Cows out the barn door and being forced to “eat crow” come to mind in the P.R. gaffe of a major corporation intimately linked to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. And one can’t help wonder what Abe Lincoln’s wife might have thought of the whole snafu.
Ask any crisis communicator.
They’ll tell you that along with the substance of your message, the timing also is critical. As in when not to try to convince an audience that your environmental, safety, or overall environmental safety record is exceptional.
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Transocean folks may not have gotten the memo. The company that became something of a household name only with its link to last year’s Gulf of Mexico “Deepwater Horizon“ chose its recent filing with federal regulators to profess its “statistical safety record” excellence. Adding fuel to the fire, it did so in its justification for executive bonuses based, in significant part, on its past year’s safety record.
You can’t make this stuff up.
“As a direct consequence of the Macondo Incident,” the company acknowledged in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that “we were forced to review our short-term business priorities and expand our focus to protect the immediate and long-term interests of our Company.” (Note to files: Observe that the company did not refer to it as, for instance, the “BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill,” much less the “BP/Transocean Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” They must indeed have gotten that memo.)
“Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico,” the company continued, not mentioning that nine of the 11 killed on the rig worked for Transocean, “we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate (‘TRIR’) and total potential severity rate (‘TPSR’).”
By those standards, the company vouched, “we recorded the best year in safety performance in our Company’s history.”
It’s all “a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere.” Oh my.
In its reporting on the company’s filing, “Transocean Cites Safety in Bonuses,” The Wall Street Journal quoted a company spokesperson: “The statements of fact in the proxy speak for themselves, but they do not and cannot adequately convey the extent to which everyone at Transocean is keeping the families of the men who lost their lives at Macondo in their thoughts and prayers as we approach the first anniversary of the incident.”
Repeat: you can’t make this stuff up.
Kind of reminds you of the one about Abe Lincoln’s wife having been asked, after his assassination at the National Theater, “Other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Transocean execs, after a few days of headline heckles, alas acknowledged the insensitivity of their wordsmithing, offering, in the glare of light, to pass some of those bonuses on to charities.
It was sort of like having to eat crow long after the cows have left the barn, to use an animal metaphor not directly linked to soiled seabirds and marine life.
Late-night comedy hosts: Start your engines. Your turn.