The Man From M.C.K.I.N.S.E.Y.
By David MacGregor,
Idealog September/October 2007, page 60. Photograph by Steve Rood
Many New Zealanders find they learn most about their country by living somewhere else for a while. Steven Carden is no exception: after three years in New York with McKinsey & Co, he returned to Godzone with some new ideas about our past, our future and our place on the planet. But unlike most New Zealanders, Carden has put his thoughts into a book: New Zealand Unleashed, subtitled ‘The country, its future and the people who will get it there’. meets the man behind the message
The author of New Zealand Unleashed looks worryingly young. Surely somebody writing a prescription for the future direction of New Zealand should have been round the business block?
I shouldn’t have judged the author by his cover. Law school in Auckland … established the First Foundation … tapped on the shoulder as a future leader … Steven Carden was a high achiever even before he wrote his book. True, he did work on the ill-conceived Internet venture Flying Pig as a cohort of Stefan Preston (now managing director of Bendon), but he managed to get out before it inevitably went pork-belly-up. Then it was off to the United States to complete a Harvard MBA. With that behind him, Carden went to work at consulting firm McKinsey & Co in its New York offices. He now works out of the Auckland branch.
The matter of what a consultant does has been bugging me for years. Here lies the big opportunity to dispel the joke that a consultant borrows your watch then tells you the time. So I ask, and get the answer: “Consultants write reports for their clients to assist in their decision-making process.” Okay, so now I know.
We get down to discussing the book. The concept of New Zealand Unleashed reflects much of the ideology of Idealog, particularly the notion that, collectively, we need to adapt the New Zealand economy and diversify our outputs to reduce reliance on primary production.
The content of the book could be viewed as a little theoretical. It arcs over all sorts of areas from social theories, historical snapshots, entropy and chaos—you name it.
“I’ve tried to talk about New Zealand in a way that is different from how most people normally think about the country,” says Carden. “That involved invoking history, biology, chaos theory, psychology, and so on. Inevitably that requires some theory. I actually think that strengthens the book, because it provides an intellectual platform for it. Otherwise it would just be me throwing out my opinions—and then who can have any confidence that what I was saying has any validity to it? I knew that in order for a book of this sort to be taken seriously, it had to be heavily researched.”
It is that. I was impressed by the references to Ottoman siege strategies and the artillery technology of the 19th century. Joining existing things in unlikely ways is the basis of creativity, after all.
It soon becomes apparent that Carden is a remarkably reasonable person. No flinty, harsh edges protrude and yet it’s plain that he is ambitious—he hasn’t shied from sticking his head above the parapet. So why has he returned to New Zealand so young? Was it to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond?
“I think that in many respects it’s easier to rise up the career ladder in corporate America, because the number of organisations looking for people with my skills and training is disproportionately large,” he says. “It also helps being a New Zealander overseas because people give you the benefit of the doubt, the accent makes you sound smarter—at least Americans think so—and you have a different way of thinking and communicating that can prove valuable. So moving back to New Zealand doesn’t necessarily represent an easier career path—for me at least.”
Publishing a book doesn’t make it any easier. Reviewers such as Roger Kerr of the Business Round Table have a common element of ‘Who do you think you are (whippersnapper)?’ Kim Hill was certainly dismissive on the radio, suggesting that Carden is just an earnest young man. But commercial creativity is a very public act. An artist may create, then step back and allow her curators to take up the cudgels; but to generate interest the business author has to front up to the media. No Et Al-style indifference will be permitted and, of course, writing reports for clients is different to writing a book— particularly one that has the temerity to be prescriptive. What challenges has Carden faced?
“I wondered if I was qualified to write New Zealand Unleashed every single day for the last two-and-a-half years,” he answers. “I’m sure there are people better qualified to write it than me. Unfortunately they have never got around to doing so.
“I found it immensely challenging writing this book—all aspects of it, from the idea generation, to the research, to the writing. Worst was all the editing—knowing what to cut, how to reformulate a sentence and so on. Having written this book I have a tremendous respect for people who write for a living.
“If a review is negative, my first reaction is to be flattered that the reviewer actually read the book. My second reaction is to want to deliver a vicious public rebuttal. That reaction normally takes about a week to subside … when you’ve worked this hard on something that ends up in public, it’s hard not to take the criticism personally. I guess that is something those in the creative sector must continually confront.”
There’s something else that needs to be confronted: who is the mysterious co-author Campbell Murray? A ghost writer? No; it turns out Murray is a buddy from Harvard who had “a big impact on the idea generation and much of the early research, particularly on the extraordinary progress occurring in nanotechnology, genomics, and information technology”.
It’s nice to see collaborators being credited; nice too to see that smart, well-educated people are coming back to New Zealand, at least as a base—a workable scenario to repatriate expats. Live here and work in the world.
According to Carden: “I can well imagine fairly regular stints overseas during the course of my career. When New Zealanders do that it is healthy for their career and it’s healthy for New Zealand. It means the country is regularly injecting people into the flow of global ideas. But I’ll always return to New Zealand, because it’s the country to which I genuinely feel a belonging.”
Oddly enough he omitted to mention that in the book.
Comments
Marcello
Not available yet on Amazon UK - any chance to get a copy off shore?
Any suggestion welcome.
Thx
Matt Cooney
I thought Fishpond.co.nz would have it, but apparently not. You could probably order it from HomebizBuzz or booksnz.
http://www.homebizbuzz.co.nz/shop/product_info.php?products_id=375
http://www.books-newzealand.co.nz/xcart/product.php?productid=2381&cat=59&page=1
If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll contact Random House.
Denver
Between Mckinsey, Goldman Sachs, Bain, Booz Allen, the FED, and JP Morgan exists an incredible functional network of alumni of these financial elite in academics, NGO's, MNCorps, and Government Politicians. There is no republic to be found anywhere, these guys make all the decisions.
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