Why We Dislike BP Chairman Tony Hayward: Deception, Body Language and Statements

He never gestures, this is unnatural and immediately we subconsciously feel he is holding something back.

He attempts to place inflection on some of the words in the above video, like they coached him or actually underlined them on a teleprompter. This is something a trained actor would have a difficult time accomplishing and pulling off, much less an executive.

At the very end we see (and I mention it for the fist time on this blog) what Ekman has coined the miserable smile... lips pressed together; obviously no action with his eye wrinkles on the outside of his eyes, but also absolutely no sparkle in his eyes. It may be telling that this miserable smile actually begins when he says to keep the emails coming...

Every statement he gives is prepared, and comes off as very unemotional. This is a serious problem when everyone else is emotional, compounded by the fact that the unemotional person is partially responsible.

He always speaks as he if is already testifying in court.

Whenever he does stray from the script -in interviews- he often makes serious blunders. For instance in one interview he actually says that he'd like his life back.

From the start of this ordeal BP has underestimated the amount of oil being released into the gulf, and over and over the estimates from BP all appear to be very low, so when they do make significant, helpful strides, when he says "a majority" of the oil is being captured we are automatically skeptical. We think 51%. BP's statements are automatically perceived as deceptive .

He is completely the wrong person to deliver BP's message for all the above reasons and has proven himself as an ineffective communicator.◦

Why We Dislike BP Chairman Tony Hayward: Deception, Body Language and Statements