How we think, interpret the world around us, solve problems, our values and what motivates us are all determined by a combination of our unique life experiences and our national culture. One makes us different, the other provides our shared Kiwi identity.

Culture literally affects how the neural pathways form during critical development phases. And therefore determines HOW we think. Culture provides the lens through which we view the world around us, and how we interpret everything that we hear, see and experience.

People from different cultures can examine the same 'data set' and come to quite different conclusions. We make the mistake of buying into the PC notion that we should concentrate on the things that we have in common, where as there are in fact surprising differences between us and even people like Australians and in particular Americans, let alone those who do not share an Anglo-Saxon heritage. Not understanding that gets us into a lot of trouble, costs us a lot of value, and is one of the reasons that we are trapped in a commodity trading mentality.

There are statistically significant correlations between national culture and innovation and especially between culture and the initiation and implementation stages respectively. They are diametrically opposite! In other words, culturally determined characteristics that make us strong at initiation equally make us weak at implementation.

We invent things in the initiation stage. We create value in the implementation stage. We’re really good at one and not the other. It’s not hard to figure out which. We are really good at invention. And comparatively poor at creating profit and value. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it. There are just a number of management practices that stand in the road of us creating and capturing as much value as we could. That is why we can be so highly inventive but mediocre economic performance.

But fortunately there’s a solution – a better way of doing things!
National cultures can be ranked or classified and compared using empirically verifiable, largely independent 'dimensions'. New Zealand's dominant (Kiwi) culture has the following characteristics. We are strongly individualistic but at the same time egalitarian. The Tall Poppy Syndrome may be the egalitarianism keeping the individualism in check. We accord respect on the basis of achievement, especially practical achievement but not business success and wealth accumulation. We are universalist and tend to believe that there is one right or wrong for every situation (black or white) and that all people do or should think and behave just like us.

In the commercial context we have very low assertiveness but high action orientation (just get on with it!). We are very loathe to express emotion at work. We have a very short time horizon and place low value on time. We are high on affective autonomy and have low work centrality which means that we prefer the individual pursuit of
pleasure and an exciting and varied life rather than co-operation and work. This doesn’t mean that we don’t work hard. We do. It does mean that we do not derive our sense of self from work and our prime source of motivation doesn’t come from creating business success and making money.