Kia ora koutou Playcentre whānau

Playcentre Values

 To help me be more purposeful in living our Playcentre values I have printed off our values and have them up on the wall in front of me as a constant reminder when I am on the phone or writing emails. Maybe you’d like to do the same?

I was reading recently about the impact that others can have on our own mental well-being. The research shows that for each negative comment we receive it takes nine positive ones to re-dress the balance. I think we all know that feeling when we get a negative comment directed at us, but I don’t think I had fully appreciated the full extent of the impact. Someone far wiser than me once told me “Don’t walk away from negative people David, run like heck!” and I now realise how true that is. It also made me think about the balance of my own well-being “bank account” and what I need to do to manage that balance. I began to realise that a surprisingly large number of emails through their tone and content, were making substantial withdrawals from my account. I understand that people can feel upset or angry about things and then write emails. Hopefully most of the comments made in those emails were done without pausing for thought about the impact on the person receiving them but whatever the real reason behind them, they do have an impact.

As a child, I remember my Mum saying to me “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” I have come to appreciate now how wrong that is and I now see that more and more of our society is understanding the critical part that mental well-being plays in our overall well-being. If someone walked up to me and said, “I don’t think much of that email you sent” and punched me, the impact would be obvious physically. The reply received to that email criticising me may not have the same obvious impact, but it will take nine other positive affirmations to get over that one negative one, just to get me back to where I was before.

As I thought further about this, I wondered what we as an organisation collectively think about this. For me, an organisation’s values drive its behaviour, so what do our values have to say in this regard? I noted three that I think are relevant:

  • Tangata Whenua
    • Aroha – always treating everyone with respect, honour and purpose
    • Manaakitanga – caring, nurturing, sharing, encouraging and supporting everyone
  • Tangata Tiriti
    • Compassion – building esteem in self and others

As I reflected on this, I realised that some of the emails I have sent and some of the things I have said recently were not aligned with those values. There are times when I have not demonstrated Aroha, Manaakitanga and Compassion. Hopefully they have been the exception and not the norm, but I have not honoured someone, I have not nurtured someone and I have not built their esteem at different times. As such I have contributed to the negative impact and created a need for nine positive affirmations just to address the one negative one I made. If you have been one of those people that I have impacted, I am genuinely sorry and commit to doing better in the future, to live our values of Aroha, Manaakitanga and Compassion more purposefully.

I want to be someone who contributes to the nine positive affirmations, so in that regard, I mentioned last month about the Billy Ocean song “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” and I have seen the evidence of that across our organisation. As the Omicron wave has started to look much more like a tsunami, I have seen our people responding magnificently. We do have local centres impacted and our staff and volunteers have rallied round to support and help each other. We have continued to advocate with MoE and achieved a specific piece in the MoE Bulletin about us to provide clarity. My thanks go to everyone who has contributed to just those two aspects alone and there are many more examples beyond that. Please take that as one of the nine positive affirmations I owe.

David Moger

Chief Executive