Thank you and good morning. I am delighted to be here and to
see so many of my colleagues and competitors. The general topic of this week's conference - World's Best
Practice in Mining and Processing - suggests a focus on mining
and processing. I am somewhat of a `jack of all trades and a
master of none'. But I'm not even a jack when it comes to
mining and processing technology and practices, and so I will
leave those topics to speakers better 'qualified than I. Instead,
what I would like to do is give you my thoughts on the best
management practices of mining. You see, the times are
changing for the mining business. There is great uncertainty in our industry. Anyone who
received their education in an English-speaking school probably
remembers the famous poem `Invictus' by William Ernest
Henley. The two most famous lines from that poem are, if you
remember, `I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my
soul'. The fact of the matter is that the metals industry, including the
copper industry, is not the master of its fate. To a great extent
we're at the mercy of forces over which we have little control,
such as the world economy or political situations in individual
countries. The copper industry is like a surfer at Manly - we
can't influence where the wave is going; all we can do is stay in
front of the curl and on our board. Historically, discovering, developing and processing ore
reserves were the primary facets of our capital intensive business.
To stay competitive today, we must invest equally in intellectual
capital - our employees - in order to succeed in the face of
economic, regulatory and political challenges and global
competition (Schonberger, 1986). Everyone seems to have a different theory about being
competitive. A lot of people use sports analogies when talking
about competition. Others, like American businessman and
former US presidential wanna-be Ross Perot, take a more
interesting approach. In Mr Perot's hypothetical corporation, competition is a lot like
having a snake in a factory. If someone sees a snake, the first
thing they do is create a committee on snakes. Then, the
committee on snakes meets and discusses the problem for a
couple of years. The most likely course of action is nothing.
Everyone figures that the snake hasn't bitten anyone yet, so they
just let him crawl around the factory floor. Perhaps a vice
president of serpentine affairs is appointed to continue watching
the snake - making sure it doesn't grow. Ross Perot sees it a
little differently. In his corporate world, business needs to build
an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it. Of course in our industry, we better make sure the snake isn't
on an Endangered Species List before we go after it! I am not going to talk about competition and competitive
forces in terms of sports or snakes, but I would like to share some
thoughts with you about how the mining industry can better
utilise competitive thinking to get ahead and stay there. You may be wondering how an executive from a 160-year-old
company could know much about competitive spirit, but the
founding ancestors of Phelps Dodge were wizards at identifying