BP Chairman Cares About Small People! And Learns That Words Can Be as Important as Actions

The tiny positive jolt to BP's reputation following its agreement to create a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate victims of the Gulf oil spill died with six little words from its chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg: "We care about the small people." It was a miserable attempt by the Swedish-born chairman to use English slang and it overshadowed his earlier comments, which were on target and well spoken. And it offers a valuable lesson to Svanberg or any other business leader: Sometimes words are as important as actions.

The "small people" comment is particularly bad for Svanberg because this is the first time the public has gotten a good up close-and-personal look at the elusive chairman. What they discovered was a man who appears as out of touch with the average American citizen and the spill's impact as its CEO Tony Hayward, who famously quipped this month "I'd like my life back."

The damage is the same regardless of whether it was a case of poor colloquial English or not. Gulf coast residents -- aka small people -- were reminded, lest they forget, that BP is a big, giant unfeeling corporation and they are the little guy, who will undoubtedly be mishandled. And it's too bad, because Svanberg's comments, which were made to the press directly following his meeting at the White House, hit all the right notes. In fact, I was prepared to give Svanberg kudos -- yes kudos! -- for finally taking the mic away from BP's public train wreck of a CEO and putting the company back on track.

After Svanberg acknowledged that words were not enough and outlined BP's agreement with the Obama administration, he looked directly into the mass of cameras and apologized for the oil spill. Finally, he ended with a hope that BP would regain the public's trust. It was during the Q&A that followed Svanberg's statement, where things got ugly. Svanberg was asked about his one-on-one meeting with Obama, and said this:

He (Obama) comes across as a .. he is frustrated because he cares about the small people. We care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people.

The sad fact is that Svanberg knows better. This is the man who earned his management stripes and the nickname "gentle conqueror" at lockmaker Assa Abloy, where he helped the company acquire 100 firms in five years. In 2003, Svanberg was appointed CEO of telecom giant Ericsson (ERIC), Sweden's most important company and its top exporter, and is credited for helping the company recover from the dotcom bubble burst. As CEO of Ericsson, Svanberg, lived a very public life, where everything he said and did was measured, weighed and judged. In short, Svanberg is used to sticky situations and the importance of words.

Even if Svanberg managed to get the slang right and proclaim "we care about the little guy," his comments would have been just slightly less disastrous. This was BP's big chance to show Americans -- and its shareholders -- that it can and will manage this disaster successfully. Instead, Svanberg gave us reason to believe that BP can't get anything right.

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