It was sheer privilege to conduct this interview with Peter Adamson, an accomplished general manager, consultant, advisor and people advocate in the mining field with broad global experience in business, organisational effectiveness, operational readiness and safety culture. He held various leadership roles in the mining industry, driving multi billion dollar operations across continents, including the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia.
In this casual interview with LK, he shares his words of wisdom, global experience in shaping leaderships and witty responses on how he thinks technological innovations are changing the sector, decision making processes, environment and future workforce.
Find the full transcript of the interview below:
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in the mining industry?
What a hard question! I ended up here totally by accident, perhaps because of a background in community development and people issues, gravitating to an industry where the main asset is not the machinery or even the ore bodies. The main asset in the mining industry is people who come together to run the businesses.
My first involvement was conducting rescue team training, which seemed to quickly become team development and they were the first two aspects of my work in this industry. Of course, team development is also about leadership.
My passion for learning has always been about the power of experiential learning and that’s where I became engaged with this very interesting and enormously diverse industry. Somehow, building managerial leadership skills in others has meant that I have ended up in senior General Management roles myself, when I have not been consulting (Learning by doing).
2. The mining industry is seen by most as having adverse effects to our environment, work safety and social fabric (especially native communities), both during and after mining processes. What are your comments on this?
The quandary for me is that, there are so few human activities that are not harmful or adverse to our natural environment. Geologists and miners are living and working in natural environments, this is our backyard, and we do (in Australia) demonstrate a high level of care for that backyard. Perhaps, more than any other industry in the world, mining seems to be at the forefront of investing in knowledge, skills, technologies and the means to mitigate our impact. Compared to farming, garments and the travel industry, mining is doing quite well if it is about comparison, and what can be done, particularly so in Australia. Everything that we ‘people’ do is harmful to the natural environment.
Regarding safety, yes, when I first came to this Industry, it was accepted that it was of high risk, that people would be killed and hurt. Over the years, we have been able to change that belief to one where, no one needs to get killed or hurt going about their daily work. Statistically, in organised mining in the Western World, the most dangerous part of the workers day is driving to work. Fishing, (particularly recreational fishing), farming, and other activities are extremely dangerous now, compared to mining.
Across the past thirty years, one person in one team, did cut his thumb, requiring a suture, driving a stake into the ground without wearing his gloves. This is the only event, across tens of thousands and thousands of people days working in very hazardous environments doing risky work in different parts of the globe. This is aside from illnesses which are still problematic in many parts of the world.
Regarding social fabric. I have worked with this element in many countries around the world. Mining is an industry which creates wealth and in so doing can easily generate poverty as the projects go through their various stages of development. If managed well, and with thinking going out beyond the intergenerational change, the disruptive opportunities for positive change that mining can generate are enormous.
Think health, education, training, economic development, information flows, small and large business development, technological development, research in a wide number of fields, new skills, useful employment and empowerment of people. The variations on this are enormous and most of it, is quite healthy if done well. When it is not done well, poorly thought through, working from flawed principles, ad hoc or where a vested power seeks to maintain the status quo, then it can mean horror.
3. What action would you take to change this public perception?
Each time I have been involved in a project, agreement of the key principles for how the project will be conducted, is where I start. If I cannot accord with those principles, I walk away. Transparency, Zero Tolerance for Corruption, Integrity, Safety and Compassion are some of the key drivers for me and for successful Mining Projects. Strange words to associate with such an apparently harsh and exploitative industry but these are key. When we get it right, no one will notice, is how it should be.
4. How does technological advances impacting your industry?
Enormously. There have been no new technologies now for some fifty to sixty years, but our abilities to advance existing tech, build and create from previous inventions, still seems to be in early stages. Imagine a future where we tip a cup full of nano particles onto the ground, they soak down and organise themselves around an orebody, explode or expand, then transport the ore to the surface with no people involved. In the same way, we may go after cancer cells in the human body.
The significant downside of technological changes are in not knowing how best to use them in our industry, and the impacts they may have on the purposefulness of the humans in the industry. Reducing employment numbers meets cost objectives of the miner, however the impact for employees is significant. We can now, do so much more, with so much less and at the same time reduce the opportunities for harm.
5. Most people associate this industry with adventures, explorations and dangerous jungle expeditions in remote lands lead by the instinct of daredevils alone. How data dependent is this multi-billion business in reality, especially during prospecting or when operating a mine?
