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today
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we put ourselves in the shoes of cynthia
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caro
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imagine you've become ceo
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of one of the world's largest mining
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companies
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anglo-american 25 billion dollars in
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sales
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162 000 employees
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two-thirds of them in south africa and
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four months into your job you hear the
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news
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one of the miners in rustenburg
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has lost his life
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yet another fatality
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you have to decide are you going to shut
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down the mine
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or continue business as usual
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david if you can open for us today
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you're cynthia carroll
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the news comes to you do you shut down
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the mine
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in rustenburg yes or no what are you
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gonna do
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so i think she needs to initiate
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some very detailed investigations into
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what happened in these circumstances and
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then what has happened
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throughout the past are you going to
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shut down or not shut down
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so i'm going to do a detailed
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investigation
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and then when i do have a plan what are
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you learning what are you learning in
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this investigation
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practices that are not being followed
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correctly or out of line or could be
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safer
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where there's like people are dying it's
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not safe
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what evidence are you looking for when
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you get the opportunity to participate
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you need to be able to
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compact the information that you're
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going to present in a very concise and
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clear manner
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through participation in class every day
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this is something that i am trying to
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sharpen
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who wants to get in on this it's dynamic
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it's fast peace there's a ton of energy
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everyone's really excited to jump in and
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contribute i learn
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a lot from my peers as much as i learn
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from the faculty if not more
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the professor kind of facilitates like
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an orchestra they kind of direct the
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music but they're not necessarily
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playing it
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i think we need to shut it down minor
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deaths are accepted as just a
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part of the process of mining shutting
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down the operation
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will signal a very strong mentality
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shift that debts aren't going to be
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tolerated that's called a bold stroke by
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the way
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what grant is talking about what is
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talking about
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robert is talking about is a bold stroke
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which means
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from this day forward something has
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shifted
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but those of you who disagree say what
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those of you who disagree say what will
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i think we do much more
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if we improve the culture around safety
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in the entire organization
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there's some truth that we're trying to
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work toward the debates become more and
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more fun
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because that's when you get to uncover
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views that you hadn't thought of
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and when you get to push your own
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thinking and
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hopefully make your own thinking much
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much better if you allow
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your perspective to be constructively
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challenged by other people
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then it is just fascinating how you know
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your position and your perspective
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can shift those of you who want to shut
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down how do you respond to this
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layla we had we shut down the plant
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because we had safety issues and we made
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a stand and we started
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making a safety culture like we had a
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safety the fact that we can have
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difficult uncomfortable conversations we
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can talk about race we can talk about
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politics
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and still be friends at the end of the
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day and to have people who are not
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from a specific group but still have
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sympathy and empathy
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is pretty unique beyond cultural and
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beyond structural we also talk about
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just the people of the organization
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the overseers are generally white and
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the workers are generally black the
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language which
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they communicate is called finagle it's
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largely a command and control language
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so you're saying some structural you're
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saying some linguistic communication
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barriers
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you're saying some uh organization
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cultural issues
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around the entire organization i think
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casement that also gives you humility
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your perspective is not enough to figure
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out the answer to a question
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and actually gives you the ability to
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ask other people
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what their perspective is so there's 27
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countries represented in our section of
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94 people
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and because of the way that the case
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method is structured we can sort of get
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underneath what are those differences
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really tied to
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you know are there cultural things about
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where you come from that makes the
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business world operate slightly
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differently
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and are there things that we can learn
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from those differences i think consumers
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are critical here so not only do they
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care about having
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high quality inputs to their supply
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chains on time
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but they will also care about safety in
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the first
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month or couple weeks of class i was
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hesitant to participate
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but over time i've gotten rid of all of
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my barriers and don't really
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have any qualms about participating but
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a lot of that is because of
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the support of my classmates and not
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only do i see it changing in myself but
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i see
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my classmates making better points over
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time which then also
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again pushes me to be better stakeholder
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analysis
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is so so important when we think about
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change
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so important to do we think about who do
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we need to worry about
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and what do they care about what are
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their interests and so you start there
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but that's not enough you have to then
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say where do i need to invest the most
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time who is in this
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cell the board i'm really worried about
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the managers
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i think the government's also key in
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here being
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in the case setting you realize how
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valuable
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everyone else around you is and how
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valuable their opinions are and the
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importance of being a really good
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active listener so before we shift from
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this and think about some action
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planning
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i just want to show of hand because it's
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not clear to me
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in this room how many of you are
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shutting down
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really and how many of you are not
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shutting down
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so most of you are not shutting down wow
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so are we going to resolve this now or
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are there points that we need to make i
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don't know if i think this is a
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performance gap i don't know if this is
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about best practices to me this is about
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culture
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if all of these like if all these minors
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were like white and not black
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i think that death rates would look very
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very differently because i think people
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would consider
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the value of the lives of the people in
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the mind very differently
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the question we have to ask is is this
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company
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extracting more value from the community
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than it's providing
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it's scary to be vulnerable in a working
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world so you're oftentimes
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taught to put up a shield but here
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you're given an environment that
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supports you to take those risks and
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actually celebrates failures or
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celebrates diversity of thought when you
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don't agree with someone
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jumping into the arena using your brain
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to come to the best hypothesis and
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conclusion that you can given the data
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that you have
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is a task that leaders have to do every
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day how do you use limited information
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to make a decision and do that in a way
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that forces you to flex that muscle of
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dealing with ambiguity
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they don't get it jake yeah it dragged
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me back up from the front line to the
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ceo position one of the things that i
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was thinking about
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is not just all of these different
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elements that we should be considering
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in terms of safety but also the
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leadership capability of cynthia herself
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you reliably took positions at your
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previous company
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they were incredibly unpopular and
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encountered all sorts of resistance
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and i think this is a case where you've
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shown that you can do it and so i would
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shut down
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the situation is different don't you
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think is she suited for this job
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can she do this i think that's an
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incredibly challenging question
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that's what we do jake this is what we
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do
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this is what we do
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we push students to take a position
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or to take a stand because it forces
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students
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to think deeply to think about risks
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to think about the weaknesses in their
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ideas
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and to also be open to influence
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i want them to set high standards for
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themselves i want them
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to be challenged i want them to
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challenge others
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so what initially brought me here was
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that i wanted to complement
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these skills that i've developed in
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architecture and consulting with
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business skills but once i got here
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those priorities completely changed what
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inspires me now
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is really the having super engaged in
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discussions with my peers
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i don't think that i've ever been that
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intellectually stimulated
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on a day-to-day basis i am here and i
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think for me that's inspiring and it
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just
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wakes me up every day with excitement i
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think i recognized that
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i wasn't pushing myself to think
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differently
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or to lead differently i wasn't going to
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do anything extraordinary
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and i thought maybe if i came here i
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would be pushed in a way that would lead
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me
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to develop into someone who could change
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something at hbs
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there's just no one here who wants to
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come out the same way they
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came in and that's really exciting 30
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years ago cynthia carroll
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30 years ago was actually in your seats
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in these exact same seats and because of
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her
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thousands and thousands of miners
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in the world are paid better
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much safer and are leading
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better lives with much more dignity one
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day
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not only that could be you i know that
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one day it will be you
