Managing Relief For The BP Spill

On a 60 minutes episode that aired on October 3, 2010 Ken Feinberg manager of relief effort for BP was interviewed giving viewers an inside look into what his job entails on a day-to-day basis. This interview was fascinating because Feinberg was challenged daily by the people who were directly effected by the disastrous spill on the gulf coast. In the interviews Feinberd stated that is credibility is only as good as the last program he administers. This statement holds true largely in the public sector of management. Feinberg was praised for his efforts post September 11^th attacks for dispensing the relief funds to families, emergency workers, rescue crews, and other lives that were effected by the attack. Although Feinberg has a good track record it was clear in this 60 minutes episode that the victims of the BP spill were not concerned about Feinberg’s previous accomplishments. Although he has developed a two step claims process to disperse the 20 billion dollars in relief funds, people were not please about how long it took for them to be compensated.

As a manager of this effort Feinberg is facing some immense challenges. The business culture of fisherman is not to keep documentation for transactions. As stated in the episode most fishermen accept cash transactions and a handshake as an agreement for payment. With this idea it is not easy to determine the total loss caused by the disaster.

Another conflict is the hostile nature of the victims in meetings and forums designed to understand the public need and here the public’s grievances. People are angry; their businesses are failing, and they feel that they are not being helped in a timely manner. Another issue is fraud. People who are seeking to receive benefits from this relief effort without having been directly effected, They claiming to be fishermen, or claiming to have lost revenue from the spill.

While watching this episode I constantly thought about how I would address each conflict individually in this situation to ensure that citizens get what they deserve while also working for the other client, BP. In reality Feinberg was hired to help BP avoid future litigation. As a manager how would I devise a plan that will successfully address all of these issues.

Shawnta Washington