The Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional S2E7 Me Mataara Rising

A rich and thought-provoking kōrero with Vance Walker — a returning guest and a true thought leader in integrating Māori culture with health and safety practices.

In this episode, we explored how cultural intelligence can evolve from an academic concept into a powerful, data-driven tool for real-world change, particularly through the Me Mataara project. Vance's work is pushing boundaries, not just in terms of reducing injuries for Māori workers, but also in redefining what it means to take culture seriously in our profession.

Here are a few key takeaways from the conversation:

Cultural intelligence is ready for the real world.
Me Mataara is showing us how to move beyond theory by connecting cultural values contained in Kia Tupato and Te Whare Tapa Whā with measurable workplace safety outcomes.

Data is the new lever for cultural change.
One of the big gaps Vance identified is the lack of hard business data to support cultural initiatives. Me Mataara aims to fill that gap, offering evidence businesses can use to build solid cases for cultural integration.

Worker-centric change starts with leadership.
Engaging both workers and leaders — through workshops, storytelling, and tech — is at the heart of the project’s success. And that includes using platforms and voices that resonate with younger and more diverse audiences.

We need to challenge assumptions.
Whether it’s our view of cultural intelligence as "soft" or our limited understanding of cultural dynamics across gender and ethnicity, Vance reminded us that looking at things differently is the first step toward doing things differently.

If this episode sparked any ideas or questions for you, let’s keep the conversation going. You can connect with me on LinkedIn — I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, please follow or subscribe, and share it with someone who might find value in this kaupapa.

Transcript

Greg: 0:00

Hi, everyone welcome to another episode of the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional, a podcast aimed at providing a platform where by safety professionals can develop a pathway to enhance their cultural intelligence capability which will help them function more effectively when working in a multicultural situation. I'm Greg Dearsly your host and I have a range of guests lined up to talk to this year. We have people with experiences across leadership, psychology, health and safety, education and of course cultural intelligence. All of our guests come from a wide range of different backgrounds across the diversity spectrum, including from different organizational context. In this podcast you'll hear stories aimed at helping you the listener enhance your cultural intelligence. You'll gain an understanding of how you can create trust when working in diverse environments and quite frankly, that's all the time no matter how homogenous the place you work at might be, it's still full of diversity, people with different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs, all built on their figured world. This week we're talking to friend of the show and well-known personality in the health and safety world, vance Walker. For those who may not know Vance, he's an independent research practitioner with a background in regulation and critical risk assessment. He is a member of the NZISM board and the National Association for Maori Health and Safety Professionals, Te Ropu Marutau O Aotearoa. Vance has always been drawn to things Maori, his main contribution centers on connecting Maori culture with health and safety. Product of this work is Me Matara, a three year a CC funded project. Among its aims is to enable healthier and safer decisions made by workers to connect with better work systems, used by businesses and importantly for this podcast, this project is connected to cultural intelligence. Kia ora Vance, great to have you on the show again.

Vance: 2:12

Kia ora Greg, It's nice again to talk with you.. May I start by saying I'm just amazed by your little adventures lately in terms of cultural intelligence? So that's really good role modeling, inspiring stuff for other people in our discipline based in Aotearoa New Zealand. So thanks a lot for the, for your contribution. It just keeps on going and going.

Greg: 2:31

Doesn't it Kia ora? So before we get into a discussion around Me Mataara it's been about a year since we last had you on the show in fact, 13 months was the last time you spoke to us. What has been taking up your time since then other than this ACC project or has it all been about the a ACC project?

Vance: 2:53

I had two opportunities last year. One was to put in a bid for wellbeing app, for IRD, so that took a bit of time up from my end. And I had to learn a bit, a lot about technology that bid failed. But the learning I got out of it was quite good. And then the a ACC opportunity came along, so that's been sucking up a bit of my time. I still like to practice, so I've got clients on the go. I have moved from on the ground auditing engagement work in the construction sector to what's known as a client rep. So now I represent the client's interest on site. So I try to help and support the health and safety people involved in projects. Otherwise life is good and busy.

Greg: 3:38

Yeah. Excellent. Always good. Yeah lots of experiences. And just thinking back to some of the stuff that you've been doing over the last, I don't know how many years, but you've, you've got that WorkSafe experience, you've got consultancy and you've got work within business, both at an administrative level and a, and an operational level. So heaps of stuff going on, but. Look, let's get down to it. We are here to talk about me mataara. Tell us what that project is all about.

