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[Music] Lawrence it's our genuine privilege to have you here all coming up all the way
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from Santiago and we're going to talk about the events of last year you have a background as an engineer you
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ran Chile's largest retail company and on March 11th you became the minister of mins under the new president
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Sebastian Pinera on August 5th you're traveling in Ecuador you're in the
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capital Kito and around 11:00 p.m. your smartphone lit up and it said mining cave in 33
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miners let's just pick up on that moment when you saw that on your smartphone
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what thoughts ran through your mind M and then take us from that through to August 7th when you did arrive at the
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San Jose mine around 3:30 in the morning being completely honest at the moment that I received that message I
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didn't realize how important this issue was I mean there is accidents all the
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time in the mining sector and we were following all of them so initially I thought that that it was another one I
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was sad for that and I asked my under secretary to go there and to check what was going
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on during that night I received different information in the morning after I received the information that
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there were some a large number of people trapped 30 something I mean we didn't
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know really how many at that time I talked to the president and I said well we have this issue we thought initially
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that they were dead normally when you have this kind of collapses this occur where people is working so people sta on
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this and normally is at least injured um and president told me well better if you
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go back that is that is the reality when I arrived there after traveling the whole Friday from Kito to Lima then Lima
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to Santiago and then from Santiago to kopo I arrived the night from Friday the 6th to Saturday the 7th around 2: 3:00
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a.m. at the mine and then I saw the human drama that we had at that moment all the families were there and they
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were U with Ang and anxity and there was no trust they there was no information nobody really knew what was going on the
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company that was management managing this situation and and they were responsible for this was trying to
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organize the issues and a lot of volunteers other mining companies sent rescue teams to help in this process
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trying to organize decision but the main problem was with the families they were
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um really upset sad but mainly they didn't have uh trust that anybody could help them and they were fearing that the
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company the government were lying to them so I have to start for that trying to establish with them
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a relationship based on trust and initially um trying to avoid the responsibility of the whole operation
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because according to our legislation we have no right to interfere in that process the
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responsibility is in in the shoulders of the company there but after 24 hours and
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every time more we saw that it was impossible and then the presidential decision was very important because
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after we had a lot of problem that Saturday uh president Pinera decid to go back to Chile and he went to the
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mine and he met some of the relatives of the family we chose and a small group of
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them because to face 3 and 400 people that was in the middle of such suffering was too complicated and president P
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commit himself that we will put all our effort to find them at that moment I felt empowered to take control
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really that was a big decision a life-defining decision what were some of the downsides
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that went into your own thinking at the time as you thought about the risk entailed in the Republic of Chile taking
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full responsibility for rescuing the 33 miners still not found not even clear if
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they were not injured or Alive yeah this is what I normally highlight most um the
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political decision that President P made it it was key on this I have never seen
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in any other disaster in the world a government that get involved in such level uh as we did it in this case I
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cannot explain why but president Pinera took this decision and that was key for the success of this operation
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politically speaking it wasn't something um advisable to do I mean my personal opinion I remember when he was
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traveling to Chile I said don't come here I mean go directly to Santiago I go
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there or I keep I keep inform you informed about what is going on here but don't come here because you are going to
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get personally involved in this but well he put people's life on top of it and
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and he decided to do it and that was as I said key for the success of this history let's take the chronology
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forward you're there early on August 7th your first concern of course is to find
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the miners the mining shaft is impossible to enter way too dangerous for a rescue
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crew and much of it is blocked anyway so you set about trying to find them by sinking a 5in shaft down the 2,000 ft or
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so to where you thought they were very famous moment now August 22 a drill head coming back to the surface has a note on
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it uh we are the 33 we're in a refuge and we're fine what was your reaction
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your thought when you saw that note well it's a I will say one of the best moments in my life I mean I cannot
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express what we felt you can see some movies we were filming that moment and we really had an State of Grace a sort
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of epiphany um the moment that we I mean the process was different because we broke that morning early around 6:00
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a.m. we tried to listen something hitting the hammer hitting the the pipes with hammers um I remember I called
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president pinetta around 8:00 a.m. and say well president I am listening something I cannot not assure you that
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there is somebody alive maybe it's my imagination maybe it's a water that is
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falling or rocks that are falling inside the the the PIP or whatever but I am listening something so
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we spent six hour trying to calm down the people while the machine was taking out the bars because this is this is a
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really machine that has 600 MERS of bars and you have to take them out and first
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we saw this hammer or the this the last bar painted in red and that was the first moment of emotion that we had
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because at the moment that we saw it one of the operators says minister is painted in red say are you sure that it
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wasn't painted before I I use a Chism to to talk to this guy at this at that moment no boss I am sure that it
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wasn't so we knew that somebody was alive and then we found this bag a yellow one um tied to the head of the
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Hammer with a letter inside a letter from Mario Gomez to his wife Lanette and we started reading it and why will we
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doing that somebody look inside the H the Hammerhead and look this piece of paper that says that we are okay the 33
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and then all the protocols that we had established for that moment because we were preventing that we could have found
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anything inside that mine we didn't know what we could faced maybe some people
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injured some people dead so we had a protocol for communicating anything to families Etc but at the moment that we
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got that paper everything was forgotten some people ran down run down to the to the the where the families were telling
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that they were all alive and we were just jilling and and really really happy a fantastic moment although it's the end
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of the beginning the miners are over 2,000 ft below the hardness of the rock is described as being twice that of
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granet we can't get to him through the shaft you have to devise a plan now it's
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in your hands you've taken charge when you were not initially in charge and as
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you move from August 22 to now creating a big enough shaft to bring people up for you it's a
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challenge uh you're an engineer by background but you had been in retail as a manager a very large retail company uh
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you served as chief executive but in putting together a team that could take care of all the problems and address all
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the engineering issues talk if you would about how you thought about your team who you wanted on the team and maybe
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ultimately how you got the team to be a wonderfully high-performing time-driven team that did bring up the miners not
