If you want to help extend the global reach
of de Bono thinking tools, you need not limit yourself to
the usual north, south, east, and west compass points. Susan
Mackie and her colleagues carried them down one-kilometer
underground in the platinum mines of South Africa's Northwest
Province.
Since 1996, Mackie has worked with Lonplats
(Lonhro) mining company's staff in a massive, ongoing training
and research effort to improve safety, productivity, and
human relations for Lonplat's 16,000 employees. Mackie spent
several months in the mineshafts gaining workers' trust
and learning about their work to build an environment for
teaching the thinking tools. Adult Basic Education, financial
life skills and technical training complete this comprehensive
plan.
The company's "passion" is to become world
class in every respect," states HR director Tony Frost,
"and that can happen only if every team has the opportunity
to be the very best they can be." "We want to develop a
culture of learning within our organization," says Greg
Colin, Human Resources Divisional Manager.
Lonplats underscored that commitment by creating
a residential training facility on a company-owned game
reserve. Obstacles to excellence were identified in the
company and among its employees, including motivation and
morale issues, absenteeism, need for more training, miscommunication
and mistrust, and safety concerns. "The legacy of apartheid,
which resulted in a huge backlog in the development and
education of the people of South Africa, created many of
these problems," according to a paper presented by Mackie
and Lonmin's Hannes van Rensburg and Thys de Beer at the
1999 International Conference on Thinking, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada.
Many of the miners lack literacy skills. The
twelve different South African languages spoken by mine
employees add to communication and team-building difficulties.
Literacy and learning skills, team empowerment, problem
solving, conflict resolution, and communication skills rank
high on the training menu. Monumental challenges call for
daring measures. Lonplats has taken the risk of pulling
entire teams out of production for 15 training days over
a three- to six- month period. At the training facility,
teams learn the DATT thinking tools and engage in experiential
learning to practice the tools and improve, both individually
and as teams. Trainers follow up by going underground with
the teams to reinforce practical application.
The risk seems to have paid off. Absenteeism
has dropped for trained workers, and morale has improved.
Dramatic evidence comes from one section at Karee Mine,
where worker grievances dropped from seven per day to four
per month after workers learned to use de Bono thinking
tools.
Production in cubic meters blasted per trained
worker per month has increased by an average of 14%. Productivity
of teams that have been through the training program versus
untrained teams has increased by more than 20%. Supervisors
report that productivity lost to training time has been
recouped within a month following training.
"In the worst case scenario," reports Colin,
"there is only a 5% improvement on centares per man . .
. . [But] one of the greatest benefits of the program is
the increase in confidence and self-esteem of the employees.
They see how they fit into the bigger picture and begin
to understand fully their importance to the mine. Our absenteeism
has also dropped substantially as a result of the [training]
program." Antonio Salvador Bila, a miner at Eastern Plantinum
Limited, offers his perspective on the reasons for these
remarkable results:
"The shaft [previously] functioned in [a]
style of conflict, resulting in unnecessary production losses.
. . Therefore, we never received bonuses, causing conflict
between workers and miners and shift supervisors. "With
thinking tools we develop a vision as a team to . . . reach
monthly targets. Dr. de Bono plays a great role. The tools
can be applied daily. We learned that there were many traps
in our thinking. We used to only think about ourselves,
we were narrow and unclear. Now we have applied the solutions
to the traps- think clearly, don't rush, give thinking time,
be clear and precise. We use the tools APC, OPV, FIP, and
PMI in solving problems in daily production."
Congratulations, admiration, and thanks
go to Lonplats, Susan Mackie and all the thinking skills
trainers at Lonplats. All direct quotes and information
in this article and the two accompanying focus pieces are
taken from the following papers provided by Mackie. "Lonhro
Thinks Its Way to Great Productivity and World Class Standards",
a press release issued by Michele Vermaak, Simeka TWS Communications,
for Lonhro Platinum Division, 1998.
"Thinking for Real: The Power of Organized
Thinking in Industry", address to the 8th International
Conference on Thinking, July 4-9, 1999, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada, by Hannes van Rensburg, Human Resources Manager,
and Thys de Beer, Training Manager, Western Platinum, Karee
Mine, Lonmin, and Susan Mackie, The Edward de Bono Foundation
for Real Thinking.
