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Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross

Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross
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Category Archives: Leadership

How to Eat an Elephant

Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross avatarPosted on August 2, 2017 by Brad RossAugust 2, 2017

How to Eat an Elephant

The old joke goes “How do you eat an elephant?” Of course, the answer is “One bite at a time”.  But what does an organization do when a catastrophic event is so enormous, such a large elephant, that the damage leaves everyone asking “OMG – What are we going to do?”. This is the question that the men and women of the Bingham Canyon Mine asked after realizing the scope of damage from the Manefay landslide in 2013. A young engineer answered that question with a simple diagram that outlined “how to eat the elephant.”

Manefay landslide in 2013On April 10th of 2013 the Bingham Canyon Mine experienced the largest highwall failure in mining history when 144 million tons of material exploded out of the highwall and rushed to the bottom of the enormous open pit. The good news was that because of the monitoring and planning before the failure there were no fatalities or injuries – but the damage and impact to the mine was devastating. The landslide destroyed everything in its path, including giant mining shovels and trucks, as well as the only haul road into the pit. It only took 90 seconds for the huge mass to travel a mile and half leaving 600 feet of debris in the bottom of the pit and thousands of feet of dangerous unstable scarps (remnants of the pit wall after the landslide) that could fail.

The mine now had an “elephant” sized problem and many believed it was the end for the 107-year-old Bingham Canyon Mine. However, the goal was to return to full production as safely and as soon as possible and my job was to manage the planning for that work. From studying the photos and examining from the outer rim of the mine at a variety of angles, it was obvious that we had an enormous “elephant to eat”. But it wasn’t until traveling down to the new bottom of the pit and seeing the slide from the toe of the debris field while looking up to the top of the scarp, that the scale of the elephant really struck home (photo below). Getting out of the truck and seeing the almost unbelievable damage towering thousands of feet above, the first thought that came was “Oh my God – What are we going to do?” 

he Manefay “elephant”
Photo – The Manefay “elephant” was not only massive, but it was frightening and dangerous yet strangely beautiful with its array of colors. 

It was easy to see the size of the elephant, but not so simple to picture out how to eat the elephant – after all, no one had ever eaten an elephant this large before. However, it was obvious that if we did not work together and have a strategic plan on how to eat this elephant, the work would be more dangerous and the job would take much longer to complete. But the question was how to make sure everyone could see how to eat the elephant instead of just seeing the size of the elephant?

Digital Graphic of the MineThe answer to this communication and planning problem came from a young engineer, Jon Warner. Jon is not only a talented engineer, he is also a gifted artist. His solution was simple – color code the various aspects of the recovery work on a digital graphic of the mine. The work could now be organized into logical and manageable bites of the elephant. The following figure shows one of the first versions of Jon’s work.
With this one figure, everyone understood the work (bites) and the order in which to safely take those bites. The figure also showed the number of tons of material that would have to be moved and an estimate of the equipment that would be needed. 

The first bite was to stabilize the Head Scarp (1) because it was on the weak Manefay bed and therefore unstable. If it failed it could put everyone working below it in danger. From there the figure showed next bites of work that would then have taken was to stabilize the other scarps (2 and 3), clean the safety benches (4 and 5) as well as clear and rebuild the haul road going into the pit (6,7,8 and 9). After that work the tasks would be to uncover the ore and build a new access to remove the ore so the downstream operations would not run of feed (10, and 11). The last step was to finish taking the debris out of the pit (12) – which could be completed over a much longer period. 

No longer was the Manefay one giant and overwhelming elephant to eat – it could now be eaten in smaller, manageable bites. This one figure made an important difference in how people understood the tasks at hand, but more importantly, could believe that they would be successful in returning the mine to full production. In my opinion, this figure was one of the keys to the Bingham Canyon Mine completing the critical remediation by November 13th of 2013 – much earlier than most of us thought possible.

Jon’s colored figure may seem simple and intuitive, which is often the case with innovative and elegant solutions. In our world where problems are typically solved with sophisticated programs and models, we tend to lose sight of simple solutions of “how to eat an elephant”. Indeed, simple figures can effectively communicate important information and help an entire organization meet its goals and objects.

