By Selwyn Parker
They pulled no punches at the annual conference of the Institute of Directors - the mandarins of New Zealand's boardrooms and the architects by default of national wealth.
"The public sector can't implement modern economic policy. I believe the complexities are beyond them," said Kerry McDonald, the managing director
of Comalco. With dismayingly explicit charts, he outlined the historically disappointing performance of the economy.
After one particular chart illustrating dismal growth for more than 30 years by comparison with other OECD countries, the candid McDonald says that the commercial sector must take up the mantle.
"New Zealand business has to get much more assertive and effective in developing the sort of policy environment in which we can create economic wealth."
According to a succession of speakers, economic wealth is now urgent. But, as someone asked, how do we go about winning the growth war?
Cutting costs is always a good start but in the long term it doesn't, well, cut it. According to a well-researched Englishman, PA Consulting's Rob Anderson, those boards who rely on pruning the commercial tree to produce profits will hardly last a couple of years in an era of aggressive shareholder activism.
"Unless you are growing your business by a substantial degree, your business will not be around very long and you will not be around very long," he warned.
Sir Dryden Spring, a chairman or director of many organisations in his time, wasn't so sure. "You must focus on driving out costs all the time. It gives you the ability to redeploy," he countered. For growth, he suggested businesses focus on their top lines.
Hardly a month into her new job as chief executive of Telecom, Theresa Gattung had her own recipe. A self-confessed optimist, she urged the audience to adopt a "what if" mentality rather than an "if only" one, just as Telecom had done in 1995 in supporting Team New Zealand. Obligingly the Telecom-sponsored black boat slid past the conference venue, the American Express America's Cup Village, as she spoke.
Questioned from the floor, Gattung said that we must first ditch misplaced idealism about egalitarianism: "If we could get our national psyche straight, we could do it all."
But are we just too complacent? "The growth culture is the exception rather than the rule in New Zealand," argued Scott Perkins, Deutsche Bank's chief executive in New Zealand.
Dick Hubbard of Hubbard Foods, which turns over $25 million a year from breakfast cereals, wants growth too, but with soul. Giving himself just six out of 10 for profitability, the self-styled employer of 130 SOBs ("souls on board") wants "gentler and more compassionate" businesses.
Still, as Hubbard knows ("we're not woosy or inefficient"), it's profits that provide the fuel for compassion.
By Selwyn Parker
They pulled no punches at the annual conference of the Institute of Directors - the mandarins of New Zealand's boardrooms and the architects by default of national wealth.
"The public sector can't implement modern economic policy. I believe the complexities are beyond them," said Kerry McDonald, the managing director
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