At the end of the last century, the National Government announced its Bright Future programme. Their research had identified that one thing holding back our national competitiveness was our devotion to the team rather than the individual, when in fact there have been many times New Zealand individuals have made immeasurable contributions and had not been fĂȘted. It compared us with the US, where someone like Bill GatesâI seem to recall he was held up as an exampleâcould be recognized by many as an innovator, while the equivalent Kiwi wasnât generally known. One of the first moves was to knight Angus Tait, the Christchurch entrepreneur.
These Kiwi pioneers are still aroundâpeople like Dr Sean Simpson of LanzaTech, for instance, using bacteria to consume carbon monoxide and turning it into ethanolâbut other than news programmes, theyâre not part of our mainstream, and part of me wonders if they should be. They are doing work that should be rewarded and recognized.
However, the team spirit that New Zealand exhibits all the time, and admires, such as the All Blacks, the Black Ferns, or yachtingâs Team New Zealand, could help with the COVID-19 pandemic, as itâs invoked in our response. The four-week lockdown ordered by the New Zealand government has, from what I see out there, been generally accepted, even if Iâve publicly Tweeted that Iâd like to see more testing, including of all those arriving back on our shores, including the asymptomatic. (I note today that the testing criteria have been loosened.) The places held up to have done well at âflattening the curveâ, such as Taiwan, have managed it because, it is believed by the Financial Times and others, there is a community response, and, I would add, a largely homogeneous view when it comes to being in it together, helped in part by experience with the SARS outbreak, and possibly by the overall psyche of âWe have an external threat, so we have to stick together.â Each territory has a neighbour that itâs wary of: Taiwan looks across the strait at the mainland, since there hasnât really been an armistice from 1949; Singapore has Malaysia as its rival; and South Korea has North Korea.
Across Taiwan, there have been 13·5 cases per million population, or a total of 322 cases; New Zealand is currently sitting on 134·5 per million, or 647 cases. Singapore is on 158·7 per million, or 926 cases; South Korea, which is now seeing a fairly low daily new case increase, is on 190·9 per million, or 9,786 cases.
I support the Level 4 approach in principle, and having the lockdown, and while we arenât accustomed to the âexternal threatâ as the cited Asian countries, we are blessed with the team spirit that binds Kiwis together. We are united when watching the Rugby World Cup or the Americaâs Cup as we root for our side, and the unity is mostly nationwide. There are some on the fringe, particularly on Facebook, based on what others have said, with ideas mostly imported from foreign countries that are more divisive than ours.
On that note, we might have been very fortunate to have the national culture that we do to face down this threatâand not have any one person standing out as we knuckle down together. Even those who are seen regularly delivering the newsâthe director-general of health, for instanceâdo so in humble fashion, while our own prime minister goes home after we go to Level 4 and answers questions in her Facebook comment stream via live video. Even if economically we arenât egalitarian, culturally we believe we are, and it seems to be keeping us in good stead.
Posts tagged ‘sport’
The team approach
31.03.2020Tags: 1990s, 1999, All Blacks, Angus Tait, Aotearoa, Asia, Bill Gates, Bright Future, community, COVID-19, culture, equality, Financial Times, health, history, homogeneity, Korea, LanzaTech, National Party, New Zealand, pandemic, politics, Republic of China, SARS, Sean Simpson, Singapore, South Korea, sport, Taiwan, Team New Zealand, unity, yachting
Posted in business, China, culture, leadership, New Zealand, politics | 1 Comment »
There must be a different metric system on our roads these days
24.05.2019
The new metric system: I’m following the car in front at the correct distance. Cf. the drivers in the other lanes.
Now that I live in the northern suburbs, I have to go on the motorway far more frequently. Itâs become apparent that New Zealand has had a complete change of measurement system and I was unaware of it.
I thought we were on the metric system but apparently, there is a new metric system at play these days.
When the âsmartâ motorway speed limit signs display 60 km/h, a handful of drivers, like me, go at the old 60 km/h. But there is evidently a new 60 km/h, which we oldies called â80 km/hâ. If the other drivers are not breaking the law, the majority of cars in this country appear to have had speedometers newly calibrated to the new metric system. When the sign says 80 km/h, they will travel at between 90 and 100 km/h. It doesnât quite explain why, when the sign says 100 km/h, so many drive at 90 km/h, but thatâs the incredible nature of the new metric system: unlike the old, itâs not proportional.
