Chapter 1. Transforming an Impossible Situation

Two hours northwest of Johannesburg, just off the Platinum Highway, is an abandoned archeological dig with a sign that bears the words, "Cradle of Humanity." The communities nearby are home to the platinum mining operations of Lonmin Plc., the world's third-largest producer of the precious metal. These nine communities and five squatter camps, of approximately three hundred thousand people, are also where we find many people who fought—and are still fighting—for Nelson Mandela's vision of a new South Africa. In this most unlikely of places, less than ten years after the end of apartheid, a conversation took place that shows the power of the First Law of Performance—the subject of this chapter.

Antoinette ...

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