Strategic Planning for the Russia Business Unit
Neil David Samuels , Clare Wale , Bernard Mohr
BP
London, United Kingdom
2002
Annotation: The leader of the Russia business unit was bringing his entire business together for a two –day meeting. He wanted the session to galvanize the BU into a cohesive unit in alignment with corporate strategy and functioning at a whole new level of performance. He wanted the session to be transformative, compelling, inclusive, informative, and engaging. In short, he wanted a “A breath of fresh air”. And he wanted it all in one and a half days!
The broader context was that BP had a number of projects ongoing at the business unit level in Russia AND simultaneously was engaged at a corporate level in searching for a major entry into the country.
With Bernard Mohr, my BP colleague Clare Wale and I helped the business form a core group to design every aspect of the summit. The group comprised English, American and Russian employees. We used the attached set of slides as an intro to AI for the core group. They devised a draft protocol for the summit which they tested and revised over the next week or so (final protocol attached). This was then translated into Russian.
Working with the core team, Bernard, Clare and I devised the detailed agenda for the summit (attached). Core team members were actively involved in facilitating pieces of that agenda.
The outcomes from the inquiry can be summarized in some of the quotes from participants:
• “I now believe that the Kazakhstan/Russia Business Unit is positioned for take off.”
• “I’m excited about the breadth of work that needs to be done. And I’m looking forward to being a part of that!”
• “Now we know each other much better, we understand what we expect from each other, from our work.”
• “It helped us identify the targets and strategy of our work, to analyze our results of the previous year and to make plans for the future.”
• “I understand better where the Performance Unit and Business Unit are heading and this helped me see how & where my contribution fits in.”
Clearly, attendees left the session with a much better understanding of the direction of the business and their roles in making it happen. In addition, the provocative propositions they developed were a portent of things to come:
RUSSIA BU PROVOCATIVE PROPOSITIONS
• We are boldly going where no one has been before with confidence and trust ready to respond to risks and achieve our goals and make the future NOW
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• We are living our vision
• We are taking off
• We are family
• We know the prize
• We are a transformed business unit which is seen as the future for BP
• We possess the political cultural and business capabilities to deliver extraordinary results
• We are responsible for and shape our own future through creating irresistible opportunities which arouse EXCO passion
• Every day is a blast
• I can smell success! Trust my nose
• I have a clear target to work towards, and I know what I can do in support of the targets and my peers.
• We are inclusive
• We achieve more be being flexible
• We add value; we are valued; we value others; we have values
• Because we create our opportunities, we have unlimited options
• We have global opportunities for all
• We work seamlessly with our partners. We break down barriers. We trust them. They trust us.
• We have fun and are enthusiastic. We like coming to work.
• We are on a voyage of adventure working together to shape BP’s future
• We have achieved a radical difference
• We have broken the constraints of the past
• We are positioned to drive BP’s growth
• We are focussed clearly aligned with consistency and clarity of purpose
• We will have fun ride the waves!!
• We will boldly go where no man has gone before!!
• We will walk through the shadow of list law and licensing!
• For we fear no PSA or Company the terms we demand, ye we deserve. We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the Dumas, we shall fight them how ever long and hard the road will be – we shall never surrender
• We will seize the moment to realise our audacious dream for the future
• Russia’s favourite oil company?
Anglo-Russia plc
As I mentioned, while the BU was engaged in its own business and strategic planning summit, senior managers and key individuals in the BU were working with a group at BP corporate level to make a bold move into Russia. That work resulted in BP entering into an agreement with TNK to form TNK-BP, creating the third largest oil and gas company in Russia. With production of 1.2 million barrels of oil per day and 100,000 employees the new entity was nearly the size of existing BP. While we do not claim that this huge step was a direct result of the Inquiry within the Russia Business Unit, we are quite confident that there is a strong causal relationship between the energy that was created at the summit and the creation of TNK-BP.
Resource Files:
Summit Detail Agenda (doc )
Protocol (doc )
AI Overview Slides (ppt )
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