Deepwater Horizon Failure

The key causes of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster are overconfidence bias, incompetence, poor decision making, and ignored warning signs. As years go by, good leaders continue to make bad decisions due to certain cognitive biases which inhibit us from viewing problems as they need to be seen; therefore, our minds distort information received and make miscalculations when processing the information (Mackin, 2010). Since BP was a very successful organization, it had grown overconfident in its projects and endeavors. “Overconfidence bias relates to our tendency to be over-confident about estimates or forecasts” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p. 336). “When we’ve had success in the past, it’s difficult to believe that things could turn out differently” (Mackin, 2010, para. 4). People tend to get reassured into contentment by success (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).
2). With so many problems escalating, the well should have been shut down; however, all the signs were shrugged off as nothing to worry about. As disagreements over negative test and pressure escalated, did they “realize the seriousness of the situation;” were they competent enough to understand all the data receiving from the well (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p. 362)? In the case of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, there were too many warning signs to ignore. “The reality is that BP and Transocean had grown dangerously overconfident and were pushing too close to the edge” (Meigs, 2016, para. 8). Such overconfidence leads to poor decision-making processes that promote incompetence and ignoring issues rather than facing them head