#StandWithManaaki

#StandWithManaaki – What were they thinking? Part 2

/ rugbymother / 1 Comment

Hey, Stefan…  what were you thinking?

Earlier this week I talked about my bemusement at the inaction of the Callaghan Innovation Board, in choosing to sit on the sidelines and watch livelihoods and reputations destroyed, as a direct result of their actions, and inactions.

Today I’m moving on to the next episode in this distasteful saga.  Yesterday I covered the CEO who presided over the original procurement process, including the use of a contract investigator to conduct due diligence on the RFP respondents.

So many questions about that process – but let’s move on.

In the face of claims of a conflicted contractor, Callaghan Innovation (now with a new acting CEO in place), commissions EY to perform an independent review of their due diligence process.  Sounds like a good plan, I hear you thinking.  This report from EY will subsequently become the shield behind which procurement, management and the board shelter.

But consider this. 

Based on a release of the EY report under the OIA, it seems that the scope of the review was limited to a simple evaluation of the mechanics of the contractor’s process of investigation.  Specifically, the scope did NOT include questions as to….

  • Whether the process to select the investigator met the standards of government procurement;
  • Whether the investigator was conflicted in accepting the contract to conduct the DD;
  • Whether Callaghan itself has appropriate internal systems to manage conflicts of interest;
  • Nor any of the actual claims made in the reports.    

The EY report states several times that Manaaki should have had the opportunity to comment on the reports when they were in draft stage.  As I understand it, Manaaki has only seen redacted copies of the final reports, and still has not seen the full reports.

There were several “referees” added to the investigator’s interview list without Manaaki’s knowledge, including one whom EY says had no business history with Manaaki at all.  The EY report says that this is not right.

To put this in simple terms – Callaghan set the EY brief to exclude all the contentious issues.  EY, as per Callaghan’s instructions, focused on process mechanics only.  Based on the scope of their brief, I suspect EY’s conclusions were valid.  And Callaghan got the report they sought.  The real question is this an acceptable way to do business? 

The EY report also identified other issues with the process.  If you’re interested, the report is available.

It’s ironic that in the preface to their report, EY states explicitly that:

“EY has not been engaged to act, and has not acted, as advisor to any other party.”

Did the investigator, Borland, make the same statement in his reports?  Could he have honestly done so?

And where is the new (at that time acting) CEO in all of this?

Does he really think that commissioning an independent review, that puts the key issues of contention out of scope and then states all is well in the process, is okay?

Now as Callaghan’s CEO (no longer acting) does he consider that maybe, just maybe, it would be worthwhile to sit down with Manaaki and reach some sort of agreement that allows both parties to move on, and continue doing their chosen business, albeit not together?

And when the matter became increasingly public, being played out initially in social media, and then in the national press, did he consider the potential damage this could cause?

Does he think it’s okay that Manaaki is being essentially blackballed by his predecessor’s actions, when she started the leaking (oh, sorry, “sharing”) of the reports by sending them to other government departments.  This surely provided justification for the subsequent flood – a deluge of the reports being shared far and wide to media and influencers?  Reports to which Manaaki has had no real right of reply.

Does he genuinely think it’s a great outcome that Manaaki is driven out of business, as a result of a small number of business disputes, now resolved, despite the good that they’ve done?  And the thousands of small of businesses supported by Manaaki.

And has the Callaghan Innovation Board considered the longer term impacts of this debacle?

More on that in my next post, but for now, think about this.
How comfortable will you be submitting a proposal in the next government-run procurement process, knowing what can happen when things go wrong?

This is NOT about who wins and who loses out in a tender process.
It’s about Callaghan Innovation’s process and decisions that have provided ammunition to those trying to destroy Manaaki and its founders;  ammunition to continue to wage this destructive war.  How can the Callaghan Innovation Board stand by, putting their own organisation’s reputation at risk, and allow this to happen?

The real unanswered question is who gains from the destruction of Manaaki? And did they use their networks and connections to influence the due diligence reports to their advantage? But that we will probably never know.

