We help teams grow their innovation muscles
When the map doesn't match the territory
Your team gathers around the table, the same familiar faces looking at familiar problems. Someone mentions the framework that worked so well for another organisation. Plans are made. Actions are assigned. Everyone leaves feeling like progress happened.
But three months later, you're having versions of the same conversation. The framework didn't quite fit. The plan met reality and reality won. The breakthrough everyone was hoping for remains just out of reach.
When you're trying to innovate or work in complex change, you're learning to do what you don't quite know how to do, yet. It's like my brother-in-law says about sailing—you have to "allow the ocean to teach you to sail."
What if there was another way?
At Reflexiv, we help teams stop trying to control complexity and start having better conversations with it instead.
This isn't about having the right answers—it's about learning to ask better questions. It's about understanding that in complex systems, everything is in relationship with everything else. It's about drawing wisdom from oral cultures that have been navigating uncertainty and change for thousands of years.
Maybe your team has energy but keeps circling the same conversations. Maybe everyone can see the problem clearly but can't find a shared path forward. Maybe you're drowning in frameworks that promise clarity but leave you feeling more confused than when you started.
Is your team ready to apply wayfinding approaches?
Baruk Jacob
Chief Conspirator
He tangata tiriti ahau, nō Inia ahau. E noho ana ahau ki Kaipātiki ki Tāmaki Makaurau. Ko Baruk Jacob toku ingoa.
Over the last 20+ years, I have worked in private, public and community sectors, supporting teams to design better experiences for their customers and their communities. I am particularly inspired to learn from oral cultures, and believe that orality has much to teach us about living and thriving in an increasingly post-literate world.
My whakapapa (ancestral layers and connections to land) is to the Kumbanad family of Kerala and the Hmar tribe of Mizoram, both in modern-day India, and I am tangata tiriti in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am currently doing a PhD, exploring emotion approaches to growing innovation capability in teams.
Koda Laldogpouia
Dogface Poobum
I neba beg for food five minutes after a meal. I neba has poisonously stinky farts when Baruk is on an important call. I is head of security. I is very good at protecting the neighbours house from demselves. Dey lub dat I always tell dem when dey come home to dey house.
Sometimes I show Baruk's friends & colleagues my sharp teeth and loud barks because otherwise how dey know? I also head of motivation for Baruk. If he don work and make money to buy me food, I eats his books. Sometimes I eats his books anyway as a friendly reminder.
Growing Psychological Safety in teams
Client: Leadership team in the Arts and Culture sector. The Challenge: A restructure had left the organisation fractured. Redundancies created wounds that hadn't healed. Regional and local teams were working against each other rather than together, each convinced the other didn't understand their reality. Trust had evaporated, replaced by territorial defensiveness. Our Approach: Instead of diving straight into strategy sessions, we slowed down. Using conversational methods and tools like More Than Words and the Emotional Culture Deck, we created space for people to be human with each other again. Team members shared how the work actually felt, not just what they thought they should say about it. What Changed: > Regional and local teams stopped seeing each other as obstacles and started working as allies > People gained clarity about their roles without losing sight of their shared purpose >The organisation rediscovered what they were all working toward, even when they expressed it differently
Building innovation across silos
Client: Local government waste management team The Challenge: The team had a mandate to innovate, but innovation can't happen in silos. Multiple teams needed to collaborate, yet they'd been operating in separate worlds for years. Everyone was trapped in business-as-usual thinking, going through familiar motions whilst the real breakthroughs remained out of reach. Our Approach: We brought 20+ people together across three workshops—not to present to each other, but to actually connect as humans working on shared challenges. Then we coached the project champion on how to keep that collaborative energy alive as a smaller group turned the big ideas into testable experiments. What Emerged: > Teams that rarely spoke began seeing innovation as shared work, not competing priorities > Ideas surfaced from unexpected places—across hierarchies and departmental boundaries that usually kept people apart > The team developed behavioural science-driven experiments with a framework for learning from what worked and what didn't
Relationships before programmes!
Client: University research project The Challenge: How do you help rangatahi (young people) who've been let down by traditional systems imagine a different future for themselves? The team wanted to explore whether creativity could be a pathway to hope, but these young people had every reason to be sceptical of yet another well-meaning programme. Our Approach: Instead of launching straight into workshops, we spent a month earning trust. Using Hautū Waka principles, we redesigned the standard design thinking approach to fit what rangatahi actually needed. Short creative exercises became conversations. Relationships came before curriculum. We also ensured rangatahi were compensated fairly—recognising their expertise in their own lives. What Shifted: > Rangatahi who'd learned not to trust institutional programmes began engaging openly and creatively > The approach honoured cultural values whilst proving that creativity genuinely matters for young people's futures > The alternative education centre gained new partnerships that continue supporting their students > The research team discovered they could actually shift systems to work better for marginalised communities > Everyone involved saw what becomes possible when you start with relationships, not programmes
Half-day workshops
3 to 9 people
$4500 + GST
> Applying the Hautū Waka design process to YOUR context. Hautū Waka is particularly useful for navigating complex change, transformation, and innovation.
> Using the DVFE (Desirability, Viability, Feasibility, Ethicality) model to enable your decision making. The DVFE helps you get clarity in your prioritisation.
> Using the 6 Conditions of Systems Change to understand the landscape you work in. The 6 Conditions helps you consider underlying blocks to change.
> Using Te Whare Tapa Whā to create meaningful experiences for your customers or community. This model's focus on wellbeing makes it a great tool!
> Something else on your mind? Let's chat!
