Lumberjack Lore...

I lay awake for three hours during the night, thinking about leadership.

In hindsight I should have got up and just started writing while my thoughts were clear and lucid. While I had my topics on point, sentence structure sound and strong, a logical stream of consciousness. I couldn’t stop myself from knowing that I definitely wanted to have the word “bullshit’ in the first few lines, prompted by thinking about the intersection of my life experience and standing at the self help section of Barnes and Noble reading synopsis after synopsis about every man and his dog’s point of view on that most confounding, talked about, debated and written about topics. Leadership.

Ever had a bad Teacher? Me either. I have however had numerous examples of how not to teach.

So many leadership books have titles like “The five best ways to recognize a toxic culture”, or similar.

Here’s the rub. I’m no expert. Committed to research, open to criticism, I’m not tertiary trained in this subject matter, nor have I mastered this as an art nor a science. I am however an authority on how to survive twenty years at the pointy end of a career in one of the most dangerous industries in the World. Felling tree’s in a commercial setting. Over the years I learnt all there is to know about what a great leader looks like, and what a poor leader looks like. A teacher both the same.

Here are my top six lore’s that come from a lifetime of conscious observation of traits that are highly sought yet rarely mastered

• reliability

• teachability

• relatability

• collaboration

• communication

• reward (celebrate)

I left high school at the age of seventeen.

No stranger to life in the woods, I was a second generation logger. With a Brother to transition into the industry, the odds as a family that we would not be effected by tragedy trying to earn a living out of this game were stacked against us. As boys, we were literally brought up in this hard working lifestyle and from a young age had already been taken under a wing or two. Big, burly, no nonsense men aware of their mortality, schooled in the laws of survival that were bound up within a tradition of handing down non-negotiable tenets which dictated the way you did things. No beg your pardons! RULES.

Most of these men were, as the saying go’s, “men of few words”. Logging’s not only dangerous, it’s noisy! Communication was often of an unspoken, eye contact, expression, and hand signal nature. The hand signal for “stop” universally understood and effective immediately. It was the first thing you were taught.

The second lesson was that the truck would wait two minutes at the gate, then leave. If you weren’t on board, either make your own way out to the woods or know, implicitly, that you let your team down. Pay docked. Repeat offenses of this nature were a good way to get what in the industry was known as a DCM. Don’t come Monday!

Respect came at a premium. Truly. You had to earn it. But, I learnt you could earn it fast. Just simply do as you’re told. If you demonstrated lessons being handed down and faithfully taught you immediately gained a modicum of respect. Consistency over many years earnt you the full measure.

Certainly my mentors never held anything back if it kept you safe, and a breach compromising either yourself, or worse, someone else, came with an immediate repercussion. A rebuke! You had to get used to rebukes, and sometimes they were frightening. Impactful. Bank it. Move on. Next job! There were never any grudges held, nor were you caused any humiliation, shame nor embarrassment. Unless you did it again! Just don’t act like a fool.

Your work colleagues never really found you out. This work was of such a nature that you either knew how to execute something or you didn’t. If you didn’t you were under training until you did, and then for a period (perhaps unknowingly), under constant observation and/or (knowingly) supervision.

“Smoko” is vernacular for a smoke break. Predominantly used in New Zealand and Australian versions of the English language. In a logging gang it defined two hard earned meals a day, taken together. There was no separate office for the Boss. No closed doors. Stories shared, lots of laughter, and even though dangerous situations were operationally handled as they arose, and they could happen in an instant, these were two formal opportunities during the day to discuss, plan and to deal with any number of issues. Be it safety, production, breakdown, maintenance, communication or relational (social) problems, a weather change, production line pressure requiring a personnel switch, and so on. Or, more often than not, a combination of several of these arisings. If you were in charge, it was a hot seat. The stakes were high.

Experience often had the loudest voice but was not the sole determinant of the outcome. Debate (seriously undertaken) and considered, always contributed mightily to the most constructive outcome. Safety reigned supreme above all else. I learnt that questioning was an important device for extracting information, and that some of these silent giants just needed a clever prod. A nudge towards believing part of a constructive solution was their idea. That though a physical job, the success of which was tagged to tangible outcomes such as tons produced, these men valued acknowledgement, and that their overall job satisfaction came from knowing their knowledge contributed to a positive outcome. That having not only a voice, but vitally, a platform for it be heard and acted upon, was huge in such a dynamic team environment.

Once debated, a decision was made and direction delivered in a clear, concise, decisive manner. Documented and executed. There could be no room for ambiguity.

Listening loudly was a skill. You would simply be told to fuck off if suspected of not paying attention. That hurt! Being deliberately alienated was no fun. But you learnt to learn!

I remember cutting down my first tree at about age seven. While the tree, and the man teaching me (a technique that would over time become deliberately instinctive) how to do it were intimidating, it was the Chainsaw that frightened me the most. A heavy, extremely powerful tool with sharp teeth, it literally bucked in your hand as you drove it! I’d witnessed this rote task done a thousand times, but nothing to this point had prepared me for this rush of adrenaline. I trusted this man, along with others to come, and still do, literally with and for my life. I was in awe, not fear, and they’re different. They taught me the right way. This. Not this. This. Plan your work area. Identify the hazards. Cut your escape route, do your assessment, check it, high side? Make the cuts, look up, use your escape route, keep looking up. It was a self scrutinizing process with potentially fatal outcomes if you got one small part of it wrong, one which you repeated hundreds of times, over and over a day. Over time, consistent exposure towards repeatedly facing your own mortality molds indescribable traits into your character, that away from the felling face manifest into peace and calm. A thankful respite from the cloistering pressure of instinctive reaction to fight or flight. Rest and reflect while, whenever and wherever you can. Observe and listen. Don’t be a smart arse!

I only know this because I did it myself as I grew into the job and in turn, earnt the privilege of teaching. While you taught all you knew from a safety perspective, you never taught all you knew about how to optimally sharpen a saw! It would have been career suicide to have a green horn out cut you. And I know I was the brunt of several jokes when new into the industry, that while this can be one of the hardest techniques to master, crooked cuts, and being timed through a long cut on a large log were rights of passage. Thankfully I never had my chain sabotaged and deliberately put on my saw backwards, nor file turned around, but you had to be able to laugh at yourself as others laughed at you. The work became easy as you mastered this art, and you could let the saw do the work. Be patient and humble. Don’t take offense. Watch (observe others) and learn. Ask questions! In this regard, at least the mentors I had, were genuine with their answers and happy to have at least been asked. Don’t be a know-all!

Its a competitive environment. In a fun way. Feats of production and those who performed them, legendary. But its a production line too. Every role a vital cog in the overall machine, and efficiency was highly valued. You had to pass the product on into the next phase of the process by adding value, meaning, in an optimal state for that next change to happen smoothly. Thank you’s were tacit, but when they formally came, they came top down. Performing your job was the bare minimum required, and often as a team you were required to go above and beyond. A special order for four loads of a particular specification coming in at noon on a Friday requires some special skills to get done. Money talked, but having a real sense of achievement and tangible proof of your endeavors (tonnage) was a language that spoke to feeling like you were part of an ultimate team.

While please and thank you went a long way. So too did a nice cold Beer!