Orientation Before Action: The Wisdom of Matariki

While the United States recently marked the 250th anniversary of its founding, New Zealand has just celebrated something shaped by more than a thousand years of accumulated Māori wisdom.

Over the past weekend, communities across Aotearoa gathered to observe Matariki, the Māori New Year. Recognised as a national public holiday only since 2022, Matariki is nevertheless rooted in centuries of Māori knowledge and Polynesian navigation. Marked by the annual rising of the Matariki star cluster, known elsewhere as the Pleiades, it signals not simply the beginning of a new year, but a moment to pause, reflect and renew.

For readers beyond New Zealand, Matariki may appear to be simply another cultural celebration. But it is much more than that. Matariki reflects a worldview in which human wellbeing, the natural environment and future generations are perceived not as competing priorities but as parts of an interconnected whole. It is a philosophy that has shaped Māori society for generations and one that, once understood, feels remarkably relevant to many of the challenges confronting organisations, governments and communities today.

Before encouraging us to look forward, Matariki asks us first to stop. To remember those who have passed. To give thanks for what has been. To reconnect with one another and with the world around us. Only then does it invite us to consider the future. In a world that prizes momentum above almost everything else, Matariki quietly reminds us that the quality of our direction matters far more than the speed of our progress.

Looking back on my first full year back in New Zealand, that is a thought that has been reinforced for me several times.

In September last year I wrote about the quiet authority of the Māori queen Te Arikinui Kuīni Ngā Wai hono i te Pō and the way her leadership embodies values such as humility, stewardship and collective responsibility rather than personal prominence. More recently, while reviewing Kate Raworth’s ‘The Evolving Doughnut’, I was reminded that many of the principles underpinning Doughnut Economics draw upon Māori thinking, where social, ecological, spiritual and economic wellbeing are understood as inseparable rather than independent pursuits.

Those observations have prompted me to think more deeply about New Zealand itself. Having lived and worked in several countries, I have increasingly come to believe that every nation possesses a distinctive contribution to make to our understanding of leadership and society. Britain has long prized its institutions. America has often been defined by optimism, entrepreneurship and individual opportunity. New Zealand’s gift, I believe, lies elsewhere. It is an instinctive appreciation that people, communities, nature and future generations cannot be separated from one another without diminishing them all.

That perspective finds expression through concepts such as whanaungatanga (relationships), manaakitanga (care and generosity towards others), kaitiakitanga (guardianship of people and place) and kotahitanga (unity). These are not simply cultural ideals to be admired from afar. They are practical principles that shape everyday decisions. They remind us that leadership begins not with authority or ambition but with responsibility, and that before deciding what to do, we should first understand who we are, where we stand and what we exist to serve.

The more I reflect upon these ideas, the more I recognise how they must have influenced my own thinking when I conceived Single Organising Idea (SOI®) during my first term in New Zealand between 2002 and 2009. At the time I was simply looking for a way organisations could identify and define a way of aligning strategy, culture and brand management with decision-making. Looking back, however, I suspect that this wonderful country and its people influenced me more profoundly than I realised.

For centuries, Polynesian navigators crossed vast expanses of open ocean by reading the stars. The stars did not tell them every decision they needed to make, nor did they eliminate uncertainty. What they provided was orientation. They offered a constant point of reference against which every course adjustment could be made.

It strikes me that this is where Matariki offers one of its most important lessons for contemporary leadership. Modern organisations can be exceptionally good at planning. They produce strategies, targets, milestones and implementation plans with impressive sophistication. Yet many still struggle to answer a simpler question: What ultimately guides our decisions?

Strategy determines where an organisation intends to go. Purpose, on the other hand, ensures it never loses sight of why the journey matters. A Single Organising Idea does not prescribe every decision; rather, it provides the enduring point of reference against which every decision can be judged. Like the navigators of old, organisations still encounter changing conditions, unexpected obstacles and difficult choices. What matters is not that every decision is perfect, but that every decision remains oriented towards the same enduring purpose.

