Not Being True to Your Self

I have always felt aggrieved for the Dutch football teams, especially the 1974 World Cup squad led by Johan Cruyff. In the final against Germany, Cruff made a dazzling run into the box where he was viciously hacked down by Uli Hoeness, after which Neeskens buried a penalty to take the Dutch into the lead. They lost the game to a brutal and negative German side.

The Dutch have always combined strong technical skills on the ball, with a desire to go forward and physical muscularity. Watch Clarence Seedorf of AC Milan, and you will see someone built like Ray Lewis of the Ravens with the silkiest of touches in traffic and a thunderous shot. He grew up in the Dutch system. On Sunday, they abandoned their footballing natures to become like the hated Germans of 1974 in order to slow the down Spain and to destroy their playmakers. They should have played with nine men, as DeJong and Van Bommel should have been sent off but weren't.

Had the Dutch been true to themselves and tried to be positive, it would have been a beautiful game and provided glorious football for the spectators. I believe that the Dutch might have had a chance to win, even if the score were 5-4.

Instead, they played a style that was unfamiliar to them and which was not true to their footballing nature. The coach clearly had to direct this tactical shift, as it was no coincidence that the fouls were focused on the Spanish midfield maestros: Iniesta, Xavi, and Alonso.

On a different front, BP will likely never recover from the disaster in the Gulf of its own making. It is a company that papered over a long-term drift and deterioration of its corporate culture and values. Industry people joke that BP stands for "broken pipelines." Instead of focusing on a culture of operational excellence and safety, the previous CEO focused on empty PR, stating that BP stood for "Beyond Petroleum." Both the CEO and board Chair have been permanently damaged by their incoherent and ineffective strategies for responding to technical, environmental, legal, and stakeholder concerns. One would wonder why most board members would want to stick around for the aftermath of the Gulf situation. A parallel with asbestos seems apt, as capping future liabilities, given the interests of the Gulf states and the Federal government, seems extremely difficult. The company has built up no goodwill to take the pressure off itself.

BP has not been true to its core self as an entity that extracts, transports and refines hydrocarbons in physically challenging onshore and offshore environments. No responsible or successful organization can dodge risk over the long-term by skimping on the construction and maintenance of their physical capital. The Libyans have made some public pronouncements about looking at BP shares as an investment--the trouble will be finding the bottom.