ENVIRONMENT IN FOCUS
Managing the non-event
Alan Cluett and Colleen Cluett
Throughout our year, we conduct up to 100
Environmental Management System audits across the
South African surface mining industry through Aspasa
About Face. We audit well-resourced group operations
with both environmental and legal departments, and
access to generous environmental budgets, as well
as independent surface mines that may have a single
environmental or HSE officer, or where the responsibility
for environmental management falls to the manager.
However, we recognise that budgets, head office
resources and legal departments are a bonus, but are
not an essential resource for success at an operation
in environmental management. Rather, the consistent
‘success factor’ is the attitude of management.
During the audits, we often make reference to a
document entitled Managing the non-event 1 . Its message
is for managers to have ‘problems that never have to be
solved because they are prevented from occurring’ as
opposed to having managers who ‘step in and counter the
problem after it happens’.
Managing the non-event
The most elegant forms of managerial decisions
involve problems that never have to be solved
because they are prevented from occurring; they are
anticipated and side stepped.
Oddly, there is greater appreciation for the manager
who can step in and counter the problem after it
happens than one who can make it not happen.
Coping is visible and dramatic. Prevention is
unpopular, because it usually means changing
something that is not yet failing; it is thankless,
because the only testimony of its effectiveness is a
non-event. Even so, the deliberate non-catastrophe is
one of the most impressive contributions a manager
can make.
Successful managers are pro-active. They show
commitment, act with consideration, are consistent
in their implementation of policies or programmes
and hold people accountable, especially themselves.
These managers lead and empower a responsive team
of informed employees, who act as the executors of
the systems and contribute to their development and
improvement. This is true at both the micro scale of the
1
Arend Hoogervorst, a leading South African and international
consultant, provided Alan Cluett with a copy of this in the late 1990s. The
original author is believed to be James Martin.
32 _ QUARRY SA | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
This is the first in a series of short articles on environmental management that will feature in Quarry Southern
Africa, which are targeted at operational management as well as CEOs, directors and shareholders of surface
mining companies.
Alan Cluett Colleen Cluett
operation and the macro scale of
the company or group.
Through pro-active
management we not only
contribute to society and future
generations, we also reduce our
legal and financial liabilities,
improve our company’s bottom
line, increase employee morale
and the image of the company.
Examples of this are the planning
and optimal use of resources,
meeting legal requirements,
avoiding, or where that is not
possible, minimising our impact
and continually improve our
environmental performance.
Therefore, it is as much the CEO’s
responsibility as the site manager’s
to be accountable for and promote
environmental stewardship.
The document Managing the
non-event states that ‘prevention is unpopular, because it usually
means changing something that
is not yet failing; it is thankless,
because the only testimony of its
effectiveness is a non-event’. It is
a sentiment that holds true today.
We see examples of managers
being praised for visibly coping
with problems, while others aren’t
congratulated for preventing
the them in the first place.
Fortunately, these attitudes are
changing.
Pro-active management or
those that ‘manage the non-event’
have happier, more fulfilled staff
who work in conditions that are
safer for them and for society at
large. Therefore, the deliberate
prevention of crises should be
recognised as one of the most
impressive contributions a
manager can make.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cluett Consulting offers services specialist environmental and mining-
related services to the surface mining industry. Alan and Colleen Cluett
have a combined experience in the surface mining industry of more
than 40 years. For more information, visit: www.cluett.co.za.