Vance: 4:06

Yeah, so thanks. As you mentioned, it's a three year project involving, well funded by a ACC, but there's also involvement from saferme, the app providers, Te Whare Wānanaga O Awanuiārangi who will be doing some evaluation work and we've also got a bunch of contractors involved. Obvious. Partners is doing a lot of branding and marketing. And we're bringing on board influencers. So in the next few weeks there'll be one or two videos coming out from our board. So Me Mataara has a board involving Mohi Apou, Professor Te Kani Kingi, Toby Beaglehole and Ratahi Cross. They're the board that guide me. Me Mataara at the sharp end aims to reduce injury claims for Maori workers in the manufacturing sector by about 50%. It's a audacious goal, but it's worth it. There are three parts to Me Mataara, the first part involves white labeling, the Safer Me Safety Snap App. So that app is already on the market, but we're gonna repurpose it for Me Mataara and we're gonna recall it the Me Mataara working app, the Me Mataara worker app will measure the use of Kia Tupato and Te Whare Tapa Whā by workers based in the Miraka Milk Mokai Plant. So it's a real big business that has high risk environments in it with real workers. The data produced by the app will include the cost of interventions and the use of good work design. So good work design comes from an Australian based practice model or theory that talks about, the use of engagement technology at the design stage of designing different work. The second part involved transferring all the data into what we're gonna call the Me Mataara Business Case app, Microsoft Global Brackets. Indigenous has shown an interest in helping us to develop that app as a role model for other indigenous cultures that app will provide businesses with the information they need to develop business cases to decide or not to invest in this kind of matauranga based intervention. So a common comment that I receive is from health and safety professionals, is they're really interested in it, but they need the hard data or the hard information to put in front of their boards or their managers to make business cases. So that was a big gap we identified. The third part in achieving Me Mataara requires more than the use of interventions in the data, we are also going to use a digital platform, probably circle.so to establish the Me Mataara, Haporo community. So the platform will be online, will enable people or groups to access content such as, articles, newsletters, interactive discussions, and we're also finishing off some micro credentials. And we'll also be doing live events such as webinars and q and a sessions. We're all gonna do it within a single interface, so that'll be the online community we're building. I think for the different niche groups we have in our disciplines, such as cultural intelligence, we're looking at the, offering like a small component of the platform. Not only can they participate in Me Mataara, but they also might wanna use it to raise, ideas, thinkings, discussions around their niche expertise or what they wanna do. So we're trying to build a community. So it's quite hard, it's early days, but we do have a rough plan. It must be so good. In terms of a plan that I don't understand a lot of what the marketing and branding guys saying because they're quite advanced, but more importantly, they're not my age. They're a lot younger, so they're pitching it at entry workers or young workers. And I'll be pitching my stuff at the more senior workers, so that's where it's at the moment, Greg.

Greg: 8:29

So as you say, what do they call it? a BHAG, a big hairy, audacious goal. 50%. Injury reduction in manufacturing. How and you may not have got to this yet, but what's the plan in terms of engaging the workforce? In this process, I guess you've already done the engagement with the milk plant management and leadership to, to get yourself in the door. How's the worker engagement gonna work with the guys on the ground and girls on the ground?

Vance: 9:02

I'll divide it up into two parts. Boys and Girls on the Ground, which are the Miraka Milk workers at the Mokai plant. So 40 plus workers will uplift the app. But it's just an app. So we'll be doing workshops. We've already had the first meeting with the management team over there. The board's really keen. A key part of this type of work is getting the senior leaders on board and they're really into it. So the engagement includes both the use of the app supporting Hui on site, but we're also gonna be doing what's our mantra, which is called Show don't Tell. So we've we're engaging Tamati Remene-Sproat to do a lot of presentations and he'll be doing interviews with workers and we'll be doing little clips of, them using the app, their work. And alongside of that we're eliciting influences. And that will, that may include you, Greg.'cause we need to warm things up so the influencers get an idea of what's happening and then we'll be doing little video clips of what people think. It doesn't necessarily have to agree with what we're doing. Again, we're trying to build a community. So having that, that discussion.

Greg: 10:11

And the Microsoft global indigenous team, is that is that Dan Te Whenua Walker?

Vance: 10:16

Yeah. Yeah. So he's pointed the direction in terms of different opportunities we can pursue.

