The problem with Sir Ralph Norris, who announced his resignation as Fletcher Building chairman this week, could be that his senior management career was too successful.
Successful people have usually learned from their mistakes but Norris had so few mistakes that he didn't have this experience to draw on when Fletcher Building's construction division hit the proverbial wall.
The other issue with Norris is that he is incredibly loyal to his business organisations and always seemed to accept internal reports even when there was a strong argument that they were inaccurate.
For example, he refused to blame former Fletcher Building chief executive Mark Adamson for the company's construction problems even though Adamson should have had much clearer oversight of this high-risk division.
He continued to give the impression that the group's construction writedowns had been completed when industry participants believed that Fletcher Building hadn't addressed many of its problems.
This columnist had first-hand insight into Norris' corporate loyalty in May 2012, after writing about overseas ownership in New Zealand. The following comments covered ASB Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), where Norris has spent most of his highly successful executive career:
"Take ASB for example. There was substantial public opposition to the 1989 sale of 75 per cent of the bank to CBA for $252 million. The remaining 25 per cent was sold to the CBA for $560m in 2000.
"The sale proceeds were used to fund the ASB Community Trust.
"ASB Bank was acquired for $812m, and has paid total dividends of $3.3 billion to its parent since the end of 2005 (now more than $6b).
"The ASB Community Trust, which had total net assets of $1.1b in March last year (currently also $1.1b), makes donations to arts and culture, community building projects, health, learning, recreation and sport and other areas.
"Its donations would be far, far greater if it had maintained ownership of the bank.
"The New Zealand sharemarket has also been a loser because the bank's directors rejected an IPO and NZX listing following the (1987) crash."
Norris called two days later saying that he was very disappointed with my comments. He had received several calls from former CBA colleagues over the weekend who were also upset and claimed that ASB Bank was only successful because it was Australian owned; it wouldn't have been as successful if it had remained in New Zealand ownership.
Sir Ralph Norris at a media briefing after standing down from the Fletcher Building board. Photo / Greg Bowker
Norris refused to meet to discuss the issue and cancelled several previously arranged meetings, and a prospective business arrangement he had agreed to.
One can get unexpected responses to columns, but these responses give useful insights into the thinking of some of the country's senior businesspeople.
This raises the important question of whether the boards of our large listed companies should be populated by individuals with no specific industry experience, albeit having had very successful business careers in other sectors.
Fletcher Building, which has had 17 directors over the past decade, is a good example of this phenomenon.
Four of these 17 directors had a finance background, two had been senior partners of accounting firms and one each has had legal, economic, IT/media, dairy farming and management consultancy backgrounds.
Of the remaining six directors, four were either current or former Fletcher chief executives, Tony Carter had been Foodstuffs managing director and Dr Rod Deane, who retired from the board in March 2010, was a former Spark chief executive.