Sustainable business A familybased mindset

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[Applause]

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welcome all and those here today

i’d like to start my talk today to

introduce you to

a beautiful maori creation narrative

this is a story that talks about how we

think and feel about our beginning

it starts off with ranginui and

papatuanuku holding each other tight in

the dark

between them many children were born

these children

tired of being in a dark cramped life

with their parents

and so they decided that they needed to

separate them

through much discussion tane mahuta

he stretched his legs up and he pushed

his father apart from his mother

pushing the father up into the sky to

become ranginui our sky father

and his mother down to the earth to

become papatunuku

or as we like to call her papa our earth

mother

as the light came in and the children

flourished

they took on different roles as gods and

in our beliefs

tane mahuta became the god of flora and

fauna

tangaroa became the god of sea and all

sea creatures

and there was a god tumatowinga who was

the god of man and war

and that is where we as humans descend

so as you can see in this creation

narrative is maori

we intrinsically believe that we are

connected

by what we call whakapapa or genealogy

as a family to not only ourselves as

humans

but the environment and all that is

around us

i liken this in the business world to be

called a family-based mindset

it’s a way that we think and act either

personally or professionally in all that

we do

we fully understand that the impacts our

actions have on others and those around

us

for every action there is a reaction

whether that be positive or negative

and we constantly trying to create

positive impact

for those around us that we love

i also liken it to being a feeling based

mindset

so we know how it feels when we do good

by the things that we love

we feel it in our hearts and in our

stomachs is maori

and so we bring that into our personal

and professional lives

we can at times of course employ

individualistic ways of thinking

but for us as maori that is a place that

we can survive

but we won’t thrive as individuals

we know that we can sustain that only

for a short period of time before we

need to bring in this family-based

mindset

where we actually not only survive but

we

also thrive as a people i’d like you to

take a moment just to pause and think

and think about those things that you

love and cherish

think about that wider than just your

family

think about the environment and all of

those things that make you feel good

for me it’s my family it’s being at the

beach

it’s things that are water-based it’s

the color blue

and it’s also great food those are the

things that i love

and often when i’m doing or being what i

do

i think about how i can impact those

positively and how good it makes me feel

it’s that feeling of goodness that we

have as maori is what we bring

that is unique into the business world

and especially that multi-layered

quite complex mindset we have about our

interrelationship with the environment

that is around us

let me share a story with you of an

entity that i had the privilege of being

involved with

it is a health-based entity in a tough

part of new zealand with a high needs

health demographic

across a 200 kilometer area delivering

health services

now this entity had a rich history of

providing great service to the people

over a long period of time

however through government policy and

funding changes

the entity started to become sick itself

as profits started to wayne

and so did its return to the people and

the services it delivered

so many minds were brought in to think

about this entity around what might the

solution be

in taking a pure profit focus the

consultants all said well it’s really

simple you downscale your services

to live within your means and you’ll

correct or balance your books

now we were really blessed as a group of

people to be asked to come on board to

help this

entity and its journey forward taking on

board that mindset but equally being

allowed to bring our own thoughts to the

fore

we’re really lucky that as a group of

maori with shared values and shared

vision we could bring a family

based mindset and a feelings based

mindset into how we

projected forward the strategy for

correcting that entity

now we knew we had to fix the profit

problem because that was a problem

and we did great strides over a three

year period

to get that right and to get the entity

to break even

but we didn’t do it in a way where we

reduced services

we did it in a way where we actually

asked to increase the funding

to allow us to deliver the services that

were in need

all the while we kept thinking of the

people on the journey and thinking well

if we’re going to correct these books

we need to make sure that the return to

the people is sustained and is there

now you might wonder why we did that and

why did we get

so involved it was many hours it was a

lot of voluntary work

to correct that organisation

well we were all fundamentally driven by

the fact that this

demographic of people had a really high

mortality rate

they died 10 years younger than the

average new zealander

in a new zealand context that means the

people were dying in their 60s

rather than in their 70s or early 80s

and these weren’t just any people for us

these are our whanau

these were our our parents our

grandparents our cousins

and for me personally my losing my

grandmother at 62

was at the time i was young and hadn’t

appreciated how young

