Leadership in a time of change

At the CBI’s Annual Conference, CBI Director-General, Carolyn Fairbairn, is joined by Bernard Looney, Chief Executive Officer of BP, to discuss the importance of executive leadership in bringing about fundamental change, as well as outlining the challenges faced by businesses in tackling climate change.

Speakers:

• Bernard Looney, CEO, BP
• Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, Director-General, CBI
• Chair: James Harding, Co-Founder and Editor, Tortoise Media.

Highlights of the session

“It is the power of scale; huge businesses pivoting will lead the way” – Dame Carolyn Fairbairn.

Bernard Looney assumed the top job at BP in February, with a large transformation agenda in his sights. Then COVID-19 struck, and the difficult task of leading the pivot of a 111-year-old oil and gas company into producing cleaner energy, faced even further challenge.

A key element of the discussion was how we as a planet produce our energy in the months and years ahead. There are four key components in what the world now wants and needs from its energy supply; they want it to be affordable, they want it to be plentiful, the want it to reliable, and, most importantly, they want it to be clean, and organisations need to work to achieve this is a pragmatic and sustainable way.

It became clear early in the session that the task facing businesses regarding climate change is a complex and difficult one, but one that need not be faced alone, but in partnership with government. With the UK having already set a target to become a net zero nation by 2050, and having the chairmanship of COP26 in the new year, business can be assured that support from government will be present in working towards this common goal.

The session also focussed on business leadership, which as Carolyn Fairbairn said in her introductory remarks, is easier in theory than practice. Absence of long-term thinking in business planning has been a core issue previously, but the 2050 challenge, coupled with the accelerative effect of the pandemic, has brought long-term planning to the forefront.

Three key takeaways from this session

The Leadership of listening

“A search for solutions, not a defence of positions” – Bernard Looney

• There is limited use in continuing to engage with individuals who agree with you; to achieve real change, you need to be prepared to listen to your critics
• Listen to people from all over the world, your staff, your customers, your shareholders, those in academia, and other business leaders, to formulate the best plan to move forward
• Once a position had been established from period of listening, new dialogues will be opened that were not possible before, but you need to be able to carry your critics, your staff, and your shareholders with you. You need to be able to go with people.

How business can tackle the environmental challenge head on

The UK can be the ‘Saudi Arabia of Wind’ – Boris Johnson

• Grit and determination of larger industries will be required to lead a transformation of this scale to reach a target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050
• Approaching this in a pragmatic manner is also key; BP are not abandoning their oil and gas heritage, but rather using the cash that it generates to invest heavily in diversifying how their energy is produced
• Recognise what transferable skills may already be available within your organisation; if you can run the logistics, inventory, and day-to-day oversight of an oil rig, there is no reason why this couldn’t be put to use in a solar farm
• As business leaders, we need to continue to challenge the assumption that ‘green’ has to be more expensive; technology has always overdelivered to mean this is no longer the case
• There is also a major role for government to play in the potential creation of thousands of green jobs up and down the country; something which the CBI will continue to lobby for.

Taking the lead on mental health during a global pandemic

• It is important to remember that the challenges, fears, worries and vulnerabilities that you are feeling as a business leader will be similarly felt across your workforce, and the pandemic will have amplified them
• One of the biggest topics that CBI members wanted to discuss during our webinar series was mental health, and how to manage it, proving just how important an issue this has become
• A silver lining of this entire ordeal is that we, as a workforce, have opened up more; we have seen into others’ homes, virtually met each other’s pets and families, and discussed difficult topics we wouldn’t have before.