Leadership is the ability to guide, influence, or direct individuals or groups toward achieving goals. It involves a combination of skills, behaviors, and attributes that inspire others to follow.
KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP:
VISION:
Leaders articulate a clear vision and direction.
COMMUNICATION:
Effective leaders communicate ideas clearly and persuasively.
EMPATHY:
Understanding and addressing the needs and concerns of team members.
DECISION-MAKING:
Leaders make informed choices that impact their teams and organizations.
INTEGRITY:
Trustworthiness and ethical behavior are essential for gaining the respect of followers.
We all see superficial leadership posters, clichés and messages all around us. But something that is more impactful is hearing the stories of leadership in action. My personal leadership journey originated early on in my career and shaped my own leadership style for effectively moving large Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) pursuits during my 26 year tenure at Itron. Ultimately, what I gained over my career inspired me to form Ark+Energy LLC. The lessons I learned from an experience early in my career embedded in me the importance of trust, credibility, and empathy when creating, assembling, motivating and mentoring teams in executing successfully large pursuits and initiatives. This story I am about to tell you made leadership tangible for the teams I managed while at Itron. When facing daunting uncertainty or doubt, my teams learned that there is a path to success despite what, on the surface, may at first appear impossible to surmount. Many of the outcomes had a positive impact on Itron and advances in AMI capabilities to what we see today.
I remember vividly at a young age of 29 being called down to the president’s office on a chilly Monday morning. I worked for a small company of about 150 people. Despite its small size, the company left a large footprint on the world with the machinery it built. Its contributions ranged across the globe from great waterway (canals) systems (close to 90% of all worldwide), mining machinery, or underground boring machines for many minute men missiles. As I walked to my meeting with the president, I was preparing my mind on projects I was managing and issues I was likely going to need his help to resolve.
Instead, Richard, the president, immediately started briefing me on an accident that had occurred with one of our large material handling machines over the weekend. A crew was doing maintenance on the machine that was instrumental in laying copper ore on a pad. The function of this machine is to spread copper ore with chemicals (referred to a process called leaching) to extract the copper in a liquid and gather it in a sealed pool. Through an electrolysis process it is then converted into final copper plated products. The machine itself is 1000 meters long and three stories high. On the top of the structure is a “tripper car.” This tripper car moves back and forth on the conveyer. Ore is loaded on to the main conveyor and transfers to the tripper car. The tripper car then transfers the ore onto an oval pad. It moves about 10,000 tons an hour. This is a large machine for a large mining operation. Our machine was a critical piece of production, and every day it was not operating was $1 million in lost profit.
Because the crew did not tie the tripper car securely the cables snapped. As it is on an incline for leach material to drain to a pool, the tripper car came loose and careened out of control the entire 1000 meter distance, injuring or killing the maintenance crew and smashing into unrecognizable pieces. This specific machine was located at a mine in the northern part of Chile at 3500 meters elevation and in the middle of the Atacama Desert. This section of Chile is littered with large copper mines. It should also be noted that this section of Chile has no recorded rainfall and no vegetation is visible. In addition, land mines are also scattered around the area, the result of wars between Peru and Chile over the years.
At the end of this briefing, I was informed that they had already purchased my ticket to Chile, they were expediting my passport, and I was to be at the airport the next day for a 6 am flight to Calama, Chile. I was told our goal was to reassemble the machine and that I might be there as long as 3 months to oversee reassembly of this temporary tripper car for use until a new one would be built and shipped. Construction of a new tripper car would take 12 months. My role was as the project manager along with 6 other engineers, one of which was our VP of engineering and an ex-marine. I informed my wife of this new development and left the office to prepare for the trip.
The next day I embarked on the 26-hour journey to Calama. Calama sits in the Andes at roughly 3,000 meters, which I immediately noticed when breathing after I departed the plane. Calama is a village at best and only exists to support the vast number of copper mines in the area. Nothing grew in this part of the world. It was a desolate place with high afternoon winds (50 mph plus) coming over the high Andean mountain range and frequent tremors rumbling from the active volcanic area. On a geologic timeline this was a rapidly formed mountain range and it was not uncommon to run across seashells at this elevation.
Once we arrived at the site, we immediately dropped our bags at the container office to survey the damage to the tripper car. It was not good. I had seen better junkyard wrecks than the scraps of metal and busted component that laid at our feet. Somehow, we needed to figure out how to piece this back together. We finally gathered late that evening. I took notes as I listened and started piecing together a plan and identifying what critical items were needed. At the end of the meeting, a key moment happened that is now etched in my memory forever. From my notes I had sketched out a plan. I turned to the team and told them that we needed to be done in 4 weeks. I had an 18-month-old who was missing his dad. I told them to tell me what they needed to get it done in that time frame and I would make it happen. These senior and seasoned engineers just smiled. I did not realize at that moment I would exercise and develop leadership and teamwork that became foundational for my career.
We had short meetings at the end of every work-day. We reviewed the progress, what was holding us back, and what was needed to meet the 4-week time frame. At times, we problem solved together and at other times we provided moral support when someone was tackling a task critical to moving everything else along. We would stop and go into Calama to celebrate small wins. When someone encountered an obstacle, we always had their back as they worked through the challenge they encountered. My senior Marine mentor was always supporting and enforcing the trust with the engineering team. At one point, he put an arm around my shoulder and smiled and told me good job. This reinforced the foundation leadership I was building. No one questioned if the objective was possible. Their focus was not the mine losing a $1 million dollars a day or the horrid conditions. They seemed to focus on me being humble and sincerely wanting me to be home with my son. This helped us focus on a day-to-day effort that built mutual trust and honesty.
At the end of the 3.5 weeks, we had a tripper car back on the conveyor and functioning. We came in under budget in time and had the mine up and running. The team congratulated me and said, Dave your work is done and you can go home.
In leadership you boldly navigate a future of uncertainty. At the start of this assignment, I had no idea how we would get this done in that time frame. I only had a vision and outcome we needed to hit. However, when vision, communication, empathy, decision making and integrity are present, the impossible seems to become possible. Something important I learned from this was that providing goals that are not always financially defined and outcomes that rally around people’s well-being drives motivation and fighting for something bigger. This laid the foundation to form a cohesive team that was willing to be led by a much more junior individual. We also shared and enjoyed the success equally. Not one of us took individual credit for the success.
We are at an inflection point in energy and water. The lessons I learned from my leadership experience can be applied to transitioning the country’s energy and water system. I am fortunate for the opportunity to experience leadership in action. My 26 years of experience and expertise has led me to create Ark+Energy LLC where I plan to bring this experience and lessons learned to customers I will be serving. My vision is not the technology or energy itself, but instead a focus on providing teams of experts to resolve these issues together. My services are laser focused on the people element of this change as we participate in this significant milestone for our society. We always should be asking what the right thing to do is to transition to affordable, clean and resilient energy and water. Let me and my partners know how our passion and expertise can help you!