Iâm not entirely sure how the system converts metres or seconds, as I seem to do double the following distance of the majority of drivers. From memory, itâs 40 m at 100 km/h, or, if you want to adopt the 1970s slogan from the UK, or the one uttered by the late Peter Brock, âOnly a fool breaks the two-second rule.â The new metric system at play in New Zealand means that the new 40 m is the same as what we old-timers called 20 m. Or, if theyâre going by the clock, two seconds is what we used to call one second. I assume this new metric system also applies to penis length for men, so they arenât too disappointed when their 7œ cm is now called 15 cm. Sounds so much bigger, doesnât it, lads?
Now, I could be wrong about there being a new metric system in this country. Itâs simply that many people donât understand speed and distance, or how road signs work. If you are male and think that 20 m really is 40 m, then maybe you have a small dick and have been convincing yourself otherwise, and the problem is multiplied on the roads. Sadly, however, this lack of awareness of time and distance isnât exclusively a male thing.
As a nation, weâve been so busy for such a long time blaming âAsian driversâ that our standards have dropped like stones. It wasnât that long ago when we Wellingtonians mocked Aucklanders for their âMerge like a zipâ signs in the mid-2000sâyet it seems an increasing number of us in the capital are now just as clueless on how traffic merges into a single lane.
All this makes you wonder if Greg Murphy was right when he suggested we should re-sit our driving test every 10 years.
Tags: 1970s, 2019, Aotearoa, cars, driving, Greg Murphy, New Zealand, sport, transport, transportation, TVC, UK, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in cars, New Zealand, Wellington | No Comments »
RIP Martin Crowe
03.03.2016Martin Crowe was not only our greatest batsman, but a gentleman and all-round decent bloke. I remember him as an honourable, nice guy, and soulmate to Lorraine, and it was a privilege to spend time with them both back in 2013. Back then, we had thought the worst was behind him; I am deeply sorry to learn that that was not the case. RIP Martin, your legend will live on.
Tags: 2013, 2016, Aotearoa, legend, New Zealand, sport
Posted in culture, leadership, New Zealand, Wellington | 1 Comment »
A triumphant Olympics was helped by a well organized Olympic Delivery Authorityâlessons for business
12.08.2012I’m glad to see that the third Foundation Forum’s notes (originally sent to me by Medinge life member Patrick Harris) are now public, which means I can refer to them. The latest one is on the Olympics, at a forum held in June, where the speakers were Olympic medallist Steve Williams, Dr Pete Bonfield, CEO of BRE, and Simon Scott, a former Royal Marine who coaches and advises Olympians and business leaders.
The triumph of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) was delivering us a successful Games, which illustrated how an organization of 20 ramped up to 10,000, while maintaining an innovative culture and an ideal of collective purpose. An organization that could have been hampered by politicsâas the satire Twenty Twelve showed could be possibleâand actually achieved its goals at ÂŁ500 million under its ÂŁ9,000 million budget.
Its lessons are relevant to New Zealand, not just because we are a sporting nation whose teams have succeeded because of collective purpose, but that they remind us that it’s possible to take these ideas into business and even politics. Simon Caulkin at the Foundation summarized the main points as follows:
- Whether on the track or in the office, Olympic performance requires a whole systems approach in which all the parts are focused on a clear and single aim
- With science and determination, nurture can trump nature: only âdeliberate practiceâ can hone raw material into sustained performance, as in the Marines
- What goes on âoutside the boatâ is as important as what goes on inside. Values are part of performance
but one might go a bit further. The Foundation expands upon them, but what I take away from the session’s notes are:
- with the right leadership, and a strategy shared at every level, Olympian tasks can be achievedâbut it shows that that leadership needs to have the right attitude, charisma and empathy to understand how to make it beneficial to all parties, and all audiences;
- in sport, that collective purpose is easier to define; in business and in politics, it’s not. The trick is to put everyone on the same sideâthe One-ness that Stefan Engeseth wrote about in his book and which I cite regularly in my speeches and in my consulting workâso that a business, organizational or political objective is felt strongly by all;
- that realistic milestones need to be setâwhich goes without saying in management;
- and that the vision must be meaningful to all audiences, internal and externalâthe importance of “outside the boat”.
The London Games have been a success so far, and the next major event for the general public will be the closing ceremony. While my wish that a Benny Hill tribute with ‘Yakety Sax’ played to complete the London Games with an appropriate level of British culture might not be realized, I have faith in how it will be pulled off. The right ingredients seem to be present in the ODA, and I’m confident that the Organising Committee was similarly inspired.
Tags: 2012, charisma, England, leadership, London, management, Medinge Group, Olympics, Patrick Harris, politics, sport, Stefan Engeseth, the Foundation, UK, vision
Posted in business, culture, leadership, New Zealand, politics, UK | 3 Comments »