Mentoring a Maori Framework

MAI Review, 2007, 3, Target Article 1

Mentoring Māori within a Pākehā framework
G. Raumati Hook, Tū Waaka and L. Parehaereone Raumati Abstract: Mentoring Māori within a Pākehā framework is a challenge that faces many government agencies and corporate entities in New Zealand as they try to promote more Māori into middle and upper management roles. Unless this process is considered and carefully managed it could give rise to unexpected outcomes such as resentment and dissention triggered by insensitive attempts to layer one set of cultural values on those of another. While the intentions may be good the pathways leading to hoped for outcomes are not identical for Māori and Pākehā. For example, the reductionistic approach to business management of Pākehā contrasts with the holistic approach arising out of the Māori world view and the individualistic philosophies of Pākehā contrast with the group orientation of Māori. In this paper the two approaches to mentoring are compared and contrasted with the intention of reaching a studied and useful integrated approach to the mentoring of Māori workers in a Pākehā framework. Keywords: biculturalism, cross-cultural mentoring, Māori mentoring, social principles, tikanga.

Introduction
Mentoring is recognized as one of the most effective methods for the development of people. Apparently, all of the top 500 companies in the UK have tried mentoring their staff at one time or another. History describes many acts of mentoring wherein the growth of a younger person is encouraged and guided by the experience of an older and wiser colleague, until such time as that younger person accedes to leadership; the world is full of those who consider themselves proteges of somebody significant. The goals of mentoring within Pākehā and Māori frameworks bear a superficial similarity to each other, but only insofar as both want the best for the individual being mentored, and one might think that the pathways taken would be necessarily the

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