Unleashing the Power of Learning: An Interview with British Petroleum’s John Browne

With his talk of “the shrinking half-life of ideas,” “virtual team networks,” and “breakthrough thinking,” John Browne sounds more like a Silicon Valley CEO than the head of the giant British Petroleum Company. Then again, BP—with its flat organization, entrepreneurial business units, web of alliances, and surging profits—is starting to look and act like a vibrant Silicon Valley enterprise. Such comparisons may seem wild, but Browne thinks that all companies battling it out in the global information age face a common challenge: using knowledge more effectively than their competitors do. And he is not talking only about the knowledge that resides in one’s own organization. “Any organization that thinks it does everything the best and need not learn from others is incredibly arrogant and foolish,” he says.