Greg: 10:22

Yeah. I dunno if he's a listener of the show. But Kia Ora, Dan Dan was one of two people who actually got me on the path of cultural intelligence. When he presented at when I was on the Masters in Leadership journey he presented on indigenous leadership and really fascinating to both hear his story back then and watch. What he's been doing over the last few years. So yeah, you've got, I think you've hooked into a good one there, Vance.

Vance: 10:48

Yeah. Yeah. Dan's quite unique because, most people you can say there's a start, a middle and the end, but I can't see an end for Dan. He just keeps on going up and up, given where he started off. So yeah, nothing but admiration.

Greg: 11:03

I think did I see on LinkedIn yesterday? Just got his chartered IOD membership status awarded. Yeah, doing doing lots of cool stuff. So Me Mataara, how does that connect with other TRMA initiatives? And I guess you've mentioned your initiative as part of this and also Te Whare Tapa Whā, is there any connection to things likeHaumaru Tangata and Te Tekanga Mai

Vance: 11:30

So Haumaru Tangata including the assessments that TRMA do are basically preparation steps in terms of preparing a business to to go along this track in terms of the use of Māori culture in the workplaces. Me Mataara differs, quite significantly is we are not piloting anything we're gonna confirm the use of Te Whare Tapa Whā and Kia Tupato so we know that it does work we just have to use a bigger sample to do it. So if anything, the relationship would be if and when Me Mataara is successful and produces the right results it can be used as a case study or a role model for those businesses that are working more at the Haumaru Tangata end preparing themselves to be a Me Mataara or Miraka milk business, applying Māori culture in their workplace. The other initiative, and I forget what it's called, so I'll fit into that that's my understanding is a discovery type, due diligence, feasibility study on what associations or tools are needed to improve the outcomes for Māori Pacifica and migrant workers? So I can't talk for Pacifica or migrant workers. What I can say is, sure. Me Mataara again provides a case study or role model for Māori workers and employers to procure these Matauranga Māori practices using some good data, some good business data, so that's the relationship.

Greg: 13:18

Nice. Okay. And you briefly mentioned cultural intelligence and maybe we can spend some time talking about that, but at a very basic level, what's the connection with your project to the concept of cultural intelligence?

Vance: 13:33

Me Mataara should provide a serious business proposition for procuring cultural intelligence. So my view is that cultural intelligence, along with a whole bunch of other cultural niches within health and safety, has a novelty to it because it hasn't been robustly. Studied and proven in a business sense. And that undermines the seriousness of the value of cultural intelligence. So Me Mataara is trying to provide the business data that businesses can use to decide or not to purchase, and it is purchase because health and safety largely is a private good to purchase cultural intelligence. The other flip side is the cultural intelligence guys. Have to move away from. Yeah. I'll be honest. The fluffy stuff. And let's get into how does cultural intelligence reduce harms and improve outcomes? So my view is that cultural intelligence is quite a nice way of looking at things, but looking at things doesn't exactly improve things. So we're trying to provide data that, cultural intelligence proponents, leaders, practitioners, can look at and say, oh, this is how they did in me Māori culture. What could I do in terms of my culture or my cultural intelligence learning? Not quite exacting to cultural intelligence, but probably just on the side or the peripheral to provide a format of information that can be used later. That aside, we are measuring the use of, so those are very much well known cultural intelligence tools. So we're gonna be measuring those quite acutely and we're gonna be using a bit of technology, probably more than what's ever been used before, so that, that fast forwards the whole understanding of those practices and modern workplaces. And it does eliminate some of the novelty comments that float, float around those two practices.

