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.
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