A Practical Approach

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

It’s the saying I live and lead by. Good systems matter. They free leaders to spend time with their people. But a system is only as strong as the culture underneath it, and culture is built on trust, one conversation at a time.

I saw this most clearly when I took my team at Visionwest on a Te Tiriti journey. I didn’t start with a policy or a training plan. I started with whanaungatanga, building relationships and the kind of trust where people felt safe to be honest, including about their hesitations. Some came with real resistance, for all sorts of reasons. But because the trust was already there, people chose to step into the journey rather than being pushed into it. That choice made all the difference. What could have been a box-ticking exercise became something the team genuinely embraced.

For me, these things can’t be pulled apart. Trust shapes culture. Culture decides whether our systems and commitments are lived or just written down. And honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi is one of the clearest tests of that: policies can say the right things, but it’s culture that decides whether we live them. Like the channels of a braided river, each strand keeps flowing back into the others.

That’s the heart of how I work: strengthening the foundations and the people who bring them to life. Every step below pays as much attention to people as to process.

My part in Te Tiriti work is helping leaders, especially Pākehā leaders, start and grow healthy conversations. For deeper work, I refer you to Māori who are best placed to guide it.