We had an excellent turn out of passionate locals who were very happy to step into the question of what needs sorting in the Bay of Plenty.

The overall takeaway points, when broken down, were these:

• The lack of collaboration in Aotearoa was a definite theme that emerged, with the resulting impact being an inability to scale enterprises. The question that this left me with is, ‘why are we not embracing collaboration as a nation’?
• This also led to conversation around the lack of resources – resources being stretched between too many entities. The energy market, for example, replicates services in a country that is very small.
• The lack of scalability, and the mentality that we just don’t understand what it takes to scale is an issue.
• On a smaller scale, there was dialogue on: how do we lift the productivity of SMEs? Matters like a lack of digital capability in SMEs, and a real concern that there is not a system like ACC to help employees/employers cope with mental health crises.
• COVID has exposed how vulnerable the Bay of Plenty is to seasonal workers, and shone the light on how poorly they have been treated in the past.
• And finally – the education system came into question with a number of people present opting to home-school their children, as a result of not being happy with what the current curriculum is delivering.

 
It was a very lively lunch meeting!

That was our last stop for 2020. We’ll kick-off these roadshow events again in the New Year in the South. Stop by our website events page to see when tickets go live.

#2 AUCKLAND – hosted by The Mind Lab – 17 November – 8 attendees – facilitated by Ian Harvey

Thanks Auckland for a warm welcome! We sought to understand what frustrations people have and explore how we can collectively, learn our way into the future.

For our Auckland group, frustrations centred around:

• The limited collaboration between not-for-profit organisations and a disinclination towards monetizing their work, which ultimately limits their ability to achieve their vision / mission. There is great opportunity for NFPs to partner /collaborate, and/or to explore social enterprise.
• Not increasing the retirement age to avoid placing unnecessary social, economic and financial pressures on people as they age. Ageism is alive and well in the labour market and many older people find it difficult to secure employment, particularly if they’ve been made redundant or are required to make a career change due to their health as they near retirement. If the age increase does goes ahead, systemic change will be required in anticipation.
• The various barriers preventing people from entering and moving freely within the NZ housing market.

 
The conversation then dipped into matters relating to Collective Intelligence and our Impact Teams initiative, with the key takeaways being:

For Collective Intelligence as an organisation to:

• Draw on members of the Collective Intelligence whānau to promote membership/opportunities where appropriate and valuable, e.g. having younger members promote Collective Intelligence to bring in younger members, and of particular importance, having Māori members connect with the Māori community to increase Māori membership numbers and promote scholarships. Overall, there is great potential to live the Collective Intelligence ethos and enhance our collective impact by actively bringing members of the community into the planning, ideation and action of all things Collective Intelligence – rather than this being done internally / centrally.
• Ensure that Collective Intelligence operates in a way that honours the principles of the Treaty in complete partnership with Māori. This should start with a workshop with Māori Collective Intelligence members to explore what this would/should look like in practice.

 
For our Impact Teams initiative to:

• Maintain a minimum of 5 team members in a team – which is important for diversity of perspectives and skill sets. It was discussed that Māori should always participate in the teams, and that the goal should be to ensure there are enough Māori in the Collective Intelligence whānau that there would naturally / automatically be Māori representation there (so we can move past having to ensure there is Māori ‘representation’ there). It is also critical to ensure that as the impact teams move around the country, the appropriate people engage with the local tāngata whenua, and it would be great if members of that iwi/hapū participate in the team to ensure the local people and perspective are represented.
• Devote further thinking to whether non-members should be incorporated into Collective Intelligence Impact Teams. Some concerns were raised about whether those who are brought in will operate according to Collective Intelligence principles, and it was suggested that if the skills and experience needed does not already exist within the Collective Intelligence whānau, then there is work to be done to ensure there is.
• Be aware of the importance of laying the groundwork in terms of whakawhanaungatanga / building relatedness among an Impact Team before they go into an organisation and ensure that the facilitators can do this quickly but effectively.

 
Thanks to everyone in the Auckland crew for stepping up and giving a voice to what’s possible what needs to change and where we can focus our efforts (sorry we got carried away and didn’t get a photo of you all).

Check out our next roadshow stop via our website events page.

#1 HAMILTON – hosted by Soda Inc – 13 October – 10 attendees – facilitated by Ian Harvey

In this, our kick-off session, the conversation flowed really nicely, with lots of energy, much of it fuelled by frustration around the inaction by key institutions in Aotearoa.

The key takeaways were:

• The oil and water relationships between Central Government and business-lead organisations was a major conversation thread. Wastage of resources by DHB’s came to the fore as well.
• There is a disconnect between Māori and Pākēhā initiatives, and more work is needed to identify how we can become more coordinated between key stakeholders.
• An interesting discussion was had about the fact that many policies can be greater than six times more beneficial for people over 65 years of age, than they are for younger people. Mainly because policies are often drafted by older people. The frustration of the older generation making all the important decisions came up several times in our session.
• Harv got a wonderful challenge about his privilege, by not noticing how Government policies affected him so much. Ouch.
• Harv heard about Universal Basic Services for the first time in this meeting. Something for us all to look into more.
• There is definite progress being seen in who is joining Regional Councils at the board level, and what they can achieve.
• Living in a house that is killing you, is a very real thing – and while there are solutions to this issue, not enough progress is being made.
• Duplication of services, especially in sport, got some air time.
• And finally the lack of ‘just doing something’ at a local level, was also a common theme.

 
Much food for thought there. We want to understand what the common themes of frustration people have around the country and explore how we can collectively, learn our way into the future. We’ve a new tool in our tool kit called Impact Teams. It’s designed to disrupt the traditional consulting model as we can quickly mobilise a team, create a focus, and design a inquiry process that will break down barriers, create more clarity of action, and ultimately enhance the effectiveness of a company or organisation’s efforts to change. Watch this space!

Thanks to everyone in the Hamilton crew pictured for stepping up and giving a voice to what’s possible. Check out our next roadshow stop via our website events page.