Monday 20 May 2019

Don't Be A Dick -- May 2019


There’s picture doing the rounds on the internet of an English nutrition company by the name of Huel. Like a lot of companies they have their mission statement writ large upon a wall at headquarters, but where Huel differs from most is the message placed above. It dwarfs their mission statement, emblazoned in bold type: Don’t be a dick.

It’s a pretty good goal for individuals and companies alike: don’t do silly things to unnecessarily upset other people and good things will follow. The flipside of course is that being a dick can do you needless harm.

Earlier this year an ex rugby official and aspiring politician contacted me via twitter to ask my advice on how to be successful on the micro blogging platform. “Don’t be a dick!” I replied. Of course he ignored me and now not only is a he largely mocked online, even the party famous for tolerating dicks, the Conservative Party, doesn’t want a bar of him anymore.

Fonterra aren’t immune to being dicks either, back in 2016 and in the face of plummeting milk prices they changed the terms of payment for thousands of trade suppliers; instead of getting paid within 30 days now they would have to wait 90. Nobody liked it; not the government, not the opposition, the suppliers or the press. It was an indefensible move and, even though the appointment of new CFO Marc Rivers in 2018 saw the policy gone by lunchtime, the sour taste still lingers. The damage done will take years to repair, the new government don’t think too kindly of the Co-op and a lot of energy has to be expended rebuilding trust that was needlessly flushed away with a single dick move.

That’s why it’s heartening to see Fonterra being pragmatic when it comes to the government’s recently released emissions targets, and Mike Cronin, Fonterra’s Managing Director of Co-operative affairs, had the perfect response: “… we anticipate the government will support the significant investment in research and innovation that is needed to develop solutions to help farmers reduce their emissions. Our focus now is on supporting our 10,000 farming families…”

It’s a response that sees Fonterra support the government’s ambitions but leaves no doubt that they don’t intend to shoulder the entire burden.

That the Climate Change Bill has been attacked by Greenpeace for having no teeth, by Federated Farmers for unrealistic methane reduction targets, by Forest & Bird for offering “special favours to the agricultural lobby” and by Beef & Lamb for just about everything should signal that the government have probably got it just about right. Upsetting all the lobby groups at once requires some level of skill.

We need to choose our battles, and I don’t believe arbitrary targets set for 30 years in the future with no means of enforcement and no penalty for not achieving them is a battle worth fighting. Let’s save that energy for something meaningful and immediate, like DIRA, and in the meantime let’s try not to be dicks.


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