How the Lizard Brain Kills Projects

by Dave Forest
July 28, 2010

I ordered some custom photos from Kodak online this week.

They were gifts for a special occasion on Tuesday night. They absolutely needed to be done by earlier that afternoon.

When I ordered, the company assured me the snapshots would be done by early Tuesday. Just to make sure, I stopped by Monday at the electronics shop that functions as the pick-up location. Yes, they said, the order would be shipped Tuesday morning and should be in store by noon.

Of course, when I arrived Tuesday at 3:00 PM, the photos were nowhere to be found. "Late", the disinterested clerks at customer service told me. Happens all the time, they said.

Okay, I said. I need these photos for a party in two hours. What can we do?

The initial reaction was a litany of excuses about how this same thing has happened a thousand times before. And how there was nothing the clerks could do.

I told them I had the digital file with me. Could I print it right now on some photo paper? Wasn't as fancy as the custom order, but at least I'd have something in hand for the party.

No, they said. They don't do that kind of thing.

You're an electronics shop, I prodded. Surely you have a computer and printer somewhere?

Finally they conceded that, yes, maybe the guy in imaging might be able to find one somewhere. Go talk to him.

Could you call him for me, I asked. So he understands the situation?

More feet dragging. "Well, I can see him over there, and he looks kind of busy."

Could you just call him, I pushed. Finally, they did. And he came over. Then gave me the same spiel about how they don't usually do that kind of thing.

Could we just look for a printer? Maybe in the back?

Finally he remembered that, yes, there might be one in the camera center. Which turned out to be broken. Maybe someone else would have an idea, I suggested.

Finally, (again after much prodding) we found another employee who knew there was a store computer off in a corner, hooked to a printer. He found a sheet of glossy paper. It took all of two minutes to download and print the photo.

This after twenty minutes of hemming and hawing about how "we don't usually do that" and "I don't think that will work".

I am going somewhere resource-related with this.

The experience reminded me of some work I'm doing on a mineral exploration project.

Exploration is a complex business. Ore bodies are almost never straight-forward. And in most cases the only information the exploration team has about these complex structures is gained from pencil-thin (relatively speaking) drill cores. The rest of the interpretation has to be supposed from this tiny bit of info. Billions of dollars ride on this work.

During the course of a drilling program, the working deposit model often changes ten, twenty or a hundred times. On our project, we were coming up with geological surprises (some pleasant, some disappointing) almost daily.

This means you have to think on the fly. One new piece of information might totally invalidate the strategy you were using yesterday. And yet, there are four drill rigs turning on site. There's very little time to stop and consider the next move.

Too often, companies in this environment behave like the clerks at the store. Any glitch or change in plans sends them into mental lock-down. We can't possibly change. We don't usually do that.

The lizard brain manifests in exploration all the time. When faced with challenging new information, an exploration team chooses to ignore it. They simply keep doing what they were doing. Continuing with the old model. Even though it's obviously wrong now.

Adapting to incoming information during an exploration program is frightening to the lizard brain. A lot of the time, it's unclear what the next move should be (except that there should be a next move, different from the last one). You have to try something, and by trying you might fail.

The interesting thing is, failing often isn't that bad. At least, failing in small ways.

Like my experience at the electronics shop. We had to try a few printers before we found one that worked. But the trying was critical. If we hadn't gone to the back in the first place looking, we wouldn't have met Kevin, who suggested we go talk to Robo, who knew there was a computer in the corner.

Often, when you make an attempt (even a relatively wild one), it yields interesting new information. It may not be the result you expected. In fact, the outcome may have very little to do with your original working theory. But at least something new has emerged about the project. And that something new often leads you to the next step in the process, be it printing or finding a mine.

The trick is to know when a project still has enough legs it's worth spending time, energy and money to keep the machine moving forward. Could you crack this deposit open with metallurgical testing? Engineering design? Coarse gold sampling analysis and Gy's theory? Geophysics? Thin section work? Drilling at a different angle? In a different location?

At some point, options are exhausted and a project needs to be abandoned. But it's critical to properly assess the "walk-away" point. Making sure you've done everything you could do. Most major deposits are worked by at least three different companies before the discovery is finally made. Meaning the first two groups gave up too soon.

Especially, it's critical to make sure you're not spending millions doing work you knew six months ago was the wrong approach, but were too scared to change. Know which part of your brain is running the program.

Here's to squashing the lizard,

Dave Forest