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too many days later well I I will start for the last part of the question normally when you are managing any group
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of people what you need to do is to try to sell them a dream to try to commit them behind an objective that they have
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to be very tight on in this case that wasn't necessary everybody was so committed with this task that anybody
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from the days from the first day put all their effort effort for the success of this task so people was very motivated
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during those 17 days and after we had failure behind another failure obviously people get disappointed and this uh
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enthusiasm diminished and that is a role that you have to do to try to keep people committed with that I was very
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concerned what would have done I have done after 30 or 45 days because probably that situation would have been
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more complicated from a commitment point of view but we had people very committed
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and we did is is to try to organize this as I I wouldn't say as any task that you
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face to separate different teams and different task we create a group of people that was involved in all of the
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family uh matters families I I mean relatives people that the relatives of the minors to try to help them with the
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their problems very common problems what to what to do with children what to do with the school of the children people
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that wasn't going to their jobs and you have to try that they not to get fired
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because they were there and problems with families insult I mean dual families problem with two different
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exposes very daily normal things the supply of a lot of things we were in the middle of the Des
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where not um comfort was to support a real City that we were creating with 2,000 3,000 people living there at at
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the peak we had more than 2,000 people living or going there so we have to deal with all those kind of things and with
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the health problems with the minors and the families and also the technical issues and we create two groups in the
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technical issues one in on the site that's was working with the works inside
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the mine trying to do the rescue inside the mine the other group doing the drillings and and to dealing with those
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kind of things but we also create a second team in Santiago in the capital city dealing with different Technologies
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to design how we could rescue and H what were the best technologist to keep these
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people alive if we found them and how to to get them out in that case too so when
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we find finally found them we had all these plans already designed so we just started with them and but finally as
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normally in in the normal life the plan that finally succeed wasn't one that
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wasn't designed initially was designed by the people that was working on site
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in an idea that was wored by a group of people there they people from the Dil Mach really machins and they did a great
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job and I think those guys are the real heroes of this uh process let me pick up
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Anette as the rescue went forward in that fashion I think you had plans with letters to designate them a through F
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and as I recall it was Plan B that finally did reach the miners in all those very technical
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decisions which plan would work best which plans should you follow what would happen as the plans as they unfold run
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into difficulties question on my part is to what extent did you take active role in
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those technical decisions and at what point did you opt to leave those decisions to
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others well we create a a team there and we work together all of us and obviously
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there was specialist and they had the knowledge to give us the right technical support but the decision were made
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essentially on a collective decision we discussed it with Andre sugared with Philipe Matthews and other people that
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was working there and when a decision need to be made well the responsibility the political responsibility and the
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responsibility for the whole operation was mine so I had to make the decision but I remember some at the end we had a
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lot of discussion regarding the the casing of the of the hall um and I remember I met with eight geologist and
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I start asking the opinion of each of them I had my own opinion when I enter in that room but I I wanted to have
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their feedback and to try to see that the decision that I was making was the proper one and finally we decided not to
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case the whole the whole uh hole and only 5050 metters at the beginning and it it ended up being a right a good
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decision but H we tried to make the decision as as a group and when there was a different position I had to make
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the final one a final question for you on October 12th and October 13th the miners begin to come up finally one
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after another it's estimated that a billion people worldwide watch watched at least
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one of those miners come to the surface and it's over it's one of the miraculous events of last year looking
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back on that and thinking about what you learned about leadership your own leadership team
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leadership what are the two or three lessons if you will that really stand out for what happened August 5th to
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October 13th well maybe the most important one is never give up when you think that you have to jump a
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channel a river whatever and you think that you are not going to be able to do it probably you are going to
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fail so you have to be positive you have to be optimistic you have to think that
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it will be possible so no matter how hard the task would look you need to feel that you are
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able to do it and in that group no nobody really at any time gave up and I think that is key and a leader of a
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group need to be an example for that also you need to try to be on the field to be with the guys and and that means
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with the people that was operating the machines with their families the relatives of the minors and the
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technical people they need to feel that you are committed with them and in the job that they are doing doing and I try
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to do it I spend my days my days there working and planning but also talking with people talking with the fames
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knowing how they were what they were the fears the problems if everything was okay listening people that suggest
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things to show us open to different ideas and also I always gave me some time to go ma after it machine saying
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hello to the guys that were working there for 8 12 or more hours drilling to say thank you we're going to do it go
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ahead whatever that signal gives them a sense of commitment and importance in what
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they were doing so I think that is very important to try to motivate people and well also you you need to do all of this
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on top of the technical stuff you need to have competent people you need to have people that know what they were
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doing and to leave them work beside and outside of the pressure that is something that I try to do too
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to not allow the pressure that we had from the media from the families to pass through our Shield to
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affect the people that was working because they had enough problem trying to solve the technical issues that to
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try to deal with other issues that are emotional and complicated Lawrence uh thank you for
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joining us uh as minister of minds and now also minister of energy we're extremely appreciative of having time
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with you and maybe above all thank you for taking charge when you were not in charge last October 5th October 7th uh
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obviously making an enormous difference for the 33 families of the minor trapped
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but maybe equally helping the world appreciate what it takes to lead in a situation that is time driven time
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constrained the stakes are very high The Way Forward is not obvious you went into
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that you brought the miners up we thank you for that well thank you very much for inviting me I think what I face or
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we face at that moment is something that everybody on a daily basis face in their
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own life you never know what is going to happen tomorrow problems could be smaller or
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larger but the issue is the same you always have to face them with faith that you are going to be able to solve it
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thank you so much thank you very much [Music]