British Petroleum Portfolio Analysis - Essay Example

? British Petroleum (BP) Section One: the behaviour and attitudes of an Individual As today’s business environment has become more competitive, the labour market characteristics have also changed drastically (Ballout, 2009). Consideration of arguments of Ballout (2009) reveals the fact that modern organizations depend heavily on cross-functional teams consisting of people with different personality, skill sets and interpersonal skills, in order to cope with change in business and operational dynamics. Arnold and Randall (2010) also supported the fact that personality, work psychology and motivational level among workers play vital role in directing their contribution to overall performance of organization. In such theoretical backdrop, the researcher has selected British Petroleum (BP) as the sample organization in order to understand inner meaning of the phrase, “The behaviour and attitudes of an Individual”, in context to real world business environment. In the next section, the study will shed light on issues regarding types of people that are important for the organization, problems being faced by employees in British Petroleum (BP) while negotiating with other people, evaluating impact of mentioned conflict on organizational success and recommendations for addressing people driven conflict situation in BP. According to Huczynski and Buchanan (2010) and Fuller and Marler (2009), organizational effectiveness depends heavily on its ability to manage performance, work attitude and personal attributes of employees. Fuller and Marler (2009) argued that neither do people in the organization perform equally well nor are they considered as equally important, due to difference in skill and competency level. Mullins and Christy (2013) also supported the fact that personality and work attitude of individuals need to match with performance expectation and vision statement of the organization in order to classify those individuals as important. For organizations like, BP, individuals need to maintain proactive personality and attitude for maintaining important stake in organizational success (Schuster, 2012). Proactive personality of individuals is defined as their personal dimensions for taking initiatives in self-driven manner and actively seeking career growth opportunities in organizational context. According to Schuster’s (2012) report [Helmut Schuster is Group HR Director in BP], human resource department of BP follows five step model to select human capital who can give important and valuable contribution to business success of the company. These five steps can be defined as, 1- attracting best global talent through stringent qualification criteria, 2- providing training and developing skill competency among recruits, 3- deploying diverse succession planning to ensure steady supply of talent pool, 4- managing the motivation of individuals through transparent performance based reward system and 5- engaging employees in knowledge sharing and inclusive organizational culture in order to enhance their contribution level. BP wants certain skill set from the hired such as, strong academic background, ability to grasp technical and cross-functional knowledge effectively, ability to make decisions in contingent and critical situation, coordinating and communicating with other members while working in team and ability to deliver performance in a consistent manner (Schuster, 2012). As per the talent requirements of BP, three types of people may be most effective for the organisation. Type 1- this set of people can be classified as aspirer or individuals, who join BP for achieving materialistic objectives (British Petroleum, 2012). These set of people are ready to follow business objectives and performance of codes of British Petroleum, in non-hesitant manner, for achieving high career growth. As motivation of these employees is driven by financial outcome and career growth, hence it becomes difficult for British Petroleum to retain engagement level of these people in sustainable manner. Type 2- this set of people can be classified as reformer or individuals, who work in BP for intellectual growth and take leadership role during contingent period (British Petroleum, 2012). These people prefer to direct the capabilities of team members to achieve common objectives and are even ready to take risks to approach the emergent problem with creative insight. Type 3- these set of people can be classified as explorer or enthusiastic individuals, who join BP for learning new things and explore career opportunities. These people are ready to experiment with new ideas and work collaboratively while working in team environment. However, these people are young at age and need guidance from either Type 1 or Type 2 people to fulfil performance objectives (Schuster, 2012). On the basis of above evaluation, Type 2 set of people are identified as most effective for the British Petroleum in long run and they also have the capacity to lead the other two set of people during contingent period through team building approach. It has found by the study that people need to have leadership skill, proactive personality and team working mentality to deliver performance and grow, in organizational context of BP. According to Schuster (2012), human resource department of BP take certain measures to develop collaboration between people within organization. However, there are possibilities that people may face difficulties or problems while negotiating with other people within, or externally involved with, the organisation. Presence of such level of problems might directly or indirectly generate conflict among people within organizations. Consideration of research works of Huczynski and Buchanan (2010) and Arnold and Randall (2010) reveals the fact that conflict contagion process or simple conflict among team members are generated while they work in an interdependent manner. Guetzkow and Gyr (1954) were one of the pioneers in the field of research regarding generation of conflict within workplace. In context to BP, three types of problems can be experienced by people when negotiating with other people within, or externally involved with, the organisation. Problem 1- a particular organizational individual might try to convey a feedback or suggestion to another organizational member while the other might not be ready to accept or listen to the feedback. In such situations, feeling of ignorance is generated, thereby leading to generation of conflict of opinion between team members. Problem 2- in case of BP, while working in cross-functional team, sense of perceived incompatibilities between team members can be generated which lead