The Strength Is In the Weave

The Strength Is In the Weave

A single strand of harakeke snaps easily. Anyone who's tried it knows that. On its own, it was never built to hold much weight.

Woven together, it becomes something else entirely. A kete strong enough to carry what matters. A whāriki that holds a whole room. I've watched harakeke woven a few times over the years, and had a go at it myself, alongside people who taught me to see it properly, and one thing has always stayed with me: the strength was never in any single strand. It was always in the weaving.

That's what a good Professional Learning Group actually is. And it's what sits underneath everything I do: teaching leaders to have the conversations that matter.

This isn't a room to be fixed in. It's a room to learn in. Leaders teaching leaders. New ideas brought in and tested against real experience, through real conversation. A deliberate weaving together of people, each one bringing something the others don't have, made stronger by being woven with others.

The research backs up what the weaving already knows. Johann Hari's work on connection found that genuine connection with others is one of the most powerful things that helps people actually thrive, not merely survive. Not proximity. Not simply being in a room with other people. The real, woven-in kind, where the conversations go deeper because you're known, and you know others in return.

A strand held alone can hold itself up for a while. Woven together, it holds a great deal more, and holds it for a great deal longer.

That's the part genuinely worth celebrating about a room like this.

The bonds that form between leaders who finally don't have to explain the context before they say the real thing. The mindsets that get gently challenged, not because anyone's being difficult, but because a good weave only holds its shape when different strands cross and test each other. The conversations that surface in a room like that, the kind that never quite makes it into a one-to-one, because it needs more than one other strand to bring it out.

A few things worth sitting with:

Who are the strands I'm currently woven with, and how is that serving my learning?

What conversation have I been missing out on by holding this alone?

What would it feel like to be part of something built to hold more than I can hold by myself?

If you're ready to be woven into a room like that, the Leaders PLG is built to be exactly this. Whether it's 1:1 coaching or being part of a 2027 PLG group, my calendar is open for 2027 and I'd love to talk it through with you. You can find out more here: momentumlearning.ac.nz/conversations-for-leaders

Arohanui
Mary-Anne 😊