Farm Forestry New Zealand

Gripped by the nipple ring - Planning in the NZFFA

Howard Moore, New Zealand Tree Grower May 2019.

You can compare the NZ Farm Forestry Association to many things, and one of them is someone having a mid-life crisis. They might think that now is the time to buy a Harley, visit Reykjavík, get a nipple ring or maybe all three. When your needs, responsibilities and resources change, there is an opportunity to rethink your life.

What has changed for the NZFFA? Well, ignoring the biggies like rising sea levels and rocketing inequality, the smaller things we might respond to include rising land prices, falling membership, a billion trees and the forestry levy. Looking at those, the questions start. Should we adapt? If so, how, and into what? Who will do the work, and when? What will it cost, and how will we control it? And somehow that golden dream of feeling the Arctic sun warm on your nipple ring dissolves into the grey reality of strategic planning.

Understanding planning

For a long time I was confused about planning. At one end is the essentially useless cliché that ‘failing to plan means planning to fail.’ In the middle are idiots’ guides obviously written for the wrong idiots. At the far end are corporate manuals and case studies tangled in Ivy League. Slowly I learned to change my idiot setting and understand the process.

Like the nipple ring, it is not without pain but if you grit your teeth and think of Iceland it can be done. When it got to the point that I could write a business plan in two words on the back of a postage stamp I figured I had it sussed.

Here is an analogy. Think of planning as a walk in the park then crossing the road. At the kerb your environment changes, and so do your needs and responsibilities. Your mission statement – who you want to be – is the guy on the other side. Your vision statement – where you are going – is over there. Your strategic plan – what you need to do and why – is to safely cross between the cars. You run feasibility studies checking visibility, distance and vehicle speed and estimating the risks of getting hit. Then your business plan – how and when you cross – completes the process and at the chosen moment you step out.

This may sound trivial, but your parents did not think so when they taught you to look both ways. Every time we cross the road we unconsciously go through this process. If we do not, we either get lucky or we get hit, neither of which are survival strategies.

Plans for the immediate become second nature. It is when we plan for the longer term that there is more angst. It did my head in, so I developed a diagram as a coping mechanism. It is at the top of the next page.

Because things are always changing people have evolved to be wary, identify threats and opportunities and adapt. It is the same for the NZFFA. We are pretty sure falling membership, a billion trees and the forestry levy are going to affect our future, but not sure how to respond. It is a mid-life crisis.

Where we are going

Back in July we started the discussion. After a day looking at a range of threats, trends and opportunities Executive members made two decisions. First, that we had sorted out ‘who we were’ in 2017 when we said ‘We are the guys promoting the wise use of trees for profit, amenity, sustainability and the environment.’ Second, that Council members would be offered the list below for ‘where we were going’ − the Council made three amendments, shown in square brackets.

The NZFFA will gradually transition to become the key New Zealand forest grower organisation representing the interests of all small-scale growers. This organisation will −

• Be organised around [regional and] action groups that reflect the interests of members and potential members.
• Be governed by [a body] that has appropriate administrative support and reflects the interests of its members.
• [Facilitate the development of knowledge and exchange of ideas about trees.]
• Use all appropriate mechanisms to communicate with members, prospective members and non-members.
• Work cooperatively with forest industry and other organisations that can assist in meeting our goals.
• Be an effective advocate to central, regional and local government.
• Provide commercial and non-commercial services that retain existing members and attract new members.
• Encourage new and existing land owners to plant trees on their land.

A group of volunteers then offered to take the next step and develop ideas for what we need to do. Files show that the NZFFA has done similar exercises in the past. I have them going back to 1994 − but on reviewing them it is clear that there was generally some confusion over what to do and how to do it. Some specific ideas were adopted but others foundered. It was not because conditions had changed. It was because not enough people seemed to understand or care. Unless decisions are simple, compelling and accepted the same thing may happen again.

Heading

When this round of planning began, I agreed to help not because I am an expert, but because the subject does my head in. I learned to cope by breaking the process up into pieces, hence the diagram. It forces you to deal with one thing at a time.

If we accept ‘one thing at a time’ and we accept that options must be simple and compelling, then we have a manageable number of choices.

What we can do for the vision statement becomes clearer. First there are internal things we all understand, mostly business as usual. We should −

• Retain branch and action groups
• Improve management and communication
• Continue to develop and disseminate knowledge.

All simple stuff. What we do about the remaining goals of advocacy, encouragement, services and co-operation is less clear. Activities require money and money has strings. If it is to come from the levy, we need to prove we represent a wide constituency. If it is to come from membership, we need more members. If it is to come from trading, we need prudently managed businesses. These have wide and overlapping implications, risks and benefits.

From the earlier planning sessions, and sticking with simple and compelling, I suggest just three clear and separate things. We could do one or more of −

• Widen the membership – this improves membership income, constituency, services and advocacy
• Amalgamate with another industry body – this improves levy income, constituency, cooperation and advocacy
• Trade – this improves commercial income, constituency, services and advocacy.

Some of the more risk averse among you will immediately leap ahead into how, who, when and at what cost? But that is not on the table. We are deciding what to do, not how to do it. I know nothing about getting a nipple ring or visiting Reykjavík but if I decided to, I would find a way − and make the decisions in that order. The business plan comes later. Curb your enthusiasm. One thing at a time.

The diagram forces you to make a Go – No go decision before you can move from one box to the next. You have to agree to what could be done before anyone starts work on how, who, when and at what cost. It may be that is what fails the feasibility test and cannot be done. That is why there is a feasibility test. Unless you agree that the Council and Executive work through the implications, risks and benefits of each one of those options test each one you will never know. And you will be left wondering about the Harley, Reykjavík and the nipple ring.

Howard worked 10 years as an industrial engineer and 40 years in economic development. His interests in forests as financial assets date from the early 1970s. He is a member of both the NZIF and NZFFA but holds no forestry qualification, forest or farm. This keeps his membership fees down.