My unpopular opinion
- Leadership and values. It all starts from the top. The need to become more efficient/ reduce operational cost/ increase margins might be something market conditions dictate. This forum,e OMOC, dealt withe challenges of doing it mostly, with technology. The truth is that it's not in the technology, it's in the leadership that breeds culture! That breeds attitude, process, critical thinking, innovation learning, continuous improvement and all the other good things. So looking at our leadership with a critical eye we can safely assert that for reason/s of inbreeding (lack of exposure), lack understanding - coming from other disciplines, lack of commitment - too short tenure, incapacity, lack of backbone (to drive the process thru), greed, ego or any other, our leaders failed the industry, their shareholders and last but not least their employees. To say the mining industry is conservative and hard to turn around is like saying the geology is complexed. We strive on outsmarting it and our leaders lead the way! [General Patreas was brought back to where three of his predecessors failed and found a way to turn the ship around ()] Repetition of success is blinding, repetition of failure, well that's a completely different sphere. So the key question is why has our leadership failed. In my mind, the answer lays in evolution and the development of leadership. Assuming our boards of directors and heads of the universities's mining department (who are entrustedwith educating our young) are going to figure that out we can move on. I think setting the path and the guidelines for evolution is the boss's job. The I recommend he includes strong situational awareness, strong balance and values (the industry's 10 commandments) in driving evolution. If I was the board I would also reward him bonus-wise, only 10 years down the road so he is occupied with long term and committed. By listening to the speakers at OMOC it's evident that:
- some of the bosses want it but haven't figured out how to get it.
- Some of the bosses want it but hide behind constraints (economical, cultural or process) that prevent them from getting it. If you are the leader there is nothing you can hide behind! It's your job to find e way.
- Some of the bosses want it so bad that they can't get it all right now.
- Themelenumes are coming. Yes they are. And they need leadership, structure, education and discipline. The leaders of the industry should invest in all aspects of e young generation not just the technical. Setting the mining company as a learning environment, providing leadership, not creating false or miss align end expectations, allowing them to rich maturity before moving up so they are successful not just in the technical and financial spheres. they are a mirror of how we do our business!
- Collaboration was a keyword, very powerful and trendy. We shouldn't talk of across the industry when our organizations are soloed to the moon. But there is still much that can be done. As couture is changed by leaders and leaders start off at school we can collaborate there. Create a format that starts in the mining departments for the BS and MA students that will prepare them better but not stop there. Following the military method of continuing education create that curriculum as individuals rise thru the ranks they must take supervisor training, department head training, mine manager training and so on. Not at e level of a one week course but at a much deeper level. As expensive as it may be it is the cheapest way to collaborate and just by doing that we will ache better collaboration by changing the culture.
- Technology and organizational maturity. Technology is just a tool to take us where we want to go. If we don't have a mature organization that has evolved to the point that it can easily (!) handle changes - flexible, edgily organization there is no sense in driving the technology. It will be a hard drive that will not yield it's true potential. Although the process itself needs to have flexibility it is an evolutionary process. Yes, I'd be the first to say that necessity breeds innovation but a well matured organization would handle it much better. In addition more thought should be put in to the uses of technology and data. If there is no "capstone" (a military situational awareness process) - a situational awareness generator to provide a "holistic" picture of the data (the chaos we live in) the vast amount of data is confusing at best and will not allow a meaningful decision making process. This methodology already exists and can be adopted.
- The value of discussion is there and it's always nice to sit down with smart experienced knowledgable people and talk about these topics but it leads nowhere if it's not leaders that have this discussion. There were a lot of support and technology people but no decision makers present.