Systems Dynamics on the Hollyford Track.

A week ago, I was incredibly privileged to be able to walk the Hollyford Track. The trip had been organised so the Ngai Tahu film crew (Sam and Sampson) could shoot some fresh footage to assist with marketing the Hollyford Track experience. Michèle, my wife works for Ngai Tahu tourism in finance, so that’s how I was lucky enough to get an invite. And a big thank you and shout out to Adam, the Hollyford GM. He was a brilliant host. And what an invite it turned out to be.

They say seeing is believing. That will never be more true than when it comes to hiking the Hollyford Track. Experiencing a UNESCO world heritage listed area up close and personal is very special. The Hollyford Track is an absolute bucket list opportunity. It is a gem. It is unique, beautiful, stunning, tranquil, awe-inspiring, amazing, unexpected, breathtaking, and in some ways…even life-changing. To me the Hollyford exudes the quintessential essence that helps define New Zealand. Big landscapes punctuated with mountains, rivers, forests, epic scale, untouched beauty, and amazing life, all wrapped up in a pristine natural environment. I felt like I was peering into the countries soul. If you slow down and breathe in you will feel its heart beating beneath your feet. Here was genuine wilderness and it was right in front of my eyes. There is no other place on earth like Fiordland.?

As I wandered along in my new Scarpa boots I started to work up a thirst. Our timing was perfect. It was t-shirt weather on the track. Our super knowledgeable guide Bard said, “Fill up your water bottles anywhere you like. The water is beautiful.” And it was. I mean it really was. Cool, pure, refreshing, and delicious. Dare I say special again. The perfect natural output from a perfect natural system. Our journey into New Zealand’s wilderness continued.

The smallest orchid in the world here, an amazing mountain vista there, and here is a 500 year old Tōtara symbolising growth (the good kind) and life. The big tree’s forest friends included other podocarp trees such as rimu, kahikatea, miro, and mataī. They were all spectacular. The stories they could tell. Bard punctuated our trip with the history of Pakeha and early Māori, highlighting the challenges of the day on many fronts. His narrative highlighted how human beings in general bring a unique ability to impact the environments they inhabit. These impacts to me emulated feedbacks in a system, which of course, they were. Systems can be sustainable or they can be set to overshoot, in which case they collapse. As it turns out humans have a choice, environments do not.

What I’m trying to describe here is my own personal experience in a very rare natural system that is operating in perfect harmony and balance. The event that probably tipped my happy endorphins over the edge was getting up before dawn on day two and heading down to the river in front of Martins Bay lodge. Bard had suggested at dinner the previous evening that the birdsong was worth a listen too because it was amazing and like nowhere else. Understatement of the year. It was a beautiful symphonic sound that amplified across the river with such force that it triggered my anthropological memory. An incredible highlight. The next time I hear a quiet New Zealand forest I’ll know the natural system is compromised.

What’s the point here? For me it’s about learning from nature, which offers us the potential to view our world differently. For example, the human strategy of pursuing growth and more growth has reached its limit. Resources are finite. Nature shows us another way. Embracing less growth is totally counterintuitive but such a mindset can lead to designing a perfectly tuned and balanced marketing system. One which is capable of building a productive future for New Zealanders without negatively impacting the systems that balance the water we drink and the air we breathe. Less is almost certainly more…or it could be if we set our talents to building marketing systems for the purpose of capturing value instead of championing selling systems that relentlessly, perhaps even hopelessly, pursue volume.

Sadly, from where I stand I see millions of dollars being poured into the research and development of efficiency and optimisation strategies that many hope will somehow sustain growth. Unfortunately, as Jay, Dana, and many other brilliant people have pointed out, they won’t. What the Hollyford Track teaches those paying attention is resources are finite and healthy systems live inside the tolerances of natural adaptation designed to respond to system feedbacks to maintain a healthy balance.?

Dana Meadows once said, “The world’s leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to virtually all problems, but they’re pushing with all their might in the wrong direction.” Jay Forrester, the founder of systems dynamics used the word ‘counterintuitive’ to describe complex systems. He believed that leverage points were not intuitive. Or if they were, we intuitively used them backwards, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve.

In this week’s New Zealand Herald, John Gascoigne wrote, “A nation’s living standards are determined by its national income and the number of people sharing the national income. For example, as a nation with a $500b economy equitably shared by five million people New Zealand would rank in the top five nations on the planet in per capita income. Under that scenario all New Zealanders could reasonably anticipate a very comfortable retirement because it would easily be affordable.”?

To my mind that’s a super interesting concept and helping make that happen spins my wheels.What an awesome aspiration. Imagine living in that New Zealand. I can’t help thinking…it could be done. It is possible. If it can be conceived, it can be achieved. Here’s the counterintuitive bit. How much of what New Zealand sells to the world right now is under-valued? How much value have the country’s exporters not captured? Now, ask yourself why is that? And that’s where the elements of the Hollyford system and a value capture marketing system fuse. A balanced value-capturing system would be designed to operate on information, not price, and that reduces much of the risk associated with speculation. And that could be truly game-changing, but that’s another story.?

Ends.