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- 1. Sociology for Mineral Exploration Jan Boon RFG 2018
- 3. Overview • Background • Sociological model and tools • Putting this into practice • Conclusions • Acknowledgements
- 4. Background • Sociological model based on nine case studies • 240 semi-structured interviews – broad range of actors. Focus on: – relationship patterns and characteristics – company CSR strategy – perceived benefits and harms – reference communities
- 5. Observations • Cases were sui generis • Relationships drove events • Same sociological processes in all cases a generalized model could be developed • Dialogue is at the heart of the model
- 6. Sociological Model and Tools
- 7. Sociological Process Model* *Blumer, 1967 Symbolic Interactionism “Whole wide world” Meanings Interpretation Options Normative considerations Reference communities Decision and action Change process Relationships and interactions
- 8. Reference Communities • Audiences of real or imaginary people • Have real or perceived link to the actors’ “communal” life and associated values • Provide the actors with normative cues (often in an almost subconscious way) • Examples: town’s general assembly; church; professional and trade associations; political parties; “head office”
- 9. Interactional Needs • Identity confirmation (core, social, group, role) • Benefits from the interaction • Inclusion • Trust • Transparency
- 10. Tactical Needs • Be visible • Be sincere • Personalize encounters • Be clear about your own expectations • Establish routines (=> relationship patterns => new social structures)
- 11. Relationships – Key Ingredient of Success • The rules do not make the game – the players do through their interactions • Governance provides the rules, the actors are the players • Their interactions are driven by their relationships
- 12. Indicator Description Trust To believe despite uncertainty. Taking risk, having beliefs about expected behaviours of the other Respect Regard as worthy of special consideration Affection A feeling of liking or caring for someone Communication Hear and being heard Mutual understanding Each side can correctly express what the other side is saying Conflict resolution Conflict resolution mechanisms exist and are productively used Goal compatibility Achieving the goals of one party supports the achievement of the goals of the other party Balance of power Extent to which each party influences the other and to which each party affects final outcomes Focus Clarity about who should be involved and about the matters at stake Frequency Frequency of significant interactions between the parties Stability Degree of predictability Productivity Achievement of target results Relationship Indicators
- 13. Use of the Indicators • Keep track of the quality of your relationships • Identify areas that need attention • Allow preparation of a relationship matrix that shows relationship patterns at a glance • Indicators can be estimated with increasing reliability: – informed guess using company data and observations – adding publicly available information – adding actor surveys
- 15. Fruta del Norte Relationship Matrix (25 entities) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
- 16. Río Blanco Relationship Matrix Community National government Regional government Provincial, District and Municipal Governments National police Rondas Campesinas Catholic Church FDSFN ACFUCCSCPH Río Blanco Copper S.A. Community National government Regional government Provincial, District and Municipal Governments National police Rondas Campesinas Catholic Church FDSFN ACFUCCSCPH Río Blanco Copper S.A.
