Unity and fellowship are fundamental in any working group: they can help find solutions and generate innovative working methods. At Oesse, we value spending time together, to sharing training and leisure time, and to working together in an innovative way following a single vision: ‘Be the footprint of excellence!‘.
As is our custom, we recently organised one of our team building days. In this case, we unleashed our energy with the Haka Dance! There was a lot of fun and satisfaction, it was a highly experiential activity, with high mental and physical participation of all the teams from the different departments.
“Haka” means “igniting the breath”, from HA (breath) and KA (ignite) and is a dance intended to impress the opponents. The outstretched tongue, clenched teeth and wide-open eyes are all signs and movements designed to communicate aggression and power, hallmarks of the Maori warrior spirit.
Legend has it that the dance originated from an episode involving an important Maori chief, Te Rauparaha, who, in order to escape from ferocious assassins, hid in the well of a small village and with the help of a young couple made his tracks disappear. The couple at first tried to convince the murderers that the man was not there, and at that moment he was whispering to himself – in the Maori language – ‘Ka Mate, Ka Mate‘ (I die, I die) from the well. When he heard that the killers had finally departed, he shouted with joy ‘Ka Ora, Ka Ora‘ (I live, I live).
Practising this dance, which is used by the All Blacks of the New Zealand national rugby team to charge up before sporting challenges, has brought to light fundamental values that characterise us and that we value. They are:
- passion
- enthusiasm
- tenacity
- team spirit
- union
These values will continue to guide us in our relationships and work activities, reminding us that a bad language is not meant as an insult, but rather as a challenge to improve, with a positive meaning!
