Developing A "Culturally Together" System For Cultural Sustainability And The Reconciling Of Peoples

At its core, the issue of sustainability, perhaps the critical issue of this millennium, is not an ecological one. It is, we would argue in this paper, a cultural one. Strategists have long recognized that for an organization (country, business) to be competitive, it is not enough that it have “the competitive edge”. Its advantage must be sustainable over time. If our basic resources are not sustainable, competitive advantage is itself a meaningless concept. In short, the very concept of strategy is itself under threat or at least being re-invented by this threat. A shift from the sharp “hyper-competitive” end of the competitive-collaborative continuum towards the collaborative end is (perhaps is not, but ought to be) taking place in our time. Underlying this “ought” is a cultural shift, from a culture of exploitation, or harvesting, to one of respect, or guardianship (In Maori “Mana tiaki“). In broad terms, this is a radical mindshift as rationality drives the western business mindset towards that of indigenous culture. Underlying this strategic issue, therefore, is a keenly-felt cultural business dilemma.