In today’s world, true progress—real, transformative growth—requires an openness to creative risk, to philosophical pondering, and to the intuitive pathways that might just hold the breakthroughs we seek. But how often do we allow ourselves or our teams the freedom to explore them?

Somewhere along the line, we Kiwis picked up the idea that hard work means pushing ourselves to the absolute limit. Maybe it’s our number-eight-wire mentality—figure it out, get it done, don’t complain. But here’s the thing…