to generate conflict of action between team members. Problem 3- clash of value system, thinking process and personality might occur between team members while working within BP or negotiating with external stakeholders. For example, overtly aggressive and materialistic growth driven behaviour of a BP employee may hurt the sentiment of clients. Although, in each of the mentioned problems, that individuals may experience during negotiation with other people within, or externally involved, with the organisation may seem as independent in nature, yet the fact remains that these problems can damage team performance and dismantle group dynamics in a severe manner, while working collaboratively. According to report published by British Petroleum (2012) and Schuster (2012), the oil extraction heavily focuses on forming team and working in collaborative manner to achieve business success. Above mentioned conflicts can reduce knowledge sharing, mutual trust, bonding, engagement level and motivation to perform well among team members, working collaboratively in any BP project. Consideration of research works of Thomas (1976) reveals the fact that generation of conflict of opinion, conflict of interest and conflict of action can delay decision making process in BP, which will alternatively increase cost of operation for BP. There are generation of conflict between BP project management team and external stakeholders where clients may be directed by issues such as, lack of understanding of project deliverables, lack of communication and lack of client’s confidence on capabilities of project management team in BP. In either case, BP may lose the project if it fails to address the conflict contagions in responsive and efficient manner. In the next section, the study will discuss about resolutions and best practice approaches that may be used by BP to resolve conflicts in workplace. BP maintains large business portfolio with multiple operational verticals located in different countries. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to address the needs of different stakeholders in precise manner or deploy a standardized conflict management model for all business locations. However, the researcher will use Thomas’s (1976) conflict management style as recommended resolutions and best practice approaches. Figure 1: Conflict Handling Style (Source: Thomas, 1976) According to above model, management of BP can resolve conflict among people by taking four different approaches such as, 1- accommodating the opinions of different people in same space, 2- encouraging team members to solve problems in collaborative manner, 3- avoiding any kind co-operation to resolve conflict and ignore the presence of conflict and 4- resolve the conflict by deploying authoritarian management approach. Out of these four approaches, the researcher has selected collaboration and problem solving model as the most feasible one in order to be used by BP management team to resolve all three types of conflict such as, conflict of interest, conflict by action and conflict of opinion. As part of collaboration and problem solving model, organizational people should be encouraged to work in team, attend knowledge session together, exchange knowledge with each other in informal meetings, develop leadership team, coordinate with each other in both formal and informal manner and finally, communicate with each other frequently in order to develop relationship and trust between each other. It is expected that by adopting these suggestions, BP management can resolve conflict among its people. Section Two: The formation, behaviour and attitudes of a Group In case of BP, various teams and groups work at different levels of the organization to ensure performance of business operation such as, leadership team, innovation group, safety and quality team, talent management team and a group for Future Leaders Programme (FLP) (Schuster, 2012). Although, each of these groups and teams play vital role in helping BP to excel in business operation, but from strategic viewpoint, the oil and gas major relies heavily on leadership development group or Future Leaders Programme (FLP) team members. The FLP team works closely with all the business verticals and operational divisions in order to get cross-functional experience which would help them to excel as a leader of future (British Petroleum, 2013). FLP team members work with each other for 24 months, while their primary responsibilities involve handling downstream (Refining & Marketing) business, Information Technology & Services (IT&S) and human resource management activities (British Petroleum, 2013). While developing team and groups for Future Leaders Programme (FLP), BP follows Kavanagh and Ashkanasy’s (2006) suggestion of developing culture of diversity, group dynamics and team-working or team collaboration. It has been observed by the researcher that Belbin’s (1981) Team Roles Theory is being used by BP in order to ensure formation of better group dynamics. For example, FLP team members follow all the six steps mentioned by Belbin (1981) to ensure end-to-end communication between team members and develop strong group dynamics. Six steps used by BP to ensure group dynamics are, 1- role of each member in the group is being clearly communicated via e-mail, employee blog, direct communication or team meetings, 2- using collaboration as team building approach, 3- developing process plan and cross-functional operational plan for next 24 months, 4- picking up the most optimal team building approach after prolong meeting and discussion with team members, 5- communicating the objective and desired outcome for team formation to all the participating team members and 6- establishing behavioural equilibrium and cordial relationship between FLP team members via knowledge session, common training, informal meeting and team building activities (British Petroleum, 2013). To maintain diversity in team, BP hires employee from different cultures, academic domain, nationalities and all these members are trained together in order to not only develop group dynamics, but also decrease the scope of biasness of treatment to team members with respect to gender, nationality, culture or geographic locations (Kandola, Fullerton and Ahmed, 1995; Lindgren and Packendorff, 2006). On the basis of above discussion, it can be said that Future Leaders Programme (FLP) team works as a group which is responsible for ensuring future growth of BP. In context to group formation in different functional teams of BP, same types of group dynamics activities are used by management to ensure diversity, collaboration and interactive communication between members. As a summary, it can be said that