Stop Me Before I Vote Again

BP Plc plans to name Robert Dudley to succeed Tony Hayward as chief executive officer as the board looks to recover the company’s position in the U.S., two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Dudley, the director of BP’s oil spill response unit, is ready to be announced as the company’s first American chief and to take the helm Oct. 1, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because a final decision hasn’t yet been made. The decision was reached in discussions with board members about how best to take BP forward and rebuild its U.S. position, the person said.

“The fact he is American should help to keep things a little more straightforward in his dealings with the U.S. administration,” said Ted Harper, who helps manage $6.8 billion at Frost Investment Advisors in Houston. He doesn’t hold BP stock. “Dudley’s most important task will continue to be making sure that the well is capped.”

Bloomberg

Stumbletongue Tony makes way for the only organization man less qualified to handle the catastrophe he created. Taken at face value, Dudley's task was immediate and thorough remediation of the disaster. He's consistently made things worse instead. So of course he's a candidate for CEO. Where else could he go? It's too soon for him to run for the Senate.

I take a jaded view of the Peter Principle. Competence comes with assumptions that have little bearing on the struggle to climb up the corporate ladder. It's crude political maneuvering; petty, sneak thief and vindictive, in which aptitude for the notional organizational purpose gets punished and sidelined long before the strivers get near real decision making power. Ultimately, they're elevated by accidents and missteps on the part of their competitors. Their backers in the frenzy are driven by fatuously post modern concerns (the hollow proprieties of perceived status) and utterly dependent on state support to preserve their positions. The state compradors who toady to them are, themselves, inept hacks who blunder their way to the top through appeals to the most callow impulses of their identity product consumers.