Industry
Business Collective
Challenge
Turning ambiguity about purpose, operating model, and market proposition into clear, confident direction.
Results
Sharp shared vision, stronger market proposition, and an actionable delivery roadmap - momentum they could act on immediately.
Key Product
Discovery Accelerator Workshop
About Mahi Tahi Collective
The Mahi Tahi Collective is a multi-company group dedicated to supporting New Zealand SMEs. Bringing together businesses with complementary strengths, the collective exists to help small and medium enterprises access the expertise, connections, and backing they need to grow.The Challenge
As a recently formed collective, Mahi Tahi faced a challenge that many collaborative organisations encounter early on: they knew they had something valuable, but struggled to articulate exactly what that was. The group found it difficult to define who they were as a collective, which customers to focus on, how to harness the individual strengths of each member, and how to package and deliver their services in a way that would resonate in the market.
Without a shared sense of purpose and a clear operating model, the collective risked pulling in different directions — leaving potential customers confused and leaving real value on the table.
They needed to move from ambiguity to alignment, and they needed to do it without months of drawn-out strategic planning.
The Solution
Mahi Tahi engaged Optimation for a 1-Day Discovery Accelerator — a structured, facilitated workshop designed to take leaders and teams from ambiguity to an agreed vision and delivery pathway in a single day.
Through Optimation's four-phased framework, the session moved the group through Alignment, Current State, Future State, and Pathway. Rather than a traditional meeting, the day was run as a creative, hands-on lab — using sketching, voting, and storytelling to surface the best thinking in the room, challenge assumptions, and align diverse perspectives.
Together, the group clarified their shared "why, how, what", mapped the real strengths of each member, defined high-value target customer profiles and their critical problems, and translated this into a concrete roadmap for how the collective would operate and grow.
Honest, constructive discussions that brought different perspectives together. Stronger connections across the team and a shared sense of direction
Facilitated by Scarlett and Jessica from the Optimation team, every voice was heard — balancing solo thinking, small-group collaboration, and full-group discussion to ensure the outcomes reflected genuine collective intelligence, not just the loudest voices in the room.
The Results
By the end of the day, Mahi Tahi had moved from uncertainty to momentum. The group left with:
- A sharp, shared vision of who they are (and aren't) as a collective
- A stronger, clearly defined market proposition
- Mapped member strengths and identified gaps to address
- An actionable delivery roadmap covering events, meetings, collaboration, and referrals
- Stronger connections across the team and a renewed shared sense of direction
Key highlights from the client's own reflection included honest, constructive discussions that brought different perspectives together, greater clarity on the variety of strengths across members, and a clear picture of where gaps may need filling.
As the collective noted: "We're looking forward to turning yesterday's ideas into action over the coming weeks."
Learn more about Optimation Group's 1-day Discovery Accelerator Workshop here.
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