I have had some wonderful experiences with some awesome people in all sorts of places, around the world. It has been great. But now, we are being tamed! Yes, there is a place for experience and intuition in this industry, however it is diminishing. Data, data and data are the critical elements. Appropriate technology for generating information that captures all of the data is key. From that information, choosing which bits to use for forming the organisational knowledge bank, that’s where the intuits are still having some say. The growing science to deal with this in a useful way will mean, soon the term “knowledge Management” will take on new contemporary meanings, I am sure.
6. Are technologies such as mobility, IOT, AI, Augmented Reality and cloud computing a common tool for collecting, sharing and analysing data today in this industry? How do mines connect with their corporate offices? What business events can you predict?
The data generated in mining operations is of a magnitude very difficult to comprehend or describe, it is on a scale so enormous. Engaging with that data and accessing it to create knowledge and generate decisions for ongoing monitoring and assessment, whilst working collaboratively with fellow professionals.
I have sat in an office in West Africa with real time data linkages into Toronto, London, Paris, Perth and Melbourne whilst my consultants have had similar linkages back to Delhi, Houston, Sydney and other places. One project with an 18 billion dollar capital expenditure meant we were spending 48 US Million dollars a day, the magnitude of just tracking monitoring and ensuring this happened in the way we wanted and the technology we used, was probably at leading edge.
With the wave of autonomous vehicles and long distance trains, this is the realisation of a vision from twenty five years ago and the focussed development of appropriate technologies along with synergising opportunities. It varies from trucks and trains repetitively in pattern, to machines deep underground working autonomously, all controlled and maintained by an operator thousands of kilometres away.
For example; can you imagine the data, knowledge and systems thinking that goes into deciding to drill one oil well, when the cost of that well is likely to be in excess of $70 million USD? When the measures of risk and uncertainty for the engineers are so vastly different for the same measures of risk and uncertainty for the geologists, these professionals live in such different worlds but need to reach agreement. Gathering evidence for and against that agreement and assessing the evidence that is missing, that is one of the key roles of technology in that setting.
7. Some people say that some of our landfills contain more metal concentration today as opposed to the mines. Is this true?
Who knows? The metals we are mining from the earth are a finite resource. They do run out. South Africa has passed peak gold, Australia is probably the same. Other minerals too, Australia long ago passed the peak of its diamond production, although with all of these, new resources are waiting to be found.
8. Do you think we have a mature enough recycling technology to recycle metal concentration in the landfills?
Landfill has to be a resource. We did not do the planning with landfill, with the idea to make it accessible again, and much of what is down there now, is probably absolute waste.
Changing our lifestyles will probably generate greater opportunities to reduce the impacts on our world. Just deciding to take the colour of our nail polish, motor car duco, and other colours available in paint would have a huge impact on mineral earths mining industry.
9. Do you think that technology advances have also resulted in growing demand for certain rare minerals?
Definitely, and it has generated some dodgy sovereign practices too, where countries have attempted to corner a market so as to have global dominance, whilst other countries have sought to erode that dominance. Rare earths is one example. Some of the strategies by different countries to assert themselves globally through minerals are interesting to behold, they go back a long way in history and continue to provide an interesting spectacle, although activities are usually much more covert in this past century.
10. How do you envision, the future workforce of this industry ? What kind of new skills and expertise are essential to embrace technological advances that will further optimise business processes? Do you think that the mining workforce will consist of more people with multidisciplinary qualifications including computing and data expertise (both in the field and corporate)?
It would be hard to see even more computing specialists in the industry, than the thousands already here. More I see a broadening of skills bases and a change in stratum thinking so that we all have the computer skills, plus there are still specialisations but the changes should be measured in a different way.
For example, in the Australian Mining Industry today there are few jobs where people are just working “in the day”. And those jobs are rapidly disappearing. The minimum that people will be thinking and working in, will be across 90 days result areas. As this thinking moves out from the mining industry into other sectors, I see broader changes happening globally.
Truck drivers, cleaners, bulldozer operators and train drivers are all now being replaced in this industry with broader ramifications for other industries. We no longer need to have the farmer sit on their tractor whilst ploughing, seeding or harvesting their crops. Those were the jobs where people worked in the day, most of them disappear in the near future, I am not prescient enough to know what fills those spaces.