leadership team, innovation group, safety and quality team, talent management team and group for Future Leaders Programme (FLP) conjointly puts effort to help BP to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and business success. Consideration of research works of Lindgren and Packendorff (2006) reveals the fact that functionality of a group can be enhanced with the presence of positive elements, whereas functionality of the group can be damaged with the presence of negative elements. In case of appropriate group organisations and structures of BP, presence of people who are impatient, lacks tolerance level and impractical or poor in maintaining coordination with team members, can damage the outcome of team activities. On the other hand, positive elements for a group are people who can perform all the five desired role such as, 1- working in self-disciplined manner and able to take systematic approach to address issues, 2- proving creative insight and innovative thinking to come up with new solution to the problems, 3- the ability to communicate with team members in periodic manner and coordinating activities of team members, 4- performing the role of motivator for other team members and 5- to have the capabilities of making decisions during contingent periods. Presence of positive elements in different teams and groups of BP such as, leadership team, innovation group, safety and quality team, talent management team, group for Future Leaders Programme (FLP), can increase responsiveness in decision making and coordination between activities of team members. Due to presence of such positive factors, overall performance of cross-functional teams in BP increases simultaneously. On the contrary, people with negative attitudes such as, lack of patience, pessimism regarding the outcome of project, lack of motivation and lack of engagement, can be classified as negative elements for BP. These negative elements can not only create problems in forming group dynamics, but also resist any kind change initiatives. As a result, de-motivation level among team members increases which negatively affect the team performance. BP uses stringent eligibility criteria and control measures such as, test of personality, interpersonal skill test and psychological test, to decrease proportion of negative elements while forming cross-functional groups (Schuster, 2012). In group dynamics, a particular individual or individuals need to perform leadership roles to guide group activities. Considering the research work of Yukl (2009) suggests the fact that individuals can choose from three leadership styles alternatively, while in a team or group such as, 1- Democratic/Participative Leadership, including team members in decision making process, 2- Servant Leadership, an arbitrary team member can perform leadership role by disposing interpersonal skills and capabilities in contingent period and 3- Transformational Leadership, probably the most suitable leadership approach to guide team members in BP because in this leadership style, leaders develop the vision for change, coordinate activities of team members and motivate team members to perform within the team. Therefore, it can be said that positive elements in team and cross-functional groups of BP need to mix transformational leadership style, democratic/participative leadership styles and servant leadership style, in situation specific manner, in order to drive business success for the company. It has been mentioned that BP uses array of different groups and cross-functional teams to deliver success and achieve performance objectives. There is very little scope available for the researcher to identify and evaluate the resultant impacts on the performance of the all the functional groups of BP due to space and preciseness constraints. To address this limitation, the researcher will focus only on group and team regarding Future Leaders Programme (FLP) in BP in order to understand how the presence of positive and negative elements affects performance of the groups. Presence of positive elements or people with capabilities to perform the five desired role (already mentioned in previous section) can help FLP team in many ways such as, rise in collaboration between team members which would ease the communication within team, cost of operation would decrease as decision making time would get lessened and cross member knowledge sharing would increase scope of innovation within groups (British Petroleum, 2013). Positive elements would not only direct or speed up activities of the team, but also build capabilities within the team, so that FLP members of BP can adjust their activities in context to business environment uncertainties. However, presence of negative elements can downgrade the performance of FLP groups of BP in three manners, 1- cost and duration of the program heightens due to increasing mismanagement and conflict among team members, 2- scope for creative thinking or innovative practices diminishes as the collaboration between team members gets reduced and 3- constant intervention from negative elements would disrupt the communication flow within the group. As a result, conjoint impact of such shortcomings would reduce the performance level of groups. To address these challenges, the essay would recommend solutions and best practice approaches, which can improve group dynamics by reducing the intervention from negative elements. Consideration of Maslow's (1943) Hierarchy of Needs model reveals the fact that human motivation is directed by fulfilment of five types of needs such as, physiological need, safety need, social need, satisfaction of the ego and self-actualization. In order to decrease resistance from negative elements and develop group dynamics in BP, the company can use financial rewards, recognition of performance, assurance of workplace safety and career growth opportunities to eradicate these negative elements in groups by the means of satisfying their need regarding satisfaction of the ego, physiological need and safety need. In this way, BP management can convert certain portion of negative elements into positive ones. Another suggestion is that BP management should encourage back-and-forth communication, even within the smallest group units and deploy state of art technologies or arrange frequent group meetings to ensure free flowing communication and knowledge sharing between team members within organisational groups. It is expected that incorporating the abovementioned recommendations would help BP management to ensure sustainable and strong group dynamics across all business verticals. Reference List Arnold, J. and Randall, R., 2010. 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