Kay Sever’s new book Building an Opportunity Culture is about process improvement in mining. If you want to make your mine operate more efficiently, I recommend that you read the book. Or better still engage her to consult to you; get her to evaluate your mine’s processes; and get her to work with you to remove those bottlenecks to efficiency and profit. In the current times the money may be well spent and a necessary route to profit or even survival.
I have been reading the book in the echo of TV filled with reports of failed and failing companies. Much of what I read in her book helps explain some of the mess that the financial markets now seem to be in. Take for example, the chapter The Management System. This chapter helps us understand why the management system at many financial organizations was not sufficient to see the wreck a-coming.
She tells the story of her son, and I quote (and edit for brevity):
My son is very knowledgeable about performance cars (Viper, Lamborghinin, Porche, Ferrari, etc.) and their stats (horsepower, torque, zero to 60, turbo power, psi, paddle-shift transmissions, tire size, brake type, etc.) He drives an “Evo8,” a Mitsubishi performance car that requires his full atttention. His car displays real-time engine and turbo stats. He can hook his laptop up to it and download the operating manual and historical data on component performance. It takes a skilled driver who is intimately familiar with the engine/drive train features unique to the Evo to safely maximize its performance.
An analogy can be drawn between my son and his car and management teams and their companies. Like my son, management teams need good information and the right skills to maximize the performance of their companies. They need to see data that reflects improvements over time and reveals new improvement opportunities. They need to know when they have exhausted the capacity of the current infrastructure and where capabilities could be hidden by poor work practices. They need to be able to manage improvements like they manage operations. How else can they optimize performance and sustain improvements year after year?
She proceeds to examine the role of management teams in the success of companies and in improving the performance of companies. In a eerily prescient tone, she concludes:
Management teams sometimes fly by the seat of their pants when “driving” their company’s performance.
The process of self-examination can be painful, especially at the management level where managers are always supposed to be right.
Chaotic times are the best times for manager to examine the management systems for improvement opportunities.
Kay could almost be analyzing and pinpointing the failure of managers of those companies that have now failed and that now require infusion of vast sums of tax-payer money. If only some of those managers had invested a tiny fraction of their enormous salaries in Kay’s book, they may still be in the driver’s seat.
We have not yet seen the failure of a large mining company due to the current chaotic times. And we hope we do not. But be certain that mines will suffer chaotic times and their profits will depend on the driving skills of the managers. There is till time for those poised on the edge of disaster to do something. There are many options, and included in them is to buy and read this book, retain Kay Sever, and implement reforms based on her insight.
And if you are merely interested in the fascinating question of how a person earning millions of dollars each year can fail to manage their company and be so fast asleep at the wheel as to let the company car drive of the road and plunge a cliff to disaster, you may choose to read this book and reflect that the failing managers simply did not do what Kay writes about as necessary best management practice.
