BP Decision Making Biases

The decision making biases greatly impacted the decisions made by those involved in the oil spill. Between both organizations, BP and Transocean, and there inability to agree and make adjustments caused BP to be publicly criticized. The cognitive bias, overconfidence, is explained by the Business Insider as being “too confident” about one’s abilities. (Lee & Leibowitz, 2015). The worker’s on the rig presented this specific bias when making decisions. When the data examined revealed warning signs, the employees “offered an explanation that didn't raise an alarm”, suggesting that they had everything under control (Kreitner & Kinick, 2013, p. 362). A documented list of the well’s behavior and the crew’s activity revealed multiple opportunities