Increasingly, this is also the direction of travel for modern governance. The forthcoming ISO 37011 guidance on purpose-driven governance encourages organisations to create and protect value in ways that contribute to the long-term wellbeing of all people and the planet, rather than focusing solely on financial performance or shareholder returns. Likewise, Doughnut Economics challenges us to measure success not simply by economic output but by our ability to enable human flourishing within planetary boundaries. Both point towards a more integrated understanding of value and one that Māori thinking has long embraced.

Uncovering Matariki’s link to my work and my core message around the power of purpose resonated but the reason it really touched me is more poignant.

One of its most moving traditions is the remembrance of those who have died since the previous rising of the stars. Before looking towards the future, communities first acknowledge those whose lives continue to shape their own. It is a deeply human act, recognising that memory is not an obstacle to progress but part of it. This year, I found myself quietly thinking of Joanne who I miss deeply.

Matariki reminded me that remembrance, love, gratitude and hope for the future are not separate emotions. They exist together, even in loss: We remember before we renew. We reflect before we resolve and we orient ourselves before we move forward.

In business we often speak of purpose as though it were another management technique or competitive advantage. Matariki suggests something richer. Purpose is not something we invent. It is something we discover through our relationships, our responsibilities and the contribution we choose to make to the world around us. Strategy then becomes not merely a plan for achieving success but a means of honouring that purpose through consistent action.
What I have ultimately learnt is that Matariki is about orientation. It reminds us that progress without reflection is simply movement; that prosperity without stewardship is ultimately self-defeating; and that purpose is less about declaring ambitious intentions than quietly orienting our daily decisions towards something greater than ourselves.

For organisations, that may be the difference between having a strategy and possessing a genuine sense of direction. For nations, it may be the difference between economic success and collective wellbeing. For each of us, it is perhaps a reminder that the people we have loved, the values we choose to uphold and the legacy we leave behind all become part of the constellation by which others navigate.

In the end, the stars do not tell us where to go. They simply help us recognise true north when we see it.

When Governance Becomes the Handbrake

The greatest threat to organisational progress is often not poor leadership or weak strategy, but misalignment in the boardroom.

A CEO’s ability to lead is shaped not only by their own capability, judgement 
and energy, but by the quality of alignment above them. However strong the executive team may be, progress becomes difficult when the board itself lacks clarity around what the organisation exists to do, how success should be measured and what kind of value it is ultimately trying to create. This matters more than many directors realise.

Boards often think of their influence in formal terms. They approve strategy, oversee risk, allocate capital and monitor performance. All of these responsibilities are important. Yet much of a board’s real influence is exercised less formally, through the signals it sends, the questions it asks, the concerns it elevates and the behaviours it rewards.

In a nutshell, it is these signals that ultimately shape executive behaviour. They shape what gets prioritised, what gets delayed and, crucially, what becomes too politically difficult to pursue.

Where a board is aligned around a shared understanding of purpose, values and strategic direction, this dynamic becomes enormously powerful. Decision-making improves. Delegation becomes clearer. Challenge becomes constructive rather than confusing. Executives gain confidence because they are operating within a coherent framework of judgement. Where that alignment is absent, ambiguity quickly fills the vacuum.

One director prioritises short-term financial returns above all else. Another emphasises stakeholder trust and reputation. Another focuses almost exclusively on operational risk. Another believes the organisation has wider societal obligations. Each perspective may have merit, but without an agreed organising logic to reconcile them, governance becomes fragmented. The consequences are rarely immediate or dramatic; more often, they emerge slowly.

Management receives mixed messages. Strategic initiatives stall. Decision rights blur. Important issues are revisited repeatedly because the criteria for judgement remain unresolved. Leadership energy is diverted away from execution and towards interpretation. In effect, governance becomes a handbrake on progress.

