Fletcher’s Sir Ralph Norris: Sorry not sorry

He may have resigned but has he taken responsibility? Ellen Read suggests not.

Sir Ralph Norris has done the right thing and said he will step down from the board of Fletcher Building. But it seems to me that he is leaving precisely because it is ‘the right thing to do’’, and not because he believes he should actually go.

As reported earlier this week, Norris resigned saying the board had to be accountable for the troubled building group’s massive construction losses.

He had planned to stay in the job until next year but will depart early in the face of a $486 million increase in the projected losses for Fletchers’ troubled Building and Interiors (B&I) division on 16 major construction projects across the country.

‘‘It’s fair to the shareholders for somebody to take accountability,’’ Norris said on Wednesday, announcing his decision.

That statement, and everything else I’ve read and heard about his pending departure has a distinct air of martyrdom.

They all qualify his resignation by firmly assigning blame elsewhere.

It’s understandable Norris might feel the situation is unjust (as there is absolutely no suggestion any of it was of his making) but that’s the flip side of taking on the big jobs.

If you accept a high-profile role at the very top of a large company – and the accompanying status – then surely you have to accept the mess when it hits the fan too.

I may be doing the man a disservice but the impression I’m left with from this week’s events is one of begrudgingly muted selfdefence.

I feel that Norris really wants to shout ‘it’s not my fault’ from the rooftops (a bad choice of word perhaps given that it’s a problem with Fletcher’s rooftops, and other structures, that prompted the need for the shouting in the first place).

Of course I’m not saying that the Fletcher Building financial foul-up is of Norris’ making, but he’s the ultimate boss and it happened on his watch.

So he needs to step up and say ‘‘I apologise, this is not acceptable, I’ll do what I can to help fix it but I’m resigning my position’’. I haven’t heard that.

The message I’ve heard is ‘‘this all started before I arrived, it’s not my fault, I’ll step in to fix it and then I’ll quaintly fall on my sword because I’m an honourable chap and that’s what we do in this club’’.

I just bet there is chatter at the country’s top board tables along the lines of ‘‘Poor Ralph, he did the honourable thing’’ rather than, ‘‘Holy hell, how on earth did this happen, that was bad work from Ralph.’’

That sums up everything wrong about the corporate governance in this country.

Directors certainly like the accolades but they seem to take the ‘all care but no responsibility’ approach.

On the day of his resignation Norris said he knew the current situation would leave stigma attached to his name – but he then immediately followed up by saying that he hoped people would remember his successes (and there have been many in executive roles through the years) as his legacy.

He also pointed out that the Fletcher Building board would have fully backed him had he chosen to stay.

That doesn’t sounds like a person accepting responsibility to me.

It sounds like a person annoyed that they have unjustly been implicated in an unsavoury situation.

Given how many people Norris has helped and inspired during his outstanding executive career then I can understand that feeling but it still doesn’t sit right with me.

And it doesn’t set the example or standard that we need from directors to help our organisations – commercial and otherwise – flourish here and abroad.