1 How will BP be able to judge whether or not the management development or ethics programme has been successful? BP operates in the competitive and challenging environment of global energy provision.

In this environment, the company has to be constantly renewing itself and changing. It has to achieve this development across widely dispersed geographical sites and functions, and hence relies strongly on local managers not only to control their ‘patch’ but also to enable the 70–

80 per cent of employees that report to them to provide top-

quality service.

The management development initiative had strong backing from the Chief Executive and started with a phase of analysis. This included telephone interviews with first-

line managers, 250 of whom were chosen to participate directly in the design of the development programme.