Greg: 15:52

Really interesting discussion on that and I guess to maybe explore it a little bit further and you mentioned some of my recent exploits around cultural intelligence. So I, as far as I see it, there's two components. There's cultural intelligence, the academic content that exists, the research, the training and everything that comes along with that, which, so the research has been around for, started in about the the late nineties. And actually I might not have told you the story but cultural intelligence started during the period when it, the IT industry was trying to address. The Y 2K problem. And so they had a bunch of IT programmers gathering in Singapore to try and resolve this issue that, the world was gonna blow up on the first of the first 2000. And they agreed a whole bunch of initiatives went, all went back to their own sort of parts of the world, their own countries did the work that, had come out of the workshops and when they reconvened, found that everybody had gone away and done different things. And so that led to a path of wow, this, we've, we had a bunch of people in the room that were across a whole range of cultures. And we all interpreted what we had agreed in different ways. Hence then was born. Cultural intelligence research. And so there was research done over 20 years until now. And then so that, that's all that stuff, you can go and get trained in CQ and you can do an assessment and you can read the research articles. I think where you are coming from is. We need to make it practical. And so the Fellows program that I'm involved in the goal of that is to create a cohort of individuals around the world who who know a lot about the research and the academic stuff, but are focusing on the practicalities of how cultural intelligence can be a benefit in our niche areas. So for me, CQ and safety and and it's taking it to a practical level of, okay, so the research says this, what does it actually look like in the real world in a business? Which is, I think also what you are suggesting and what your project and maybe some of the other things is all about. Does that sound about right in terms of what your commentary was? Yeah.

Vance: 18:23

Yeah. I could, maybe I could elaborate on that. From my view, if we had CQ as the umbrella and we were worker centric, so we'd have CQ as the umbrella in the middle as the worker, and on the left hand side is the supply. And on the right hand side is the demand. So the supply is the practitioners, is academia coming in to support the workers and on the demand side are the businesses, working across to the workers, basically to meet their business and legal duties. There's a tendency because it's easier to approach workers from the supply side. My view is that's failing. And I think the data's showing that. So Me Mataara works from the demand side. I think from a CQ point of view. It doesn't matter which side's coming, but Me Mataara should provide some evidence to support CQ and that cohort that this is why we collected the information. This is the way the business has thought about it, and this is how they've used it, again I use the term a serious consideration when it comes to things like cq, and I understand that, my work's only on the ethnic side of culture. There's a whole bunch of other aspects of culture. Yep.

Greg: 19:43

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And I've mentioned that many times around just including all of those different aspects of diversity and different organizational cultures. You can you can apply the concept between, a milk station in your part of the world to a milk station in Invercargill are gonna have different cultures that that using the CQ model, you could you could apply that to engaging with both of those parties to try and get some effective and useful outcomes. The other thing that you mentioned was Kia Tupato and that was obviously something that sort of really got you on the path of doing some of this work of integrating health and safety into Māori culture, any sort of updates on where that's at, what it's is, it is, it's out there. Obviously people are using it. Where's that going?

Vance: 20:35

Ah, it resonates, it resonates with heaps of different people in terms of caution versus safety. So that's where it's, that's where it's positioned at the moment. Me Mataara uses technology to confirm that it's, a legitimate intervention in a workplace that can reduce injury claims for that workforce. You and I have spoken about, shown me signs and your story of a lady on the escalator. So it's there, it's happening. My job is not, I think I've done a job of taking out of the shadows and putting it on the agenda. The next big step is just to confirm it, and that's data, videos of influencers supporting it. So that's where we at. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg: 21:20

Yeah. And so moving forward with Me Mataara what's, what does the next six months look like?

Vance: 21:28

We have to get our marketing branding onto platforms and the wider social media. So we've started filming different influences. So the idea is we get the marketing content of Me Mataara online, so that warms up the community to say something's happening and they might show an interest and then we are going to decide on the online platform we're gonna use again. It might be circle. So we get that up and running. The Me Mataara worker app has been basically almost at the prototype stage by saferme and thanks saferme Clinton and the crowd for helping with that. And then we've opened discussions with who all have agreed months ago to participate and so we're just working out. The mechanics of that. So#MeMataara the go to at this stage and just watch this space in terms of the social media messaging and, content we're gonna be putting out.. I can say that confidently'cause I'll probably spend, gonna spend a small mortgage on bloody getting that stuff across the line. So I'm quite serious this time around Greg. Hey, I'll tell you what I found out doing Me Mataara. I found out some interesting stuff'cause I wanted to look at Māori woman workers and a tidbit. Pharaohs, Egyptian, pharaohs, they wear wigs, eh, they wear wigs. You see them on, different things, pictures and stuff. And the Wigs signify that the Pharaoh, who is usually a male. Has reached the status of a woman. So the wigs represents a woman's long hair because women in Egyptian cultures and still are seen as the pinnacle of intellect and I suppose you could say cultural intelligence. And I found that fascinating, especially when I look at Māori women and how they're held in high esteem. But, over time that perception has changed somewhat. So that's a little tidbit that I found and I like those little tidbits.'cause when you go to explain things and reinforce your messaging, you can use something from another culture to explain why you are arguing this. Yeah.