It’s time to commission a truly independent report, that covers the full scope of issues identified. 
Or just withdraw the reports, and hey, perhaps even issue an apology.

What were, and are, these people thinking?  Or, one has to ask, are they thinking at all?

And what role does MBIE and the Minister have in all of this?

#StandWithManaaki – Bullying is not okay

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A guest blog written by my husband, Peter Hall.

Bullying is not okay – and we are seeing a lot of it in many different guises in the controversy surrounding Manaaki and its founders.

As we know, there is a concerted and relentless mainly social media campaign to bring down Manaaki and the people associated with it.  People like Andy Hamilton and Pat MacFie. A core allegation appears to be “founder bullying”, with the emotive overlay of a vulnerable, female founder.  I have known Andy Hamilton for some fifteen years and never seen anything like this alleged bullying. 

I will make some broad generalisations.  And I hate making generalisations.  Many founders are hard work.  They see things others do not see – and this is often a key ingredient for their success. At times, their passion helps them to be persuasive.  And it also at times leads to conflict and an inability to work well with others – no matter who the others are – funders, staff, suppliers.

What we have with Manaaki is a swirl of some truth, with a dollop of innuendo and outrageous inferences.  Much of this is founded on two due diligence reports, commissioned by Callaghan Innovation, as part of a tender process.  These reports have been circulated widely, in leaks to the media and others (ethically questionable), but only provided in part to Manaaki.  Very hard to counter.  Manaaki as a minimum need to have a right of reply, which is shared as widely as the reports themselves have been.  This is fundamental to natural justice.

Callaghan is a major enabler of the bullying that is happening.  The two due diligence reports were commissioned from an individual/organisation who had a clear conflict of interest.  When this became clear, as a minimum, responsible management would investigate further – test the findings with the accused party – and dig deeper.  The reports have been circulated to a range of external government departments, individuals and non-affected people.  This cannot be right.  They have thrown hand grenades, and sit and watch the war continue with a shoulder shrug. 

From my personal perspective, what of my private and confidential business information is Callaghan  going to circulate and to whom?  Is this a precedent for MBIE and other government entities?             

The Callaghan approach is fundamentally flawed and manifestly unfair.

MBIE has some experience with workplace bullying and gender discrimination at another organisation in the startup ecosystem that it oversees – NZVIF.   In mid-2021, a summary report of an investigation into NZVIF was released.  In August 2021, the then CEO Richard Dellabarca resigned, followed by most of the Board a few months later.  Their annual report shows that very substantial termination payments were made.  There was an earlier report which appeared to be a whitewash, but the groundswell of dissatisfaction prevailed.  I wonder what lessons were learned?  See the attached link NZVIF bullying .

The press has not been blameless in this swirl of information.  In particular, the National Business Review.   In the case of Manaaki and particularly Pat MacFie, we see what appears to be character assassination formed on an incomplete picture and yet more innuendo.  It is hard to see the relevance of something 20+ years in the past, except in a remote tangential way – other than to sling mud.  This is bullying, designed to help destroy the individual and his organisation.   See the link to the NBR article and Pat Macfie’s response.  Form your own opinions.    NBR article     Pat Macfie’s response.

I am a regular subscriber to the NBR.  There are occasional insights that are worth reading.  Recent coverage of the startup innovation sector has been good.  I probably would not have mentioned the Pat MacFie-NBR article but for the fact that it seems to be part of a repeated pattern of destruction aimed at generally younger founders.  I think of past coverage of Jamie Beaton (Crimson), and Jake Millar (Unfiltered),  Always the tall poppies, always picking away at their lifestyle, their past and their foibles, sometimes with catastrophic results.  The relevant articles appear to follow a similar destructive pattern to that in the Pat MacFie article, complete with an inflammatory headline about being haunted by his past. This is not OK.

