New Zealand looks, on the surface, like an easy place to operate. The society is informal. Hierarchies are flat. You can get in front of decision-makers with surprising ease. Meetings are relaxed. Nobody leads with their title. For someone arriving from the United States or parts of Europe, it can feel almost disarmingly open.
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Deals I thought were progressing weren’t. Decisions I believed were close kept drifting. Feedback that felt positive turned out, in hindsight, to have been something softer — more conditional, sometimes illusory. The friction was never overt. It was embedded in the texture of the conversations themselves, and I kept missing it.
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What I’ve found — and it took longer than I’d like to admit — is that influence here has to be built rather than applied. It moves through whanaungatanga — the web of relationships, obligations, and genuine connection that binds people together. You cannot shortcut it. You can only participate in it.
