What is Teleopathy, and how does it affect Corporations

In the last year, we have been saturated through the news regarding the official release of an electric car to the masses. Tesla Motors achieved a milestone, by overcoming a problem that has been in plain sight for decades. By modifying the source of energy in automobiles, the Tesla Model 3 can be considered the first massively-distributed electric car.

The question that could arise is: what is so game-changing about electric cars?

Petroleum has been the main resource of energy to mankind since the discovery of its energetic properties. Back in 1847, the Scottish chemist James Young discovered that he could distill a light thin oil out of petroleum, mainly for using it as lamp oil. One year later, he decided to set a small business refining the crude oil. From there on, from early 20th century, it has become a key component in politics, society and technology.

Despite all its advantages, we have seen that the use of this phenomenal substance has a long list of side-effects, none of them good. In addition, even more in recent history, we have seen daily news regarding natural catastrophes consequent to the manufacture and transport of the oil.

In this document, I will overview a case related to the petroleum industry, and how the decisions made by companies involved a unethical behavior of their business.

What is Teleopathy

Teleopathy can be described as the unbalanced pursuit of a goal. To the people/organizations undergoing teleopathy, the accomplishment of their goals dazzles whether the steps taken in the process are unethical or not. They are not “evil”: they do not desire wrongdoing, but they prioritize the accomplishment of the goals over all possible risks and dilemmas that may occur in the process.

An easy example of teleopathy can be seen in 1986 from NASA. In the Challenger flight, none of the people that took the decision of launching the spaceship wanted the crew to die. None of them acknowledged that they were doing something evil. They simply prioritized their goal of achieving the road-map, over all the risks that it carried. That is not only a problem of the people in charge of decision-making, it is a problem in the root of NASA’s organizational culture.

Teleopathy has three identifiable symptoms, which lead to the final unbalanced pursuit of goals:

First of all, there is the fixation or singleness of purpose under stress. This symptom arises out of the ambition of individuals/organizations to succeed. Under stressful situations, they are fixated on superordinate goals and lose their balance, ignoring certain higher values such as the safety of the people.

Second, rationalization points out how individuals/organizations justify an unethical behavior. Whether the entity believes that the activity is not “really” illegal, or that it helps the entity and it is of their best interest, such actions are indicators of a lose of balance towards goals. This kind of justification obscures the consequences and morality of the taken decisions.

Finally, detachment makes individuals obsessed with winning, basing all their actions on whether they will help them succeed or not. The individual then becomes an object lacking integrity, defining his rationality exclusively in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of his actions towards his goals.

The case: Petroleum Industry

The list of Oil disasters is huge, with over 2.000 million gallons of crude leaked into the sea, and over 1.200 deaths within the Oil and Gas Boom of 2003–2013, only in the US. When one starts investigating on the cause of these disasters, the media provides many different explanations, such as:

• People making mistakes, or being careless.
• Equipment breaking down.
• Natural disasters, such as hurricanes or tsunamis.
• Deliberate acts by terrorists, countries at war, vandals, or illegal dumpers.

One can come to question whether those disasters could have been prevented. For instance, many of the Oil Spills involved the shattering of the containers, mainly because of a faulty maintenance of the tanks. These disasters always lead to the hunt for a blameworthy individual. At some point, the organization itself takes responsibility of the disaster, and they simply pay a fine to the government, which is pocket money given the average budget of these organizations.

This criteria of penalty inquiries whether the abiding law regarding environmental impact commits to an unethical behavior in these organizations. If the risk of leakage in a cargo has a lower impact on the organization’s economy than having an in-depth security and prevention department, then such organization has a free door to detachment. The competitive advantage may then overcome the moral and ethics of the organization.

BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico

On April 20th 2010, a powerful explosion shook the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. One hundred thirty liters per second gush from a leak one thousand five-hundred meters below the surface. Eleven workers lost their lives and one hundred fifteen were rescued, many with severe injuries. All effort to save the crippled platform failed and, two days later, it sunk to the ocean floor.

After several techniques failed, the oil gusher flowed for 87 days before it was capped, on July 15th 2010. The US government estimated a total discharge of 210 million gallons, leading to what is America’s largest oil spill. Furthermore, reports in early 2012 indicated the site was still leaking.

