫（Sean O'Keefe）和?？松梨诘睦?middot;雷蒙德（Lee Raymond）——通過(guò)各自在企業(yè)內(nèi)部承擔(dān)起安全的個(gè)人責(zé)任，推行起了審慎的企業(yè)安全文化。美鋁公司（Alcoa）的保羅·奧尼爾（Paul O'Neill）在擔(dān)任首席執(zhí)行官期間也采取了相同的措施。
CEO們要求絕對(duì)的完善性，但這并不意味著他們認(rèn)為可以避免所有的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。這意味著，他們想要了解最新的作業(yè)完善性項(xiàng)目——目的是安全性和可靠性雙方面的——已經(jīng)實(shí)行，且公司領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人正在努力使之有效運(yùn)行、潛在災(zāi)難已經(jīng)知曉且得到有效管理。
無(wú)論CEO們是否喜歡，在石油天然氣行業(yè)以及其他存在潛在災(zāi)難的行業(yè)，他們必須承擔(dān)起主要的安全領(lǐng)導(dǎo)責(zé)任。如果沒(méi)有這一承諾，將采取聯(lián)邦法律方式進(jìn)行監(jiān)管。未來(lái)此類(lèi)意外事故發(fā)生的可能性將有所增加。進(jìn)步將非常之少。任何行業(yè)中，快速、深刻的變化都必須有賴(lài)于首席執(zhí)行官的參與。以全新的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)看，石油天然氣行業(yè)的CEO們?nèi)绻荒茴I(lǐng)導(dǎo)企業(yè)安全，就不再稱(chēng)得上是高效的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。
托馬斯·克勞斯（Thomas R. Krause）系位于加利福尼亞州奧哈伊的安全績(jī)效咨詢(xún)公司BST的董事會(huì)主席。該公司客戶(hù)包括各大石油公司、NASA、全球數(shù)百家制造企業(yè)，以及專(zhuān)注于病患安全的醫(yī)療保健機(jī)構(gòu)。
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