How can we create a country where everybody feels like they belong?

It's a powerful question and not one that can be answered in a simple sentence, but it’s the very question that’s at the heart of today's episode.

Anjum Rahman is the founder and project co-lead of the Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono. She started up this amazing organisation following the Christchurch mosque attacks, and here we delve deeper into that origin story.

We also talk about Inclusive Aotearoa’s approach to enabling change, called the constellations approach, and how you can host an effective conversation about something that’s deeply personal.

This conversation will leave you thinking differently about how we can create a country where everybody belongs - and how your own place in your own community can contribute to that.

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Do you have faith that your organisational strategies are going to succeed?

How often do you hear words like “transformation” and roll your eyes?

We spend a lot of organisational energy on strategy and planning - on trying to figure out where we want to go and how we are going to get there. Yet the gap between dreams and reality is a gaping void.

Today’s guest, Jon Tamihere-Kemeys, is someone who can help to Illuminate what’s missing in our efforts to transform systems and organisations.

Conventional wisdom says to start with “why” - Why do we exist?

But JT believes there is a deeper place to start - with “who” - Who are we as a collective? Who are we as an organisation? From whose waters do we flow?

If you’re interested in learning more about a te ao Māori approach to transformation, this episode is just what you need.

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We are celebrating the 50th episode of the Beyond Consultation podcast by looking back at our most popular episodes, some hidden gems, and what we’ve learnt (which we also share with you!).

From only 7 plays in our first month, the podcast has grown to over 600 plays in this past month alone. This is a testament to how many people are finding value in our content and how it’s being shared with others. So thank you for spreading the word!

To continue the celebration we are giving away a book from one of the amazing authors that we’ve interviewed on this show. Head to our LinkedIn page to see a full list of the books that are up for grabs and follow the instructions to put your name in the hat to win one of them.

Here’s to our first half-century!

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Welcome to this special episode of Beyond Consultation - the wrap-up of the Talk It Up Unconference 2022!

This episode is not one of our usual interviews, but a collection of conversations from the first ever Talk It Up Unconference that I attended recently in Hamilton.

Think of today's episode as one of those degustation meals, where you get lots of small courses and they're all really good.

Talk It Up was organized by four local government friends and co-conspirators who found that the best part of the conferences they often attend are the conversations and the connections made during the breaks...

You’ll hear stories like:

This is for everyone who attended, and for those who missed out. Enjoy!

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I don’t remember much from my history class as a 10-year old, and my year seven class put me off history for a long time.

It's only recently, as I've started to learn more about Māori that I've come to appreciate that history is story. And history is context. And context and stories are everything when you're trying to work with a community to enable change.

In today’s little bonus episode (or Episode 41B) we're going back to my conversation with Simon Wright on the history of democracy.

For better or worse, we seem to take our democracy for granted. The idea of representative democracy that we, the people, vote others in to make laws for us to govern us.

So Simon take us back in time to the roots of our democracy - to Rome, to Greece - and unpacks the implications for us today.

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Mayor of Nelson Rachel Reese is a bit of an enigma.

She's been labelled a National Party candidate, which she's never been.

Recently a Nelson resident declared she was in the pocket of the Labour party.

And we’ve even seen her labelled a greenie for her work on climate change and public transport!

But Rachel’s always had an emphasis on partnerships and she's always embraced going beyond just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ discussions about important issues.

In this episode, we explore her journey into becoming a mayor and her involvement in local and national issues, like the controversial Three Waters working group.

Rachel tells us about what she calls ‘The Office of Good Ideas’, which moves local government to more of an enabling role and creates more permission and space for failure.

For any of you who are involved in politics, I'm sure you will nod your head along to some of the challenges that Rachel shares. And if you're not involved in politics, it's so valuable to understand what the reality is like for those people that you might be reporting to.

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Have you ever had this great idea that you were excited to share with your manager, CEO or team leader… and they just don’t get it? They're not onboard. They're not excited. And the idea disappears.

In today's episode, we'll unpack some of what might be going on in those sorts of situations. We're talking power and influence with Tracey Bridges, Chair of the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency and co-founder of The Good Registry.

Tracey's message for you is that you are powerful, and that you probably have more power than you understand or give yourself credit for. We talk about using your power for good, and how our culture can perpetuate the myth that you can only obtain influence or power by removing it from others.

Tracey challenges these myths by introducing the idea of an influence exchange - that you only become influential, truly influential by giving influence to others.

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Impact is an intriguing word, isn’t it?

And you may face lots of challenges with trying to figure out your organisation’s impact.

For smaller organisations, impact assessment is a “nice to do”. Costly. Time-consuming. Overwhelming. And so we rely on our hunches.

Larger organisations face different challenges. Sometimes the measures we set up become the targets themselves and blind us to other possibilities. Or you have so much data and you become overwhelmed.

Maria English is the CEO of Impact Lab - a social enterprise aiming to tackle the challenge of how we measure impact and communicate it to others. Impact Lab has two services. GoodMeasure is for service providers. GoodInvestor is for funders.

If you’re putting impact assessment into the ‘too hard basket, this episode will change your perspective on data and impact evaluation for good.

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1. They're vague. They don't tell people what you're doing or why. They're a shortcut for us as practitioners, yes. But for everybody else who doesn't live in the world of systems change, they don't mean much.

Our two guests today are from The Workshop, a research organization here in Aotearoa New Zealand that helps people to explain and understand complex issues.

They’ve recently published a report called ‘Mapping the Landscape’, and it’s one you will go back time and time again. It gives us an idea of how to talk about systems change in a way that is understood in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The two authors of that report, Jordan Green and Dr. Jess Berenson Shaw, dive into some really practical suggestions about how you can change your language to encourage the kind of system change that you're looking for.

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Should we be separating  work and play when connecting with our communities?

Our guest today, Alex Bonham, challenges the idea that local government can’t be fun. Originally trained in theater and comedy, Alex now serves on her local board and has done her PhD in how we can create more opportunities for play in a city - the topic of her highly interesting book!

She’s also put on a sold-out play called An Extraordinary Meeting, in which she used live theater to help a community understand the different trade-offs  that might be involved in a decision.

If you’ve been feeling a bit stumped and stuck in your engagement, this episode is for you. It will challenge you to explore how you can take aspects of your own personal life, your own strengths and  skills that you might not think are relevant to your work, and use those to strengthen the conversations that you're wanting to create.

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