Parsley, I know you’ve dropped the Wednesday with White threads. Perhaps this forum is not the best means or place to make the Board’s CEO accountable to farmers. I can accept that. But at some level accountability is legitimate and should matter. CEO’s, if not directly accountable to shareholders, nevertheless are responsible for providing truthful and relevant answers to legitimate questions and concerns.
So I’m going to ask the question. Is anybody else underwhelmed by the new CEO at the Canadian Wheat Board?
I have to honestly say I had much higher expectations. Supposedly Mr. White has literally a world of experience running marketing agencies and merchandising agricultural products. He ought to know apples from oranges; fish from fowl. He should know when he is being spun, especially by his own subordinates.
I’ve carefully observed his response to two recent analytical reports dealing with the performance of the CWB. I’m disheartened and disappointed. Both the Informa analysis and the CD Howe report, while taking different approaches and looking at the performance from distinctly different angles, compare results in relevant and significant ways. No matter what the results were the comparisons would be meaningful. But I get the distinct feeling that had the outcome of the measurements been different, the response would have been different. We need, for example, to know how sales values of Canadian wheat measures up against values of similar competitor product in the same marketplace when backed off to the farm. It is important to measure the efficiency of the entire handling and transportation system as indicated through farm gate returns for non-board vs. board grains. Valid valid stuff.
Yet what I am seeing from Mr. White is just more of the same deception and specious rhetoric that came from the mouth of his predecessor, Mr. Measner. The cool-aid must be irresistible. It’s not good enough to predictably and instantly condemn EVERY outside performance measurement just because you don’t like the questions. Or the comparisons. Or the answers. The complaint that the “assumptions are invalid” has become very very stale. On this farm, these comparative assessments are EXTREMELY relevant, and in an increasingly competitive world, very important.
Isn’t it time Mr. White got out of his defensive posture at 423 Main Street and stopped defending the indefensible - stopped instantaneously lashing out every time someone dares to compare? Just once it would do his credibility good to acknowledge that farmers, agri-business, and - yes, even market analysts and economists - have valid ideas and relevant measurements. But his already predictable, defensive, and dismissive response to every criticism is hackneyed and tiresome.
It should be very easy to challenge the lame excuses and irrelevant arguments that come from the floors below him. And if he cannot control the spin department, he should at least distance himself from the transparent and rhetorical spin that just as night follows day, expectedly comes out of it.
Mr. White - not a leader in my books, and a big big disappointment. And where is the Board of Directors? Are they satisfied he’s leading the organization, or like me, do they see the organization leading him?
So I’m going to ask the question. Is anybody else underwhelmed by the new CEO at the Canadian Wheat Board?
I have to honestly say I had much higher expectations. Supposedly Mr. White has literally a world of experience running marketing agencies and merchandising agricultural products. He ought to know apples from oranges; fish from fowl. He should know when he is being spun, especially by his own subordinates.
I’ve carefully observed his response to two recent analytical reports dealing with the performance of the CWB. I’m disheartened and disappointed. Both the Informa analysis and the CD Howe report, while taking different approaches and looking at the performance from distinctly different angles, compare results in relevant and significant ways. No matter what the results were the comparisons would be meaningful. But I get the distinct feeling that had the outcome of the measurements been different, the response would have been different. We need, for example, to know how sales values of Canadian wheat measures up against values of similar competitor product in the same marketplace when backed off to the farm. It is important to measure the efficiency of the entire handling and transportation system as indicated through farm gate returns for non-board vs. board grains. Valid valid stuff.
Yet what I am seeing from Mr. White is just more of the same deception and specious rhetoric that came from the mouth of his predecessor, Mr. Measner. The cool-aid must be irresistible. It’s not good enough to predictably and instantly condemn EVERY outside performance measurement just because you don’t like the questions. Or the comparisons. Or the answers. The complaint that the “assumptions are invalid” has become very very stale. On this farm, these comparative assessments are EXTREMELY relevant, and in an increasingly competitive world, very important.
Isn’t it time Mr. White got out of his defensive posture at 423 Main Street and stopped defending the indefensible - stopped instantaneously lashing out every time someone dares to compare? Just once it would do his credibility good to acknowledge that farmers, agri-business, and - yes, even market analysts and economists - have valid ideas and relevant measurements. But his already predictable, defensive, and dismissive response to every criticism is hackneyed and tiresome.
It should be very easy to challenge the lame excuses and irrelevant arguments that come from the floors below him. And if he cannot control the spin department, he should at least distance himself from the transparent and rhetorical spin that just as night follows day, expectedly comes out of it.
Mr. White - not a leader in my books, and a big big disappointment. And where is the Board of Directors? Are they satisfied he’s leading the organization, or like me, do they see the organization leading him?
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