Mind Your Own Business

Trip 12: Perth to Ravensthorpe

Purpose: Targetted flora and fauna survey

Total Distance Traveled: 882 km

Distance Traveled Year to Date:  42, 329 km

My business is really none of your business unless I choose to make it so. Similarly, my business is not of any interest to you unless you make it so. So if you are not interested in hearing about my business then I suggest you mind your own business until this business has been resolved. 

I am pretty comfortable with how I go about my business. It comes completely natural to me. I have no reservations about it what so ever and I can, pretty much, do my business anywhere. I am generally most productive in business about mid-morning and I am particularly productive after I have exercised the night before. They say exercise is good for the mind as well as the body but I think the body definitely benefits more so than the mind. Whatever the case, there is a correlation between how well I apply myself to one and how productive I am with the other. 

I think to do really good business you have to get creative and you really need to seize the opportunities that will produce the most enjoyable outcome. You must enjoy the products of your labour because, sure as eggs, nobody else will and, most certainly, no one else wants to hear about it. 

But doing your business without due care and consideration about the receiving environment is almost always going to result in you getting stung. You have to; no, you must be aware of your surroundings at all times: you must be aware of what is going on. When you are too keen you can overlook the most fundamental threats that lie less than an arm’s length away. You can get so preoccupied with delivering the right outcome that you completely forget about what is happening in the ‘here and now’. I know that I get so very excited sometimes that I completely lose consideration of the potential deleterious outcomes of my actions. And, believe me, I have been stung: most recently it was in the Kwongan heath down towards Hopetoun. 

Its flowering season and the bees are rife. Normally, one would need to antagonise individuals around a hive to elicit a defensive reactions such as the one I experienced. Stung square on the nose when I was at my most vulnerable: crouched awkwardly with my pants around my ankles.

 

Face Off

Trip 11: Perth to Darwin

Purpose: NT Environmental Protection Authority Meeting

Total Distance Traveled: 5, 312 km

Distance Traveled Year to Date:  41, 447 km

Technology has most definitely made communication between professionals easier, but easier is not necessarily better. Being connected does not always result in an actual connection and if you are not connected you cannot communicate fully and completely. Sunset on a telescreen is just a sunset, but sunset down by the water’s edge will move you. Communication between two people is no different and you simply cannot appreciate a person’s depth of emotion when staring at them on a Sony flat screen TV.

 

When I take on a major project I know that we (the staff at Animal Plant Mineral) are starting a campaign that can be won or lost on our ability to communicate with a myriad of other professionals all with varying agendas. Sometimes the campaign will be combative, sometimes coercive, sometimes cooperative, sometimes constructive and sometimes conceded, but it will almost always be convoluted, complex and complicated.

Our principal focus is on the best possible liaison with Government Regulators. These are the people that are the decision makers on a project. These are the people that, with their hands on their hearts, must believe that the project can proceed in an environmentally acceptable manner before they will recommend that it be approved by the relevant State and Federal Ministers. 

So I scratch my head with an intensity as if I had lice when I hear of consultants that are combative, or even a little belligerent with regulators; what on earth have they got to gain by being like that? I just don’t get it. Like them or loath them, government regulators are going to have an impact on the progress of your proposed project so wouldn’t you do whatever you possibly could to ensure that it was a positive influence rather than a negative one?

The only way to liaise with government regulators is face to face. There is something very special about the power of touch. That power is unquantifiable. You can tell so much about someone from their handshake: is it compliant or complacent? Crush a persons hand and you scream “I am inadequate on so many different levels”. Too limp an embrace will have the recipient questioning every aspect of your character. But get it right and a simple handshake can set you right with another person for all the days, weeks, months or years you are set to engage. Marry that to the exact appropriate eye contact and you will be friends to the end. 

We recently travelled to Darwin for a two hour meeting with regulators to discuss a major resource project. We took the red eye up and we slept very little. But that brief point of contact was so very worth-while for us, for our project and for our client. We connected and we communicated fully; totally.

That night we went to a popular little spot called Mindil beach. When we got there we observed something strange. There was a massive crowd on the beach and the foredunes and they were there for a single purpose: to watch the sun go down. We were a little taken aback because sunsets over the ocean are something we are quite accustomed to seeing on the west side of Australia. Despite having seen dozens myself personally, we decided to stick around and see what happened next and what happened next was rather odd. As the sun dipped below the horizon everyone started clapping!?! It was almost like these people were witnessing some miracle rather than witnessing an event that happened in exactly the same manner the night before and will happen in exactly the same manner the very next day. 

And that is exactly the point. Being present and in the moment; in the flesh enables you to experience feelings that simply cannot transcend a telescreen. If you want to communicate with people then go and see those people: face to face.