Every time you get together with people for a new kaupapa-project or focus, there is the opportunity for co-creation between you. Figuring out together, ‘how’ you’re going to work together and what values you might take on is a worthwhile step, and one that we tend to skip over. I think this is because the immediate outcomes are hard to see, and people are used to prioritising outcomes over taking the time to focus on relationships first.

Prioritising and Investing in Whanaungatanga and Relationships

Refocusing and investing in Whanaungatanga and Relationships disrupts systemic norms, rearranging the priority order of your endeavours. This investment enhances productivity and connectivity, aligning everyone's efforts toward a common goal.

‘No one knows everything but together we know a lot’

This quote offered by one of our whānau, this quote reminds us that the idea of co-creation, co-design is to bring everyone’s skills and knowledge together without dominating our values over another. Some individuals and groups are self-aware and can self-regulate, however in many spaces, someone needs to facilitate the accidental or intentional power-control dynamics. In this co-creation session, little facilitation was required other than to ask about the direction and next steps.

Learning by Doing as a Dual Strategy

Adopting a dual strategy, our whānau is immersed in learning Walk Together's methodologies, tools, and frameworks as we progress along our journey. In this case, while we co-create a set of shared values as Our Ways, participants are observing how a collective can come together and agree on things like values.

Working within a Hierarchy

While I am the Director, Founder, CEO of Walk Together NZ, the next version of Walk Together, is being completely co-created from scratch. Like all who are participating in this somewhat of a social experiment, we bring our values with us, the ones that we hold tight to. In this sense, all of the Walk Together values and ways will come along with us, and the co-creation of Our Ways set’s some collective direction as an anchor point for our way forward.

Sharing Power does not mean you give up your authority.

Taking a moment here to consider the world of duality, where I maintain my mana and authority within Walk Together, while opening up to collaborate, co-create and evolve to something which will look different to what I might have imagined on my own.

The Process of Creating Shared Values

This looks different for each group. In this case we started by adding and sharing the values that come to mind for this kaupapa - journey. After letting that settle for a week, we re-visited the values and started to sort them into themes. What we produced collectively was a beautiful structure drawing from our connection to;

Ranginui - reflecting our aspirations and kaitiakitanga

Papatūānuku - groundedness, respect & curiosity, while drawing from the traits of

Tawhirimatea - the embodiment of wind and weather systems

Tane Mahuta - the embodiment of our Ngahere - Forest,

Maui Tikitiki-a-Taranga - and his tendency to be a tutu and disrupter

Some Reflections this Week

“Inspired and fulfilled are my two power words to describe how I am feeling post System Navigator zoom today! It is so meaningful to be in a room with like minded people and co-create values of how we are going to work together/ Walk together. We took a deep dive into each of the values and found that the alignment to Ranginui (Sky father) and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) gave structure to our shared values, with space also in-between for Atua (gods) Action values. This is Māori centric at this stage, no surprise with 3 wāhine Māori in the room plus Dave and his steady presence. I am looking forward to the contributions and collaboration of our Pasifika whānau to add to the magic! I commented today that I feel like I have ‘skin in the game’ now because I have helped co-create the direction we are taking”.

“The language and references, particularly to our Atua and taiao that I heard from many of the speakers, was an absolute reflection of the mahi and kōrero we did on our Miro Board this morning. The knowledge and experiences within this roopu is first class so I’m stoked to share this space with everyone. My two little takeaways for the day “no one knows everything but together we know a lot” and “Selfful - keep your cup full so that you can continue to keep giving to others”.

Co-Creation of System Navigators Our Ways