- 17. Courtesy Dominic Channer, Kinross Gold Relationship Evolution: Kinross Fruta del Norte project* 17 Objective 2008 2011 2013 2014 Trust Respect Communication Mutual Understanding Conflict Resolution Goal Compatibility Balance of Power Focus Frequency Stability Productivity
- 18. Generalized Relationship Model for Mineral Exploration 6. Social structures 5. Change processes Context Time 7. Social events, benefits and harms 3. Meeting interactional needs: DIALOGUE Company characteristics Community characteristics 4. Building relationships 1. Arrival of project 2. Initial meanings
- 19. Tools and Concepts Summary • Sociological process model • Reference communities • Interactional needs • Tactical needs • Relationship indicators • Relationship matrix • Generalized relationship model and DIALOGUE You can use these tools and concepts both internally and externally
- 20. Putting this into Practice Internally
- 21. Company Characteristics • Management style • Culture • Skill sets • Resources • Social responsibility strategy “W” M I O N R. C. D C R, I
- 22. Management Styles Situational, mixture of: • Directive • Authoritative • Focus on harmony (e.g. Japanese wa 和) • Participative • Coaching “W” M I O N R. C. D C R, I
- 23. Case Study Observations Management styles in the higher-ranked case studies: • Relaxed, informal, creative, slanted towards harmony • Frequent interactions • Participative • Working towards convergence of meanings “W” M I O N R. C. D C R, I Indicator Trust Respect Affection Communication Mutual understanding Conflict resolution Goal compatibility Balance of power Focus Frequency Stability Productivity
- 24. Company Culture* “…a pattern of basic assumptions invented, developed or discovered by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. It has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore it is to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems…“ *Schein, 1990 “W” M I O N R. C. D C R, I
- 25. New Exploration Teams • Different cultures • Different initial meanings • Different reference communities How to deal with this? • Relationship model is a template for process of internal integration and external adaptation • Applying the model internally is good practice for applying it externally Company culture Change processes Meeting interactional needs: DIALOGUE Building relationships Initial meanings
- 26. Skills… • Build on existing interactional skills • Hire local staff and involve them in all processes – changes the meanings given by communities – helps build internal and external relationships • Bring in expert help (anthropologists, sociologists) • Use e3 Plus (PDAC guidance for responsible mineral exploration)
- 27. …Skills • Develop capacity internally • Build consistent ethical and moral performance for the long term: – use the sociological processes to develop shared meanings and overlap between reference communities throughout the organization – have this become a way of life
- 28. Resources • Comparing exploration with mining is like comparing apples and oranges • Requirements vary with circumstances • In most case studies, modest resources sufficed • Creativity and common sense are important • Embedding patterns of behaviour and thought in daily operations is very important • People are the most important resource
- 29. Social Responsibility Strategy • Companies borrow from existing models • Common elements include – attention to individuals – focus on the common good – avoiding personal favours – resolving conflicts asap – joint projects with communities – community development. • Underlying motives vary from “SLO” to community development as a company goal
- 30. General Considerations • All processes in the model have moral and ethical dimensions => company and personal values are important • The processes work both inside and outside the company => know thyself • The characteristics of “inside” relationships strongly influence “outside” relationships • Maintaining relationships is hard work • In relationships, there is no “equilibrium”, only movement up or down
- 31. Conclusions • Relationships are the motor that drives projects • They do this through sociological processes that are well understood • Understanding these processes informs strategies and actions • This requires continuous attention • The rewards can be considerable, both personal in terms of living one’s life, and in terms of project success
- 32. Acknowledgements • My wife • Financial, logistics, academic and general support: – Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada – MITACS – Roberto Sarudiansky, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires – Alejandro Díez Hurtado, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú – Carleton University – Organization of American States – Secretaría Nacional de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación del Ecuador – Instituto Nacional de Investigación Geológico, Minero y Metalúrgico del Ecuador – Canadian embassies – NRCan and colleagues • All interviewees • All companies
Editor's Notes
- While each case had its own peculiarities, I found that relationships were at the heart of all that went on, and that the sociological processes were the same in all cases, which allowed me to develop a generalized model
- Initial meanings are given at the first encounter between the community and the company. These meanings are arrived at through interactions between fellow citizens on the community side and employees on the company side. Further interactions lead them to an interpretation of the situation, and to the development of options for action. These options are then weighed against the perceived norms of the actors’ reference communities, a decision is made and associated actions are taken. Change processes that can be triggered by several factors (e.g. people who have not adopted the meanings of the majority, consequences of the actions, changes in reference communities or in their norms) feed into a further change of meanings and the cycle starts all over again. Relationships drive interactions, which in turn drive change, meanings and interpretations. Reference communities can affect meanings, for example the principles and guides for responsible exploration developed by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, a reference community for company managers, have affected the meaning given to communities by companies and is beginning to affect the meanings given to a company by those communities that are aware of e3 Plus and are using it in the development of their approach. As was mentioned earlier, reference communities themselves are affected by the global context in which they exist.
- For interaction between individuals to be productive, a series of needs have to be met. These include mutual confirmation of who we believe we are as persons, as members of social structures (gender, ethnicity, etc.) and groups (such as being an employee of Kinross Gold Corporation),and of our role (scientist, manager, husband, wife, teacher etc.)
