Power to succeed: BP CIO John Leggate demonstrates leadership mettle by saying "the unsayable"

Communication World, March-April, 2007 by Silvia Cambie

John Leggate of BP PLC found himself one day on the shop floor speaking to tough guys with big muscles about a change program he planned to introduce. "Who in HR made up this idea?" asked one, a welder. "Nobody," Leggate was brave enough to answer. "I chose to restructure. You are looking at the person who made the final call. You are looking at him--there is no one else."

BP's chief information officer and group vice president for digital and communications technology has found himself drawn into difficult conversations ever since.

"No one says it is going to be easy," Leggate says, "but I'll tell you what happens: People respect you because you have said the unsayable. You are being authentic."

It is Leggate's dedication to authenticity and his belief in the importance of communication as a professional discipline that landed him the IABC/Europe and Middle East EXCEL (Excellence in Communication Leadership) Award, presented in November in Dublin, Ireland.

Leggate is an engineer by training who joined BP in 1979. CIO since 1999, he is responsible for three of BP's global functions: digital and communications technology, security, and procurement and supply chain management. He oversees 6,000 employees and contractors in more than 30 countries and manages a total annual budget of UK4 billion. [pounds sterling] (BP has more than 96,200 employees in total and operates in 100 countries.)

When asked to reflect about leadership and communication, he points out that leadership is all about change: "Leaders make the unpredictable happen." One of the business leaders who has inspired Leggate is Percy Barnevik, former chairman and CEO of ABB (formerly Asea Brown Boveri), who taught him the importance of feeding a message sideways through the structure of an organization. "[Barnevik] insisted that you cannot penetrate more than one and a half layers of management with a simple speech, as your message likely gets altered as it filters through the ranks," Leggate says. "The secret, he said, is to keep repeating the same message without simplifying or modifying it, whether at the board level or in a manufacturing workshop."

Found in translation

Leggate's interest in and appreciation for foreign cultures came in handy in the late 1990s, when he was appointed president of BP's Azerbaijan unit, responsible for managing the company's interests in the Caspian Sea region. "You have to have a deep interest [in other cultures]. It is not something to play with," he says. To understand the traditions of Azerbaijan, Leggate worked with a cultural analyst who explained that "you have to know the power architecture, who speaks to whom and what they talk about."

"If you want to know why people in a particular country use a certain style," Leggate adds, "you have to figure out for yourself how to play into that space, how to emulate that."

Leggate also is sensitive to the vagaries of translation. He often told his translators in Azerbaijan that if his own words did not sound right, they should use the appropriate ones to convey his message rather than translate literally. "You have to show the right level of respect to connect with people," he says.

Leggate's respect for people and his ability to adapt his style to different audiences proved valuable during a previous stint as a negotiator with unions on BP's behalf. The experience confirmed his idea that it is important to repeat "the same thing over and over again without changing it."

"We forget that people are already busy--they have family lives and things other than work on their minds when their working environment goes through change," says Leggate. "So when you give them one more thing to think about, you have to do it in a way that resonates with them, and remain utterly consistent."

Leveraging the power of technology

Leadership and future trends were high on the list of topics discussed at the EuroComm conference in Dublin, where Leggate received the EXCEL award. In his acceptance speech, he reminded the audience to keep looking for fresh ideas: "When you see them on TV, it is already too late."

Leggate sees himself not only as BP's chief information officer but also its chief digital innovation officer. In 2004 he was honored with a CBE (Commander, Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to the development of digital business processes. In 2005, he was asked to give testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives on the subject of Internet security. BP has been building large external networks with institutes and think tanks. His chief technology office uses what they call "Blue Chalk events" to bring together experts from academia, think tanks and other corporations to share their insights on a specific business topic or new technology. He talks about the emerging philosophy from technology education theorist Mark Prensky and others of a generation who are "digital natives"--that is, people younger than 30 who have only lived in a world with computers and the Internet. As a result, these communities communicate, learn and share knowledge in very different ways than previous generations did, and they are a growing employee group. Leggate says that in order to spot future developments in the communication profession and connect with this audience in particular, companies need to monitor Internet trends and innovations such as wikis, blogs, gaming, virtual reality and social networking.