Greg: 23:47

Look, I think that perception of gender differences in many cultures you might hear similar stories. You've obviously highlighted the, women in Māori culture. And you see that. In action on marae and various other places and your story and even middle Eastern women. I've, I had I think I gave you the connection to Dr. Hend Zaki who runs a course on Muslim people living in Western countries and her PhD was particularly on the experience of Muslim people living in New Zealand and growing a life here. And I guess the whole hijab and head scarf discussion creates a lot of tension across cultures and I just have heard so many stories from the Middle Eastern side of the story that, that, their perception and their use and their acceptance of it is totally different to how Western people traditionally view it. And similarly to the story you've told the regard in which women are kept or held in Muslim culture is is probably not something that Western people hear a lot about. So I think, yeah, I think it's very consistent and I guess our job is as being, people that are theoretically culturally intelligent is just acknowledging that it's not to, it's not to say it's good or it's bad, it's just to try and understand it, listen to it and acknowledge that's that cultural approach to whatever the subject might be.

Vance: 25:19

Yeah. I think you're perfectly right. Just getting the information out there is more important at this stage. Me and just provides a more serious, a serious lean towards that information.

Greg: 25:32

Yeah. So you're working on some marketing is there anything that the wider health and safety community. Can do, should do, has the opportunity to do in becoming more knowledgeable about your project or involved in it or contributing to it.

Vance: 25:51

Yeah, so keep an eye out for the#MeMataara as I'm only person doing it at this stage. Keep an eye out for the digital platform that we will put into play later this month or next month. So that will provide the platform for people too participate, but more importantly, contribute. They might make a short video, this is what I think about Me Mataara. Or they might not, it might not be about Me Mataara, it might be about cultural intelligence. I might put something, a link to your podcast on the platform. Whereas health and safety, people just keep an eye out at this stage and when things start to warm up take more of an interest. Yeah.

Greg: 26:30

And I guess you'll be you'll be front and center on stage at next year's TRMA conference. Will you be waving the Me Mataara flag?

Vance: 26:38

Yeah. There should be some something to talk about then. You know what I mean? So I don't wanna do presentations about what ifs. I want to give presentations of this. This is what happened, good storytelling. But I'm more interested in presentations outside of where people expect Me Mataara to be presented so overseas. Yeah. And you encourage me to look at those types of opportunities before but I've gotta get through the work first.

Greg: 27:06

That's awesome. Vance good to hear that this that this work is being done. Look forward to following the journey over the next the next little while. And good to have a korero and and really interesting to hear what you've been up to for the last little while.

Vance: 27:21

Thanks, Greg. It's always nice talking with you. And about you. I, I. I really like the, your little journey you're on at the moment. I know it's a limited window and a rarity in the scheme of things enjoy it. Enjoy it for every minute it's worth.

Greg: 27:38

Thanks again for joining me in this episode of the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional. What a rich and thought provoking korero with Vance Walker, a returning guest and a true thought leader in integrating Māori culture with health and safety practices. In today's episode, we explored how cultural intelligence can evolve from an academic concept into a powerful data driven tool for real world change, particularly through the Me Mataara project. Vance's work is pushing boundaries, not just in terms of reducing injuries for Māori workers, but also in redefining what it means to take culture seriously in our profession. Here are some of my takeaways from the conversation. Cultural intelligence is ready for the real world. Me Mataara is showing us how to move beyond theory by connecting cultural values contained in initiatives like Kia Tupato and Te Whare Tapa Whā with measurable workplace safety outcomes. Data is a new lever for cultural change. One of the biggest gaps Vance identified is the lack of hard business data to support cultural initiatives. Me Mataara aims to fill that gap offering evidence businesses can use to build solid cases for cultural integration. Worker centric change starts with leadership, engaging both workers and leaders through workshops, storytelling and tech is at the heart of the project success, and that includes using platforms and voices that resonate with younger and more diverse audiences. And finally, We all need to challenge assumptions, whether it's our view of cultural intelligence as soft, or our limited understanding of cultural dynamics across gender and ethnicity. Vance reminded us that looking at things differently is a first step towards doing things differently. If this episode sparked any ideas or questions for you, let's keep the conversation going. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if you're enjoying the podcast, please follow or subscribe and share it with someone who might find value in the kaupapa. Until next time, mā te wā.