BP bears the majority of responsibility among the companies involved in the catastrophe. The judge essentially divided blame among three companies involved in the spill, in which BP faced 67% of the blame; drilling rig owner Transocean Ltd took 30%; and cement contractor Halliburton Energy Service took 3%.

In his 153-page ruling, US district judge Carl Barbier said BP made “profit-driven decisions” during the drilling of the well that led to the deadly blowout. This ruling means BP could face as much as $17.6 billion in civil fines under the Clean Water Act, said David Uhlmann, former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section.

The oil spill was reported to be caused by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. A surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete core recently installed by contractor Halliburton in order to seal the well for later use. It later emerged through documents released by Wikileaks that a similar incident occurred on a BP-owned rig in the Caspian Sea in September 2008. Both cores were likely too weak to withstand the pressure because they were composed of a concrete mixture that used nitrogen gas to accelerate curing.

“I recall a skirmish between the company man, the OIM (offshore installation manager), the tool-pusher and the driller,” said Doug Brown, one of 115 rig workers who survived the April 20 disaster. “The driller was outlining what would be taking place, whereupon the company man stood up and said, ‘No, we’ll be having some changes to that.’ It had to do with displacing the riser for later on. The OIM, tool-pusher and driller disagreed with that, but the company man said, ‘Well, this is how it’s gonna be,’ and the tool-pusher, driller and OIM reluctantly agreed.”

Once released by the fracture of the core, the natural gas traveled up to the platform, where it ignited, killing 11 workers and injuring another 17. Without any opposing force, oil began to discharge into the gulf. The volume of oil escaping the damaged well, originally estimated by BP to be about 1,000 barrels per day, was later discovered by U.S. government officials to be more than 60,000 barrels per day.

When federal agencies started investigating on what caused the explosion, the problem was that well owner BP and rig operator Transocean didn’t test the blowout preventer’s individual safety systems. They just tested the device as a whole. It turned out there were two sets of faulty wiring that caused problems and a dead battery.

The symptoms of Teleopathy

When analyzing the case in depth, one can come to realize that the catastrophe could have been prevented. Now, which were the key wrongdoings that leant to the catastrophe?

BP already experienced a similar disaster 20 years back, in the Piper Alpha oil disaster. When comparing the two tragedies, the similarities are evident. If BP had taken what was learned from the sinking of the Piper Alpha platform, and applied it going forward, the Deep Horizon disaster might have never happened. The main lesson to be learned from both the Piper Alpha and the Deepwater Horizon is that safety cannot be overlooked in the quest for profit. When employees’ lives are at stake, companies need to utilize all avenues of safety that are available.

All this leads to one outstanding Teleopathy symptom: fixation. BP prioritized saving costs over the risks that were taken regarding the testing and quality of the equipment. As I mentioned in the case description, BP decided to use a concrete mixture that accelerated curing, reducing manufacturing costs. Also, the cancellation of an independent test that would have detected problems with the cement seal led to that seal failing at a critical juncture. It is also worth to mention the similarity of this case with the NASA Challenger’s case. The blind pursuit of the organization’s goal by managers overwhelmed the suggestion of the tool pusher.

Secondly, the fact that BP initialized a battle to blame the disaster to Transocean Ltd shows rationalization. The controversial behavior regarding savings was projected into the drilling service, which in reality was lacking exhaustive information due to the cancellation of in-depth tests by BP. In addition to this, there is the fake estimations made by BP regarding the magnitude of the leakage: 1,000 estimated barrels, compared to the 60,000 confirmed.

What it refers to detachment, there is the fact that the actions taken by the company pursued cost and manufacture savings. The former involved the cancellation of an independent test, and the later the usage of a special concrete mixture that was non-optimal given the environment in which it was being used.

Conclusion

“Learn from the mistakes of the past or you will be doomed to repeat them” is a mantra often repeated by observers of history. The risk is always there, no matter how much prevention you put into play. In the case of BP, the disaster could have been prevented if the safety measures were reinforced after the Piper Alpha Oil Disaster. Twenty years later, the organizational culture promoting the statement “do only what industry standards constrain you to do” striked back into a new form.

Oil industries are one of the leading economies in the world, and bringing organizational changes into such is a hell of a challenge. Given the emerging new sources of energy, maybe this will be time in which the monopoly will be disrupted, forcing these organizations to adopt new means to blend into the eco-friendly market of competitors.

(Pictures from The Guardian, Telegraph, EcoWatch and LLNL.)