- In practical terms we need to ensure that we are visible (without overdoing it!), that we are honest, that we are personable and that we are clear about what we expect from the other
- The matrix shows the quality of the bilateral relationships between 25 organizational entities in the town that include the exploration project. Blank cells represent relationships for which no information was available. . As the matrix is symmetrical, data have been entered only in the bottom half. The vertical column that contains many “green = positive” cells corresponds to the parish council (in Ecuador, a town is called “parish”), which has good relationships with most organizations. The row/column with many green cells that (row/column 13) corresponds to the Fruta del Norte project. This matrix is a snapshot taken in 2012.
- The relationship matrix shows extreme polarization between the community, the provincial/district/municipal governments, the Rondas Campesinas, the Catholic Church and the Frente para el Desarrollo Sostenible de la Frontera Norte on the one side and the national government, the regional government, the national police and Río Blanco S.A. (the project) on the other side. Not surprisingly, this resulted in violence and some lives were lost
- In Stage 1 people look each other over. In step 2 they establish initial meanings of each other and may decide on certain actions that are measured against the norms of their reference communities. In step 3 the parties start feeling each other out, getting to know each other and starting a dialogue. This creates the conditions for building relationships in step 4 which in turn allows for changes to take place in step 5. There is a perennially ongoing iterative loop through stages 3, 4 and 5 that keep spilling over into the formation of new social structures that in turn influence the course of social events and perceived benefits and harms. In the remainder of this talk I will focus on company characteristics
- Of course company characteristics play an important role in putting these sociological insights into practice. This slides shows the most important interdependent components that characterize a company. They influence and are influenced by the sociological processes that are going on all the time, as per the process model that I discussed earlier. I will discuss each of these components in turn from a sociological perspective.
- The management literature recognizes a number of “end-member” styles. In practice, management style is situational and usually a mixture of end members. Each of these end members represents a meaning managers give to the world, to the “company” concept, to their workforce. In addition, most styles have a normative component that is informed by a reference community (e.g. an extremely directive style takes a robotic view of the workforce and its norms were completely instrumental and inspired by Taylorism). As relationship building has strong moral and ethical dimensions, a management style that bases itself on corresponding normative cues is more likely to lead to productive relationships. This suggests that the harmony, participation and coaching components are very important, reason for which I have italicized them
- The management styles in the higher-ranked case studies tended to be relaxed, informal and slanted towards harmony. Each of these attributes helped to create conditions for positive interactions, that were frequent. Participation rates were high. In combination, these factors helped build strong relationships and convergence towards shared meanings
- This is a pragmatic definition of company culture, and it does not pay attention to the processes involved. In sociological terms, the pattern of basic assumptions are meanings that came into being through the sociological process I discussed earlier. In addition, “…to be taught to new members…” fails to recognize the contribution of the new members to the evolution of the culture. Through their interactions with their colleagues, they help change meanings, as I will discuss when I will talk about new exploration teams.
- For a completely new exploration team, the challenges are the same, but likely more intense. The ongoing dialogue=>building relationships=>change processes=>dialogue loop will help address this. The loops keeps paying off into building a strong company culture
- The word “interactional” is key to success. Hiring local staff and involving them in all processes helps convergence of meanings and building internal and external relationships. Bringing in expert help can facilitate and speed up these processes and transfer of skills. E3 Plus provides excellent practical guidance. You will have noticed that I keep using the same diagrams. There is a good reason for this: most social aspects of mineral exploration are related in one way or another to the processes described by the diagrams
- As I mentioned, bringing in expert help and diffusing their knowledge and skills into the company is one way of building internal capacity. Infusing the sociological processes with ethical and moral aspects and making this into a way of life worked well for most case studies, albeit using different approaches
- Estimates I was given vary between 1 and 5% of overall project cost, although special circumstances may arise that drive up the cost. A recent study showed that the cost of conflict can be very high, and it is well worth making this investment
- Attention to individuals and avoiding personal favours are linked to interactive needs; focus on the common good and joint projects aim for convergence of meanings, as does community development. All address a a number of relationship indicators