she was but there was a big loss for my

family that was a loss of knowledge

that was a loss of her native language

for my family so i thought to myself

well

you know i need to get in and try and do

something to make this right

we strategized we brought in this

family-based feelings based mindset

we talk about a plan that balance the

people the planet and the profit

and i’m so proud that after a five-year

journey whilst we’d corrected the profit

piece

we were also bringing returns to the

people the journey continues on for that

entity

now that i have stepped down and and let

another colleague take my place in that

injury

the journey continues but they’re always

striving forward to bring returns for

the people

with the ultimate goal of lifting that

mortality rate

there was just a small story to share

with you around

how we actually bring to the fore this

thinking into all that we do

but i often think as a maori accountant

you know is this way of thinking and

being unique to maori

and often look back and i look at some

of our proverbs that we have

and it spoke to me that this is a real

natural inherent way of being

and the one i came across is

which is i am the environment and the

environment as me

but i further thought about that and

thought well are we the only

culture or people out there that think

like this and one day i happen to

stumble across this quote

from albert einstein a profound thinker

who says some of the most simplest

statements but this for me summed it up

a human being is part of the whole

called by us universe

a part limited in time and space he

experiences himself his thoughts and

feelings as something separated from the

rest

a kind of optical delusion of his

consciousness

this delusion is a kind of prison for us

restricting us to our personal desires

into affection for a few persons nearest

to us

our task must be to free ourselves from

this prison by widening our circle of

compassion

to embrace all living creatures and the

whole of nature and its beauty

nobody is able to achieve this

completely but the striving for such

achievement is in itself

a part of the liberation and a

foundation for inner security

when i came across that statement i had

an epiphany

that this is what we have inherent in us

as maori

while swim hat might have people

challenge our beliefs and try and pull

us into this individualistic way of

thinking

we always have a natural way of coming

back to thinking of ourselves as one

with the universe

and it really spoke to me then about

that good feeling that i get

when i’m working collectively and doing

great work with the whole and taking

everyone

on the journey or part of the journey as

a larger group

so then i also had the privilege of

becoming part of a group who could then

say

well if this is how we thought and this

is how profound thinkers think

what’s actually happening out in the

maori market

this year we ran a survey and we just

asked those in business at the front

line how they were going how they were

thinking and what were they doing

and the feedback was subtle but clear

they felt really comfortable that they

were nailing the

return to the planet and the people but

they could see a gap a gap in

the way they were being is that they

weren’t as focused on the profit piece

and the global pandemic taught them that

to not have a fully sustainable platform

with any one of those three out of line

means that you could either be

in or out of business quite quick we

have something here in new zealand which

does surprise me

when people are surprised about it it’s

called in new zealand the tall poppy

syndrome

so we don’t often talk about profits and

we don’t like to promote or put

ourselves

above others so it’s a very

uncomfortable conversation for us to

have

but i’m really proud of my people that

in the global pandemic they saw that

this is an area that they need to work

on

and so they instantly fix their sites to

say how can we correct this to make sure

we’re resilient for the future

it’ll be interesting to see we’ll run a

survey next year to see how the market

fed

the global pandemic is still playing out

and everyone is in the midst of it

so what strategies are employed and what

worked we’ll find out next year and i

really look forward to that

one thing that i did become aware of

though is that on a global perspective

people typically had a pure profit focus

quite high and

i see her moving towards bringing that

down and lifting up the people and

planet focus

so i’d like to hope that today by

sharing the story

of the people out there learning that

maori do the inverse of what is

happening globally

that you might learn something from our

story today and take away a piece of

that

to help you in your thinking and how you

act in business

so what i would ask you to do before i

close off today is to take a moment to

think about those things that you love

and how good it feels to do good by them

bring that thinking and feeling into

your business and think about

how your business actions and decisions

are when you’re at the forefront of

providing services or bringing products

to market and what impact that that will

have for future generations

which will be your children your

grandchildren your great grandchildren

and your great great grandchildren

think about what legacy you want to

leave for them i’ll close the session

with

a very short proverb from the maori

world that

i really love that speaks to the

gratitude that we often bring forth

and that is just to say that this talk

today

really is

today’s talk is just a small thing given

with love

go well be safe thank you for listening

you