Whare, Whare, Away

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

More and more Māori words seem to drop into everyday conversation these days. Most people who encounter Kiwis are aware of the word "kai" for food. Even I knew that one before I got here, but the process seems to continue. 

In the past five years I've become used to Kiwis thanking me for the good mahi by which they mean "work". And over the past year or so I often hear people saying that we need a kōrero about something. By which they mean a conversation. 

Ellie is very much into this and wants to incorporate more Te Reo into our work. Specifically into a presentation on the work we do for the Director of Technology today. This is one of the reasons I worked over the weekend - we wanted it to be slick, powerful and inspiring. 

Oh do f*** off. 

Really. The work me and Ellie are doing really COULD be amazing. If they just buy into it and let us off the leash. 

So I put together a presentation which was pretty f***ing good if I do say so myself. But Ellie's delivery of it was A-MAY-ZING. She was so good. She had all the answers and all the info and she was just ONTO it. 

It was a pleasure to watch.

She topped off the presentation with this picture, which is her vision for success. It is a "whare" or house and she talked about how to build a sustainable team in the same way you'd build a sustainable whare* and all the things she has put in place to make it a success.

It was simple, succinct and put the point across that she knows her sh*t.

DoT was very impressed. He thanked and thanked us profusely when Ellie was done. He even used the words, "blown away". And rightly so, Ellie really WAS that good. I'm not being modest. I helped, but she's bloody impressive. 

If she's allowed to follow through, she could utterly transform how Kāinga Ora does business. I'm not even exaggerating. DoT saw it too, and he talked about expanding her scope even further than we had hoped.

"We need to make this a regular thing," said DoT.

"Let's have a monthly kōrero," replied Ellie.

(See what I mean?)

Ellie and I spent the rest of the day being very busy. We are currently swamped with work. But all the same we were on a high. If DoT was as impressed as he claimed to be then hopefully he will do as we asked and give us more people. Preferably Corrie. Preferably THREE Corries. 

The downside is that I don't know if they will let me stay on Ellie's team. There's this odd belief that business analysts shouldn't be on her team because it's purely technology. 

I could argue the point but it doesn't really matter. We can set things up so they DON'T need me. And Ellie's whare will stand and endure just fine with her leading the way. I'm really proud of us today.

S. 

* Which is what we are theoretically all doing at Kāinga Ora, after all.