This is not because boards are incompetent or malicious. Most directors are thoughtful, conscientious and deeply committed to their organisations. The problem is more subtle. Governance structures designed primarily for oversight and control can, under conditions of complexity and uncertainty, unintentionally constrain the very adaptability organisations need.

Add to this the inescapable fact that complexity is rising everywhere. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries. Climate transition is changing risk profiles and capital flows. Geopolitical instability is creating new uncertainty. Trust in institutions continues to weaken. Employees increasingly seek meaning, not merely compensation. Customers expect more from organisations than functional delivery alone. These are not peripheral trends. They represent a profound shift in the context within which organisations operate. Under such conditions, governance centred solely on risk mitigation becomes insufficient.

Boards must do more than protect organisations from downside. They must help them navigate toward long-term relevance and resilience. That requires a different kind of governance conversation.

There is another uncomfortable reality worth acknowledging.

Many boards continue to be populated by highly experienced, often deeply respected individuals whose judgement has been forged over decades of business leadership. That experience can be enormously valuable. Wisdom, pattern recognition and institutional memory matter. Yet experience alone is no guarantee of relevance.

Some directors built their careers in an era shaped by relatively stable markets, clearer hierarchies and predominantly top-down management models. The instincts that served them well in that environment do not always translate cleanly to today’s world of accelerating change, distributed leadership and growing stakeholder complexity. This is not an argument against experience. Quite the opposite. It is an argument against homogeneity.

The strongest boards are rarely those with the most impressive individual résumés. They are those with the richest diversity of perspective. That includes gender, ethnicity, professional background and lived experience, but increasingly it should also include generational diversity.

Age diversity matters because different generations often see risk, opportunity, technology and societal change through different lenses. Boards that combine hard-won wisdom with fresh perspective are better equipped to challenge assumptions, avoid groupthink and remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.
Diversity of perspective strengthens judgement, but only when anchored by shared foundations. Without that anchor, diversity can just as easily amplify fragmentation as improve decision-making.
In my view, that anchor is a clear and shared sense of purpose.
Purpose is frequently misunderstood. It is often dismissed as soft, aspirational or merely rhetorical. Yet properly understood, organisational purpose is neither a slogan nor a marketing device. It is the clearest articulation of why an organisation exists, the value it creates and for whom. Its value lies not only in inspiration but in utility.

Purpose provides the organising logic through which governance, strategy and performance can be aligned. It enables better judgement when trade-offs become difficult. It helps directors distinguish between reckless risk and necessary transformation. Without such an anchor, governance naturally becomes reactive.

Risk begins to dominate opportunity. Oversight drifts into control. Prudence gradually hardens into conservatism. The irony is that many boards believe this posture reduces risk. Increasingly, the opposite may be true.

The greatest risks facing organisations today are often linked not to moving too fast, but to moving too slowly. Markets evolve. Technology rewrites competitive advantage. Talent migrates towards organisations offering meaning and clarity. Social expectations continue to shift.

Organisations that fail to adapt rarely collapse overnight. More often, they lose relevance gradually and almost imperceptibly. By the time that loss becomes obvious, recovery is difficult. This is why board alignment matters so profoundly.

Alignment does not mean uniformity or the absence of challenge. Healthy governance requires robust debate, intellectual diversity and rigorous scrutiny. But productive disagreement depends on shared foundations. Directors must be able to disagree strongly on strategy while remaining aligned on purpose, values and the principles guiding judgement. That distinction matters because it enables challenge without dysfunction.

I believe this represents one of the defining governance challenges of our time. The board director of the future cannot simply be a guardian of compliance and financial stewardship, important though those responsibilities remain. Directors must also become stewards of long-term relevance, organisational alignment and systemic value creation.

That requires curiosity. It requires courage. Above all, it requires clarity.

The organisations most likely to thrive in the years ahead will not necessarily be those with the largest balance sheets or the most conservative governance structures. They will be those whose boards can provide both discipline and direction, balancing protection with progress.

The question every board should ask itself is a simple one. Are we enabling progress?Or are we quietly becoming the handbrake?