Almost all of us have had large elephants that needed to be eaten. I hope that you have found this article helpful in thinking about how to turn the elephant into manageable bites. If it was useful please like or share the article. More importantly send me a comment if you have questions or want to share similar experiences. I would appreciate learning from what you have done or seen.

Posted in Innovation, Leadership

Lessons from the Bingham Canyon Manefay Slide

Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross avatarPosted on January 13, 2017 by Brad RossJanuary 14, 2017

Bingham Canyon Mine after Manefay Landslid

Bingham Canyon Mine after Manefay Landslide – Copyrighted by Rio Tinto

After nearly two years in the making, my new book, Rise to the Occasion – Lessons from the Manefay Slide is to be released in the middle of January 2017. This book documents the largest mining landslide in history that took place at the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City, Utah in April of 2013.

This extraordinary event was named the Manefay Slide and it created a crisis of massive proportion for the mine and its employees. At 144 million tons, the Manefay was not only incredibly large – it was fast. The solid rock literally burst out of the wall and in 90 seconds, tens of millions of tons of material dropped over 2,000 feet into the pit and flowed like water for nearly 1 ½ miles. The energy of this enormous mass, moving an average of 60 miles per hour, was unbelievable. Huge mining equipment and buildings in its path were damaged and destroyed.

However, no lives were lost because we knew it was coming and had time to implement a disaster plan. The real story of the Manefay Slide is told through a firsthand account with detailed descriptions and 160 photos and figures, many of which have never been released before. The book describes the day of the event, how the mine personnel were able to predict and prepare for the slide as well as the heroic efforts to recover from the landslide. Additional information includes how the mine prevented a second landslide that was potentially more devastating than the Manefay, why the Manefay failed and examples of the company’s cultural changes that were made to recover from the event.

This is a story of leadership, innovation, and teamwork. But most of all it is a story of culture change – where a hundred-year-old company transformed almost overnight to increase communications, eliminate bureaucracy, and allow people to rise to the occasion so they could keep everyone safe and ultimately return the mine to full production in an amazingly short period of time.

You are invited to find out more about the Manefay and the lessons learned by visiting my website, risetotheoccasion.net. Here you can find more information about the book, join in on blog to tell your own story and lessons learned or order your own copy of the book.

Contact me through the website or at
brad.ross@risetotheoccasion.net for a discount if pre-ordering before January 12th, 2017.

Posted in Geotechnical, Innovation, Leadership

Setting (and Reaching) Impossible Goals – Lessons From The Manefay

Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross avatarPosted on January 13, 2017 by Brad RossJanuary 14, 2017

Letters from ManefryThis article is about a great act of leadership after the Manefay slide when the senior management of the mine helped change the outcome of this huge event by setting a seemingly impossible goal.

The Manefay Slide at the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City, Utah was the largest in mining history. On April 10th of 2013, the landslide took place in two episodes, separated by approximately 90 minutes, where a total 144 million tons exploded out of wall and travel nearly 1 ½ miles – covering the bottom of the pit, destroying large mining equipment in its path and changing very shape and surface of the huge open pit.

The geotechnical experts at the mine had done a fantastic job of predicting that the slide would happen, which saved untold lives and injuries. What they were not able to do was predict that the slide would act more like an avalanche than a landslide which resulted in the mass of rock and debris traveling further than expected and doing much more damage than anticipated.

While trying to assess the damage the day after the slide, the general consensus of employees, the local community, the parent company, as well as the industry as a whole seemed to be that the mine would never operate again. After all, how could the mine come back from such massive damage.

It was less than 36 hours after the slide, and the mine management team was meeting to discuss the current situation, what we knew and what we needed to know. The mine was idle and although no was killed or injured, much of the workforce seemed to be in shock that the event did so much damage. MSHA (the agency responsible for enforcing safety regulations at mines) had placed the entire mine under a 103K Order, meaning no work could proceed without the approval from the federal agency.

