In the Northern Hemisphere they talk about a North Star or a Pole Star, but those terms don’t mean much up here in the South, so when refering to guiding principles or goals, I like to use “matariki’. Matariki (capital “M”) is the Māori name for the Pleiades, which was a navigational constellation for them for their extraordinary Pacific journeys.
Not only is it visible in most of the world, but it is a tight group of seven or nine stars, not a single star. Having a single goal can distort the behaviour of the organisation so I like the idea of having a cluster of them, but not too many.
Also Matariki is the name for the Maori (and now New Zealand) New Year, which seems nice too: renewal, re-evaluating, resolutions.
The matariki are what John Kotter defines as the organisational culture: “the way we do things around here”. Define a set of principles for how we work, not the values guiding why.
See also navigate forward
The author, generated by Dall-E, no copyright