Forestry Corp

"The nature of Gibbs’ involvement in Forestry Corp was similar to that of his role at Atlas, Freightways and Bendon. His style was markedly different to John Fernyhough’s, for example, who as chairman of Electricorp spent most of his working week in Wellington and operated as an executive chairman. Gibbs gave Kirkland clear direction and then limited his role to challenging, provoking and guiding — and then stepping back to allow the chief executive to do his job. After an initial burst in February and March 1986, he spent no more than two or three days a month on the task. Gibbs says he’s always been ‘very cunning at avoiding the time-consuming business of managing people or of getting sucked into detail’. As a result he was able to cover an extraordinary amount of ground in business and public service, while still retaining enough freedom to travel for as much as three months a year and to think of new schemes. When most of Gibbs’ counterparts could tell him what meeting they’d be attending in a year’s time, Gibbs worked hard to avoid commitments that denied him spontaneity. Wherever he was, in New York or Harare, Gibbs kept on top of his half-dozen work streams with a steady flow of handwritten fax messages, channelled through Jacquie Turner at the West Plaza office."

"It gave me a chance to think through the essentials of markets and of ownership. Without private ownership you can’t create a market. You’ve got to have someone who cares. Even if you gave public hospitals prices, it made little difference to them. It’s still not their money. There has to be both pain and pleasure before humans will be efficient and effective. An owner of a business will be sitting on the dunny at 2am thinking about how he might save a few extra bucks; it takes that sort of commitment to survive in business. No public servant is going to do that, nor would the trustee of a voluntary organisation. That’s why ultimately I wasn’t convinced about David Green’s fondness for the role of charities and trusts in running hospitals. I’ve worked with trusts; the Forestry Corp was effectively a trust. I brought about more change in forestry than most chairmen, but I still pulled my punches on some things. If I had my own money in there, I would have done things even better."