Poorly internal communication essay example

Poor internal communication

Internal communication is the passing of information and messages in an organization with the main aim of informing workers and stakeholders and ensuring smooth running of the company or organization. Over time internal communication has been known to be the major problems of companies that has led to their collapse, failure, and even resulted to great losses that the company experiences. In this essay a company that has experienced internal communications is discussed. The company in question is BP (British Petroleum) and how internal communication led to the catastrophe that came up in 2010.
In 2010, the Deep Horizon oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico became the biggest accidental oil spill in the petroleum industry history. The spill continued for 87 days that led to the loss of 4. 9 million oil barrels. It is said that internal communication breakdown by BP and their Macondo partners contributed to that oil disaster. A report stated that due to poor communications between BP and other partner companies like Transocean Ltd, and, Halliburton Co. led to that problem. The companies failed the whole operation by failing to provide information that was important to the situation. They did not appreciate fully the dangers they were to take during the last days of the oil mining in the Deepwater Horizon.
The internal communication problems were as follows. First, they did not inform on monitoring offshore drilling. Secondly, they did not informed on the safety culture and safety engineering despite the fact that there were lapses in those particular systems and the high level of importance they were supposed to be addresses with. Third, the experts who surveyed the area underestimated the effect of nature’s force on the ocean floor. They said that the area was safe to drill oil yet it was not.
In this situations, it is notable that the high ranking workers and the low ranking workers did not communicate on the matters. Reasons being, the drillers also did not say how their safety was in jeopardy. Moreover, the high ranking managers did not order experts to conduct a thorough check on the area. In addition, the high ranking managers also did not insist on an offshore monitoring since they assumed the situation was just like their previous drillings. Therefore, this made the everyone do what seemed okay to them instead of waiting for orders from above. So messages went to and fro and they were not clear enough hence resulting in confusion.
BP Oil Company did not try to correct their bad message immediately. They did not do so since they left everything to chance and hope because the process of oil drilling was far too ahead and they could do nothing to stop it. The oil spill then occurred and after that, that is when they now passed clear instructions regarding stopping and reducing the oil spill. They encouraged openness between workers that enabled them explain their problems to management. This made them communicate news that was bad instead of shying away from it, censoring it, or suppressing it.
BP furthermore, discouraged the corridor talks that spread rumors that are wrong. Management at BP decided to pass information through official channels that guaranteed correct and accurate information to the workers.
Conclusively, internal communication though people assume it is vital for a company. Poor internal communication may lead to disasters and problems that may lead to problems for a company and therefore should be considered important.

References

BP oil spill blamed on management and communication failures | Business | guardian. co. uk . (n. d.). Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews. com | The Guardian . Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://www. guardian. co. uk/business/2010/dec/02/bp-oil-spill-failures
Clayton, M. (2010, September 8). BP report on cause of Gulf oil spill spreads the blame.(BP PLC)(USA). The Christian Science Monitor, 1, 18.