11. In your opinion, will we ever reach to a point that issues such as ‘conflict resources’, is a thing of the past?
If only, I knew the answer to that one, the dream of world peace and the disappearance of poverty and greed. A world of compassion and empathy.
LK's Note : We hope this post has been both educational and inspiring to readers. If you have an interesting question for Mr Adamson, kindly post them here.
In this casual interview with LK, he shares his words of wisdom, global experience in shaping leaderships and witty responses on how he thinks technological innovations are changing the sector, decision making processes, environment and future workforce.
Find the full transcript of the interview below:
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in the mining industry?
What a hard question! I ended up here totally by accident, perhaps because of a background in community development and people issues, gravitating to an industry where the main asset is not the machinery or even the ore bodies. The main asset in the mining industry is people who come together to run the businesses.
My first involvement was conducting rescue team training, which seemed to quickly become team development and they were the first two aspects of my work in this industry. Of course, team development is also about leadership.
My passion for learning has always been about the power of experiential learning and that’s where I became engaged with this very interesting and enormously diverse industry. Somehow, building managerial leadership skills in others has meant that I have ended up in senior General Management roles myself, when I have not been consulting (Learning by doing).
2. The mining industry is seen by most as having adverse effects to our environment, work safety and social fabric (especially native communities), both during and after mining processes. What are your comments on this?
The quandary for me is that, there are so few human activities that are not harmful or adverse to our natural environment. Geologists and miners are living and working in natural environments, this is our backyard, and we do (in Australia) demonstrate a high level of care for that backyard. Perhaps, more than any other industry in the world, mining seems to be at the forefront of investing in knowledge, skills, technologies and the means to mitigate our impact. Compared to farming, garments and the travel industry, mining is doing quite well if it is about comparison, and what can be done, particularly so in Australia. Everything that we ‘people’ do is harmful to the natural environment.
Regarding safety, yes, when I first came to this Industry, it was accepted that it was of high risk, that people would be killed and hurt. Over the years, we have been able to change that belief to one where, no one needs to get killed or hurt going about their daily work. Statistically, in organised mining in the Western World, the most dangerous part of the workers day is driving to work. Fishing, (particularly recreational fishing), farming, and other activities are extremely dangerous now, compared to mining.
Across the past thirty years, one person in one team, did cut his thumb, requiring a suture, driving a stake into the ground without wearing his gloves. This is the only event, across tens of thousands and thousands of people days working in very hazardous environments doing risky work in different parts of the globe. This is aside from illnesses which are still problematic in many parts of the world.
Regarding social fabric. I have worked with this element in many countries around the world. Mining is an industry which creates wealth and in so doing can easily generate poverty as the projects go through their various stages of development. If managed well, and with thinking going out beyond the intergenerational change, the disruptive opportunities for positive change that mining can generate are enormous.
Think health, education, training, economic development, information flows, small and large business development, technological development, research in a wide number of fields, new skills, useful employment and empowerment of people. The variations on this are enormous and most of it, is quite healthy if done well. When it is not done well, poorly thought through, working from flawed principles, ad hoc or where a vested power seeks to maintain the status quo, then it can mean horror.
3. What action would you take to change this public perception?
Each time I have been involved in a project, agreement of the key principles for how the project will be conducted, is where I start. If I cannot accord with those principles, I walk away. Transparency, Zero Tolerance for Corruption, Integrity, Safety and Compassion are some of the key drivers for me and for successful Mining Projects. Strange words to associate with such an apparently harsh and exploitative industry but these are key. When we get it right, no one will notice, is how it should be.
4. How does technological advances impacting your industry?
Enormously. There have been no new technologies now for some fifty to sixty years, but our abilities to advance existing tech, build and create from previous inventions, still seems to be in early stages. Imagine a future where we tip a cup full of nano particles onto the ground, they soak down and organise themselves around an orebody, explode or expand, then transport the ore to the surface with no people involved. In the same way, we may go after cancer cells in the human body.
The significant downside of technological changes are in not knowing how best to use them in our industry, and the impacts they may have on the purposefulness of the humans in the industry. Reducing employment numbers meets cost objectives of the miner, however the impact for employees is significant. We can now, do so much more, with so much less and at the same time reduce the opportunities for harm.
5. Most people associate this industry with adventures, explorations and dangerous jungle expeditions in remote lands lead by the instinct of daredevils alone. How data dependent is this multi-billion business in reality, especially during prospecting or when operating a mine?
