During the fifth century, the bishops of  Constantinople, known as the new Rome and the new Jerusalem, capitol of the Byzantium, took responsibility to crown the new emperor in the coronation ritual for the first time. This practice continued in Europe up to our own time, and was last seen in 1953 when Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne of England. She in turn invests each new prime minister.

Now, what on earth do foreign bishops, monarchs and prime ministers have to with business leadership looking to sustain peak performance here and now? Only this: the bishops represent vision and values, the big picture and the long story across time and place; the monarch represents identity and community, the self understanding of the organization (nation); and the prime minister represents strategy in action, meeting the demands of the current situation. And power passes from one to the next, in that order!

This provides a powerful lesson for contemporary leaders. First, start with vision and values, defining and nurturing a rich story that all employees, partners and audiences buy into. Next, manage and maintain their self-understanding and sense of community. And only in that context take strategic action. Without the first two, the latter has no ground to stand on, and no force behind it. This is a recipe for unsustainability.

Here’s the exception that proves the rule: Napoleon Bonaparte, always seeking radical change, ascribed to the great-man-alone theory, presuming to impose and imprint his will on all comers. No bishops for him, Napoleon crowned himself, becoming the emperor after having at one time gladly settled for the title “first citizen.”  He died in exile, a prisoner on a remote island 2000 km away.

Fifth century Byzantium is a long time ago and a long way away. But until it fell in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, the “new Romans” held it together in a way that was the envy of the time and a lesson to the ages. They knew how to sustain a civilixation. Until they lost the ability to innovate, but that’s another story.

They taught us this that all masterful leaders and critical teams must make real: Vision & Values > Identity & Community > Strategy & Action.

In that order.

While it remains an open question if or to what degree BP acted recklessly and unethically in its management of the Deepwater Horizon well, it doesn’t look good. But putting those crucial issues, as well as the utter devastation to life, lives, and livlihoods in the gulf aside for a moment, we’d like to take a few moments to consider BP’s challenges regarding Brand Resilience and Stakeholder-driven ethics.

Resilience

Resilience is a key driver of sustainable peak performance. More than conventional strength, it is the ability to maintain forward momentum and even flourish not simply despite, but because of significant challenges. We identify seven Pillars of Resilience: Navigating Uncertainty, Meaning-Making, Relation and Connection, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Brand Expression, Self-Command, and Dynamic Balance.  

With a plunging stock price, crisis management teams a-scrambling, congressional drubbing, possible criminal investigations, and media speculation about BP’s long term survival prospects as an independent going concern, BP’s future is certainly unclear. While it’s best for any organization to build the pillars of resilience proactively, it seems certain that if BP hopes to flourish, it will need to use this experience as an opportunity to seek to grow first in resilience. In the real world, strength requires and even builds of resilience as much or even more than standard business measures.

Ethics

For the sake of discussion, let’s remain agnostic about alleged or real ethical lapses on the part of BP. This muc is certain: we see our Stakeholder-driven Ethics framework, in which ethics are what stakeholders say they are, clearly supported and vindicated by BP’s recent behavior and experience. For better or worse, right or wrong, BP has seen customers, shareholders, strategic partners, two branches of federal  government (so far), the media, and the court of public opinion all pile on to make BP public enemy number one. While a vast number of other wells remain functioning as intended, and the extent to which the decisions that led to the gulf disaster  were driven by a few individuals or a corporate culture (possibly abetted by insufficient or compromised government involvement) remains unclear, the fact remains that just one disaster, driven by specific decisions, is enough to undermine BP’s reputation, despite years of pro-environmental brand advertising. 

Strong dividends and basic humanity are not enough. Regulation and engineering standards are not enough. In order to practice not only environmental sustainability, but sustainable performance, BP and all other organizations need both an embedded stakeholder-driven ethic and a deep foundation of brand resilience.

Ignore this at your peril.

There’s more to it, but this is a start.