How Businesses Can Ally with First Nations Cultures

Tagalaka woman Denise Bowden, CEO of the Yothu Yindi Foundation and the Garma Institute, says business leaders should pick a community and just go for it.

Pick a subject and do it well. Whether the topic is education or rheumatic heart disease, don’t be too prescriptive about expectations or presume that a Western business model is the only way to operate because it won’t be. Things will look different everywhere you go. I’ve seen corporates dip their toe in then mark it up against a reconciliation action plan. It doesn’t work like that. You have to pick one community and understand how it functions as well as what its challenges are.

Cultural awareness training will work if it’s given by the people whose land you are on. Every community is different. Arnhem Land, for example, was the home of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions [the 1963 documents foundational to native title]. That should be Learning 101 before coming into the region because the people you’ll be conversing with have come from a generation of shift.

Your personal experience is so underrated. We want you to be in a community. Doing your research will put you in good stead. Find out which communities are prominent, remembering that land councils aren’t always based on Country and that sometimes we have two Yolngu names [in North-Eastern Arnhem Land]. If you have basic language skills, that puts you ahead of the game. Get a reference – you might not have been to Gapuwiyak but you might know someone who has – and get to know the local families.

Use a strengths-based approach and see what’s working. I sometimes feel people think it’s going to be a hard slog. It’s not. Have a presence at a sporting event, festival, conference, even a firstterm school assembly. You don’t have to go in talking, talking. Just be there and feel the flavour of the community.

Your approach in collaborations has to be flexible. Allow really capable Indigenous organisations to operate the business they know. Some organisations need you to give them confidence to put in place measures that will ultimately come back to your business; that takes time. Sometimes you have to take a gamble on individuals. It’s corny but always apply respect and love and it will come back to you.

Get into it. And don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Because, you know what? We’re waiting for you to make mistakes. If you’re not, how are we supposed to arrive at the solution together?