Weaving strategy for long-term endurance from fragile chains to enduring tukutuku.
Strategy often fails not because of weak ambition, planning, or frameworks, but because of a missing link: human capability and context that connect strategy to execution (Kraaijenbrink, 2021). In other words, people and relationships determine whether a strategy breathes or breaks.
At Strategy.Inc, Dr. Jeroen Kraaijenbrink and Dr. Timothy Tiryaki describe five strategic competencies — the Big 5 of Strategy — that organisations must develop: grasp complex realities, shape bold yet feasible futures, move systems and people, deliver under pressure, and adapt in real time (Strategy.Inc, 2025). Their Strategy Manifesto extends this by calling for a shift from linear planning to adaptive experimentation, from top-down directives to distributed strategic ownership, and from financial KPIs as the core to purpose and impact as the North Star (Strategy.Inc, 2025).
From a kaupapa Māori worldview, this direction is both timely and familiar.
The Missing Link Is Relational
Kraaijenbrink’s diagnosis of the “missing link” is persuasive, yet competency alone is not sufficient. From a kaupapa Māori vantage point, the enduring difference is relational integrity: strategy held in whakapapa, tikanga, and whanaungatanga.
Where a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, kaupapa Māori offers another metaphor: tukutuku. Tukutuku panels hold their strength through interlacing strands. If one strand loosens, the weave still holds. The whakapapa, pūrākau, and pattern remain held within.
This is why strategy cannot be reduced to a linear ambition–plan–execution pipeline. As Spiller, Erakovic, Henare, and Pio (2011) show in their research on Māori businesses, relational well-being and an ethic of care underpin sustained value creation across spiritual, cultural, social, environmental, and economic dimensions. That insight undergirds this section and the “tukutuku not chain” framing.
Translating the Big 5 through a Kaupapa Māori Worldview
Seen through kaupapa Māori, the Big 5 become:
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Whakapapa of realities – grasp complexity as lived interconnection between people, whenua, and kaupapa, not just as abstract data.
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Whakatakoto kaupapa – shape bold futures that are feasible because they align with values, tikanga, and collective aspiration.
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Whanaungatanga in motion – move systems and people through trust, coherence, and kotahitanga, not simply compliance to a plan.
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Mana tangata – deliver under pressure with integrity and courage so that outcomes do not compromise mana.
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Rerehua o te wā – adapt in real time through attunement to rhythm, timing, and flow rather than reactive lurching.
Read this way, “competency” is not only skill or behaviour. It is the capacity to hold and enact kaupapa consistently, in momentum as conditions change.
From Efficiency to Rhythm
The Strategy Manifesto critiques an over-reliance on efficiency and urges organisations to privilege flexibility, learning, and readiness to pivot (Strategy.Inc, 2025). A kaupapa Māori worldview resonates strongly here.
Strategy that ignores rhythm — the natural cycles of preparation, growth, harvest, and renewal — can extract performance in the short term while eroding mauri in the long term.
In practice, this means strategy should generate pūngao and sustain people, not just squeeze outputs. It should attend to mauri as carefully as to margin. This is where kaupapa Māori does not merely align with modern strategy; it offers a deeper blueprint for value that endures across generations.
Culture Is Not a Lever. It Is the Foundation.
Ron Carucci (2023) identifies eight cultural levers that drive performance. Helpful as that is, a kaupapa Māori worldview pushes further: culture is not one lever among many. It is the ground on which every lever stands.
Strategy fails when it forgets the human. It fails faster when it forgets the relational.
Closing Reflection
Kraaijenbrink and Tiryaki are right: strategy must become a living force. A kaupapa Māori worldview reminds us that it already is. Strategy is not a static document and not a fragile chain. It is tukutuku — a woven pattern of people, purpose, practice, and place that holds under pressure and flexes with time, expanding and contracting in rhythm with the environment around it.
At times this means stretching outward into bold action; at other times it means drawing closer together, contracting to regroup, clarify intentions, and strengthen alignment. Both are necessary rhythms for strategy that endures.
Reflection for Leaders
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Will we stop at adapting to disruption, or will we shape futures grounded in whakapapa and purpose?
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How will our decisions uphold and honour mana — of people, partners, and place — in measurable ways?
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Where must we protect, strengthen, and restore mauri so our systems retain energy and integrity over time?
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Are we weaving strategies that strengthen whanaungatanga and carry us forward together across time and place?
Further Reading
Read Strategy.Inc.'s The Big 5 of Strategy here
References
Carucci, R. (2023, November 1). These 8 levers of organizational culture will drive great performance. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2023/11/01/these-8-levers-of-organizational-culture-will-drive-great-performance/
Kraaijenbrink, J. (2021, July 22). “My people just don’t get it”: Contextualization as missing link between strategy and execution. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2021/07/21/my-people-just-dont-get-it-contextualization-as-missing-link-between-strategy-and-execution/
Kraaijenbrink, J. (2023). The one-hour strategy: Building a company of strategic thinkers. Greenleaf Book Group Press. (Publication date: February 7, 2023).
Spiller, C., Erakovic, L., Henare, M., & Pio, E. (2011). Relational well-being and wealth: Māori businesses and an ethic of care. Journal of Business Ethics, 98(1), 153–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0540-z
Spiller, C., Barclay-Kerr, H., & Panoho, J. (2015). Wayfinding leadership: Ground-breaking wisdom for developing leaders. Huia Publishers. (Publication date: December 2015).
Strategy.Inc. (2025). The Big 5 of Strategy. https://www.big5ofstrategy.com/
Strategy.Inc. (2025). The strategy manifesto: Redefining strategy for a world in motion. https://strategy.inc/manifesto
Image credit: Tahere, K. (2025). Used with permission.
Author: Megan Tahere. (2025).