About half way through the meeting Matt Lengerich, the Mine’s General Manager made an announcement to the managers – our goal was to be in operation, someplace in the mine by the end of the day. Our first reaction was – NO WAY! We pointed out that we could not be back in production by the end of the day – didn’t the GM understand the level of damage, the amount of shock, not to mention we were under the 103K Order? This was an impossible goal in every manager’s mind.

After listening to our rants and raves, the GM told us that he understood – but the goal was to be in operation someplace by the end of the day. This was backed up by Anna Willey, the GM of Business improvement who was attending the meeting. The manager’s reaction as just as firm as the goal and once again we repeated the reasons why the goal could not be achieved.

Matt and Anna stood firm and repeated – the goal was to be in production someplace within the mine by the end of the day. That someplace could be anywhere within the mine and did not necessarily mean ore production at the bottom of the pit which was covered by hundreds of feet of debris. This goal was set by the most senior leaders at Kennecott and it was important that we did our best to meet the goal.

At that point the attitude of the managers changed from stating what we could not do, to what would we have to do to be in production by the end of the day. Perhaps we were trying to show that the goal was impossible, but we started to put together plans of how to start work in the Cornerstone portion of the mine that was far from the Manefay failure and at no risk. Although the material was waste instead of ore, at least we would be in production. We also started to determine how to notify and prepare the workforce to start work by the end of the day and work with MSHA to get approval to begin that work. No short cuts could be taken, as safety was paramount – but we were working the problem.

As it turned out, we did not make the goal to be in production by midnight – the end of the day. However, we were back in production in Cornerstone by 1:00 am, the next morning – just 50 hours after the largest mining landslide in history.

The ramifications of starting operations so quickly were not only significant, they were long lasting. All of the sudden the thoughts of never operating again were replaced by what do we need to do to reach the next milestone, which was to start mining ore once again. The change in attitude was wide spread as employees, the community, the company and the industry no longer saw a dead mine of the past, but a mine that had a chance to overcome great odds and return to its former glory.

It is amazing that setting one impossible goal, and striving to achieve that goal could change the entire outlook and results of a company. From that point on many more impossible goals were set and people did phenomenal work to try and achieve them. We did not meet every one of the goals, but in two and half weeks the mine was back to partial ore production and in seven months it was back to full production. This was much faster than just about anyone though possible and very impressive for a mine that many had been written off as never operating again.

These results started from one “impossible” goal set by the President and CEO, Kelly Sanders and the COO, Stephane Leblanc. They understood that the importance of showing the employees and the world the mine was a viable entity. If people believed the mine was finished – then it would be finished. This impossible goal was one of the greatest acts of leadership I have experienced and perhaps one of the greatest in the mining industry.

This and many other lessons from the largest landslide in mining history are documented in my book – Rise to the Occasion – Lessons from the Bingham Canyon Manefay Slide. You can purchase the book from the publisher (SME) or signed copies are available through my website: RiseToTheOccasion.net. You can also join my blog and find out more about consulting and speaking engagements at this website.

Posted in Leadership

The Power of Asking for Help

Rise to the Occasion by Brad Ross avatarPosted on December 10, 2016 by Brad RossJanuary 14, 2017

The day after the Manefay slide was a time of great uncertainty. Pictures taken from a news helicopter showed that the landslide was larger than anticipated and did much more damage than expected. Many people believed that it was the end of the mine and there would be no way to recover.

After the slide, there was a lot of communication being sent to the entire workforce to keep everyone apprised of the situation. During these communications both the General Manager and the President/CEO of the company included one of the most powerful management techniques I have witnessed – they asked for everyone help to “Rise to the Occasion” to keep people safe and save the historic mine. This act of asking everyone’s help, followed up with by giving people the time, and platforms to provide ideas, solutions and input motivated the entire workforce. This motivation is what lead to the success of recovering from a massive crisis and returning the mine to full production.

So, the question is, have you asked your work force for their help to meet your critical goals? And if you asked for their help have you given them the ability and environment so they can rise to the occasion?
If you have an example of the power of asking for help, please share them on this blog or send them to me at stories@risetotheoccasion.net

Posted in Innovation, Leadership
©2019  &nbsp90 Degrees Consulting    Brad Ross, PhD, PE    brad.ross@risetotheoccasion.net   Tucson, AZ
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