I have had some wonderful experiences with some awesome people in all sorts of places, around the world. It has been great. But now, we are being tamed! Yes, there is a place for experience and intuition in this industry, however it is diminishing. Data, data and data are the critical elements. Appropriate technology for generating information that captures all of the data is key. From that information, choosing which bits to use for forming the organisational knowledge bank, that’s where the intuits are still having some say. The growing science to deal with this in a useful way will mean, soon the term “knowledge Management” will take on new contemporary meanings, I am sure.
6. Are technologies such as mobility, IOT, AI, Augmented Reality and cloud computing a common tool for collecting, sharing and analysing data today in this industry? How do mines connect with their corporate offices? What business events can you predict?
I have sat in an office in West Africa with real time data linkages into Toronto, London, Paris, Perth and Melbourne whilst my consultants have had similar linkages back to Delhi, Houston, Sydney and other places. One project with an 18 billion dollar capital expenditure meant we were spending 48 US Million dollars a day, the magnitude of just tracking monitoring and ensuring this happened in the way we wanted and the technology we used, was probably at leading edge.
With the wave of autonomous vehicles and long distance trains, this is the realisation of a vision from twenty five years ago and the focussed development of appropriate technologies along with synergising opportunities. It varies from trucks and trains repetitively in pattern, to machines deep underground working autonomously, all controlled and maintained by an operator thousands of kilometres away.
For example; can you imagine the data, knowledge and systems thinking that goes into deciding to drill one oil well, when the cost of that well is likely to be in excess of $70 million USD? When the measures of risk and uncertainty for the engineers are so vastly different for the same measures of risk and uncertainty for the geologists, these professionals live in such different worlds but need to reach agreement. Gathering evidence for and against that agreement and assessing the evidence that is missing, that is one of the key roles of technology in that setting.
7. Some people say that some of our landfills contain more metal concentration today as opposed to the mines. Is this true?
Who knows? The metals we are mining from the earth are a finite resource. They do run out. South Africa has passed peak gold, Australia is probably the same. Other minerals too, Australia long ago passed the peak of its diamond production, although with all of these, new resources are waiting to be found.
8. Do you think we have a mature enough recycling technology to recycle metal concentration in the landfills?
Landfill has to be a resource. We did not do the planning with landfill, with the idea to make it accessible again, and much of what is down there now, is probably absolute waste.
Changing our lifestyles will probably generate greater opportunities to reduce the impacts on our world. Just deciding to take the colour of our nail polish, motor car duco, and other colours available in paint would have a huge impact on mineral earths mining industry.
9. Do you think that technology advances have also resulted in growing demand for certain rare minerals?
Definitely, and it has generated some dodgy sovereign practices too, where countries have attempted to corner a market so as to have global dominance, whilst other countries have sought to erode that dominance. Rare earths is one example. Some of the strategies by different countries to assert themselves globally through minerals are interesting to behold, they go back a long way in history and continue to provide an interesting spectacle, although activities are usually much more covert in this past century.
10. How do you envision, the future workforce of this industry ? What kind of new skills and expertise are essential to embrace technological advances that will further optimise business processes? Do you think that the mining workforce will consist of more people with multidisciplinary qualifications including computing and data expertise (both in the field and corporate)?
It would be hard to see even more computing specialists in the industry, than the thousands already here. More I see a broadening of skills bases and a change in stratum thinking so that we all have the computer skills, plus there are still specialisations but the changes should be measured in a different way.
For example, in the Australian Mining Industry today there are few jobs where people are just working “in the day”. And those jobs are rapidly disappearing. The minimum that people will be thinking and working in, will be across 90 days result areas. As this thinking moves out from the mining industry into other sectors, I see broader changes happening globally.
Truck drivers, cleaners, bulldozer operators and train drivers are all now being replaced in this industry with broader ramifications for other industries. We no longer need to have the farmer sit on their tractor whilst ploughing, seeding or harvesting their crops. Those were the jobs where people worked in the day, most of them disappear in the near future, I am not prescient enough to know what fills those spaces.
11. In your opinion, will we ever reach to a point that issues such as ‘conflict resources’, is a thing of the past?
If only, I knew the answer to that one, the dream of world peace and the disappearance of poverty and greed. A world of compassion and empathy.
LK's Note : We hope this post has been both educational and inspiring to readers. If you have an interesting question for Mr Adamson, kindly post them here.