The swirl of some truth, innuendo and outrageous inferences is not doing anyone any good.  I respectfully submit that Callaghan Innovation, or its MBIE overseers, as the central player in all this, could take actions to either front up with an independent review by a person of substance, or withdraw the reports with a statement that they present an incomplete picture.  There are other solutions. 

Do they have the courage to do what is right?  Or will they be sucked even further into this unpleasant vortex?  And what does our government think?  Do they endorse what is happening?

BULLYING IS NOT OK. 

#StandWithManaaki – Tall Poppy Bashing

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The ongoing campaign to destroy the good work of Manaaki and its founders Pat MacFie, Andy Hamilton and their colleagues, is sadly, and simply, a perfect example of New Zealand’s penchant for chopping down tall poppies.

In more advanced economies, they recognise that failure is the gateway to success, that people who have learned from their failures, make better business leaders in the future. But that is not the case here in Aotearoa, where our past misdeeds come back to haunt us, again and again; where the business media is amongst the first to take up the scythe when there are tall poppies to be felled.

The tall poppy in question here is not actually Manaaki itself (who have quietly and humbly gone about their business), but the inimitable Andy Hamilton, who has dedicated the past few years of his life to supporting his co-founders at Manaaki, honing the work he did in founding and building The Icehouse, to support business success. There is no doubt that Andy has made some enemies along the way – he is driven, opinionated, and definitely not always right! Well, I certainly haven’t always agreed with him.

But those of us who know him, whether we love him or not so much, will vouch for his relentless passion for raising up business builders, and in particular his willingness to give freely of his time and his unbelievably vast network of contacts. Andy is a giver.

Seeing him bowed down under the weight of the current campaign to discredit his co-founders at Manaaki, and destroy the great work they have done (and want to keep on doing) to support small business NZ, is simply heartbreaking.

THIS IS NOT OKAY

This concerted campaign, led by a small number of vicious haters – some not even living in NZ – is putting Manaaki’s very survival at risk. Armed with leaked private investigator reports, commissioned by a government agency, and passed on to other agencies, individuals and journalists (probably in breach of every rule in the procurement privacy book!), these bad actors have whipped up support from well-meaning commentators, spouting forth on things about which they are not fully informed.

How could they be, when Manaaki itself has never been afforded the courtesy of access to the evidence against them, nor the opportunity to respond. Despite this, they are taking positive actions to find and redress their failings, as detailed in their post yesterday, linked HERE. 

This takes courage. This is the action of an ethical organisation.

Here is an organisation, with over 6,500 members, many from the Māori and Pasifika communities, doing good work to support business owners and job seekers to build better businesses, to succeed. 

Now it finds itself a victim of bullying, of tall poppy bashing, at the hands of people with the power to influence whether it lives or dies. Ironically, at the root of the allegations, there appears to be concerns about founder bullying – with the emotive overlay that the founder is question is neither male nor Pakeha, and therefore inherently more vulnerable in the face of the big, bad ‘investor’ guys. Allusions have been made to other founders who were bullied (by other players, including most notably the business media), and the need for more founder protection.

Be that as it may – and more about that in my next post, specifically about founder bullying.

But meanwhile, consider this. These are people who founded a business to support their people, who built a community of mutual trust and support. They have a “past” (don’t we all?) that they do not deserve to have trawled through the media. They have been successfully supporting small business – the lifeblood of the New Zealand economy – funded mostly by government contracts, won in fairly contested procurement processes, creating real impact for the business owners they support.

In the words of a small business owner posted on the Manaaki platform this week:

“I find it sad when others have to tear down people who are doing so well and helping others get ahead in life. It is hard enough at times just living life on your own terms. When you have someone who turns you down time into some horrible monster, they should be ashamed of themselves, as we all have a story or 2 or 3 that can be told. I for one have learnt so much from this group, and the support has been really great”. …Hold your heads high as you have a lot to be proud of. 
The old tall poppy syndrome! Sad but often true.”

If you, like me, want to take a stand against the destruction of yet another #TallPoppy, please #StandWithManaaki and show your support by sharing, speaking up, and telling the haters that this is not okay.