When Jim Hoolihan stepped in as Blandin Foundation President in 2004, he brought with him Jim Collin’s book “Good to Great” and engaged the foundation staff and board in a discussion of “What is the foundation’s hedgehog?” Collins got the term from Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” which Berlin had in turn developed from an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
According to Collins, the Hedgehog Concept is the secret of taking any organization or enterprise from Good to Great. It is found at the intersection of three circles:
As global competition continues to challenge Minnesota’s forest products industry, policy makers and practitioners have a timely opportunity to ask: what is the hedgehog for Minnesota’s forests?
This conversation has already started. The October meeting of the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce’s Forestry Affairs Committee included a discussion of outcomes of the Minnesota Forest Resource Partnership’s October 16-17 Productivity Conference. Allison Rajala asked, “But do we have a shared common understanding of what we mean by “productivity?” Is it boards and cords and volume of fiber? Or is it something else?”
This question got raised again a week or so later at an initial gathering of a group of folks who have signed on to participate in a study tour project with the foundation that we’re calling: “Seeing the Forest AND the Trees: How to Make the Most of Minnesota’s Woods.” The year long effort will involve study tours in the Great Lakes region and in Scandinavia. The project was originally framed around “improving forest productivity,” and as such we hope it can provide additional arms and legs and hearts and minds for the important work the Minnesota Forest Resources Partnership (MFRP) has undertaken with its productivity conference series. The Forest AND the Trees group is just getting started, and we’re at the stage of refining our learning objectives.
Project staff asked tour participants for feedback on several draft key learning objectives, including this one:
- We want to learn (from what we see in Scandinavia) how to maximize growth/yield while ensuring biologically diverse and sustainable forests.
Carlton Owen, one of the study tour participants, spoke up right away to say that he thought we were barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.
Carlton, who had joined us from Greenville South Carolina, is President and CEO of the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities. The Endowment was created in late 2006 with a commitment of $200 million arising from a softwood lumber trade agreement between Canada and the U.S.
Reminding us that the forest products industry is now a globalized sector, Carlton pointed out that given Minnesota’s soils and climate, our state will never be able to compete globally on yield, or on any quantitative measure of productivity.
Minnesota’s forestry hedgehog, he proposed, was not in quantity of wood or fiber harvested, but in the quality of the trees grown and the quality of the products made from those trees.
What do you think?
Please leave a reply below and share with us YOUR definition of “forest productivity.” Or any other thoughts you may have about Minnesota’s forestry hedgehog.
November 15, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Glad to finally see the issue of “quality” vs “quantity” start to be addressed – next I’d like to see a discussion as to “why” we think that we HAVE TO compete with the global market. That’s just absurd. I would much rather see quality wood & wood products grown & sold WITHIN the state of Minnesota, rather than having to buy imported wood & wood products from other countries. Seems to me that we have enough of a need at home for our “locally grown & processed” wood & should seriously think about serving the folks at home FIRST before shipping our own products overseas at a lower price. All this goes along with the “Local Foods” campaigns – let’s carry it further to include “Local Wood”. I am sick & tired of being forced to buy inferior cheap products from far away places (because that’s the only “choice” in the marketplace). Give us a REAL CHOICE!
November 16, 2007 at 1:07 am
the ideal logging situation for me means, providing continual transition zones for wildlife, southern hardwoods or north woods pulp, the quality comes from getting harvestable, saleable lumber out of the woods, to start the next generation, and optimum wildlife habitat, don’t get me wrong, i’d leave a few snags and choice trees, but like you all know, you’d never let a cornfield go without pickin it
November 16, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Please consider including “maximization of the carbon sequestration potential of our forests, our forest soils and our forest products” in the definition of forest productively. Thanks,
November 16, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I agree with Carol Jacobs. Lester Brown says we may have reached global peak oil production. Transportation costs are going to change the global market. Locally grown, locally processed and locally consumed will be the key productivity principles. With that in mind, we need to not only manage for diversity in our forests, but maintain a diverse forest industry. We need to produce trees, wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, clean air, clean water, pulp, dimension lumber, composite building products, chemicals, fuel, and value-added products and try to do it within 100 miles of the market.
November 17, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Excellent comments all. Carol and Harvey are right on. Thomas Friedman’s “Flat World” notwithstanding, the so-called global economy is about to hit an enormous speed bump in the form of higher and ever-increasing transportation fuel costs, as well as energy costs in general. We need to do everything we can to develop local markets and a local (state or regional) economy that has the resilience to withstand the coming economic shocks.
November 20, 2007 at 9:59 am
“I am sick & tired of being forced to buy inferior cheap products from far away places (because that’s the only “choice” in the marketplace). Give us a REAL CHOICE!”
I can’t agree with this. You are not forced to buy anything. However, most people do not throw away money to make a statement, most favor cheaper goods. If you want folks to buy local, make local cheaper. Make local competitive.
December 3, 2007 at 4:12 pm
The MFRP was very clear in how it defined “productivity” for the conference in October. It was to improve the quality, quantity and availability of wood fiber in an environmentally responsible manner. The Partnership’s initiative to address forest productivity was done in response to recommendations from the July 2003 Governor’s Advisory Task Force Report on the Competitiveness of Minnesota’s Primary Forest Products Industry. One recommendation was to “Increase investments directed at improving state, county, and private forest health and productivity” and another was to “Increase wood and fiber availability, quality, and production from public and private lands while continuing to protect the environment”.
Mr. Owen is right, Minnesota can’t compete globally in quantity of fiber production. But according to the Governor’s Advisory Task Force Report, Minnesota’s forests are producing fiber at only 30% of their potential capacity, mortality is 58% of annual growth, 8% of our forest, as a percentage of total volume, is classified as “rough” or “rotten” (unmerchantible for value added processing) and only 17% of our forest, as a percentage of total volume, qualifies for a lumber grade of 1 or 2. So, increased productivity and improved quality are vitally important in Minnesota.
But all the productivity improvements in the world are of little value if the fiber isn’t available to industry. The Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Timber Harvesting, published in 1994, indicated that Minnesota’s forests could produce about 5.5 million cords annually on a sustainable basis with the timber harvesting mitigations that have been in place since 1996. Yet according to DNR reports on timber harvesting we harvest only about 3.5 million cords annually while the industrial demand is about 4.5 million cords annually (prior to recent mill closures and production slow down due to the faltering housing construction industry). This supply/demand imbalance led directly to Minnesota having some of the highest stumpage costs in the entire world.
I was a member of the planning committee for the MFRP’s productivity conference and am a member of the Grand Rapids Forestry Affairs Committee. I believe there was no misunderstanding in either of these groups that “forest productivity” means increased wood and fiber production, improved fiber quality and greater availability from Minnesota’s forestland.
Unfortunately, Minnesota’s “forest hedgehog” is a complex beast and it will take more than “one big thing” to take it from “Good” to “Great”. But there is no doubt that forest productivity is part of the solution.
December 12, 2007 at 1:47 pm
All very good thoughts. A bit of clarity, the MFRP purposefully chose Timber Productivity as the focus of the Timber Productivity conferences. We have opportunities to increas both timber and forest productivity if we are willing to invest. We are involved in a global market, like it or not, but I believe our future is based on quality and diversity. Transportation costs will drive the global/local issue.
March 30, 2008 at 5:24 pm
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