Ron Rowe: Everything requires fitness for purpose

Ron Rowe

It was the acclaimed actor (and sometime philosopher) Tom Hanks who said, "May you live as long as you want, and not want as long as you live" that turned my mind to the very current and relevant matters espoused by Bob McCoskrie, national director of Family First New Zealand – HB Today, February 8.

I reflected on the terrible and ever growing statistics based around poverty, sole parenting and family dysfunction. McCoskrie referred to their 2016 report, "Child Poverty & Family Structure: household incomes and family structure from the early 1960s through to current day", and found that while unemployment, low wages, high housing costs and insufficient social security benefits are consistently blamed for child poverty, a major culprit - if not the major culprit - is family malformation and family breakdown.

Despite families being much smaller, parents being older, and mothers being better educated and having much higher employment rates, child poverty has risen significantly since the 1960s.

In 1961, 95 per cent of children were born to married couples; by 2015 the proportion had fallen to 53 per cent. For Maori, 72 per cent of births were to married parents in 1968; by 2015 the proportion had fallen to just 21 per cent.

Leading neuroscientists confirm that as much as 95 per cent of our decisions are controlled by our subconscious mind. In particular, the oldest and most primitive part of our three-part brain actually manages much of how we humans behave.

This brain only cares about our survival. It's a reflex that acts viscerally, responding by fight or flight; ruled by triggers like hunger and fear; and is solely interested in the "What's in it for me?"

It was while reading the outcome of a disciplinary hearing of a professional body on which I was "the invited layperson" that the realty of something, or someone being "Fit for Purpose" really struck home. And how really there is nothing in this world that does not require fitness for purpose. Nothing.

And certainly the most important surely, requiring "Fitness for Purpose" from us as parents and adults are our young people, our families/ whanau. Our future!

The "Law" in all its many parts and elements and in all sectors of society has very definite understanding and meanings of/for ''Fitness for Purpose".

A product or service, or an action that actually does what it is intended to do is fit for purpose and implies quality. Of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose.

For many of us, the word "fit" generally means maintaining a healthy weight, good diet, appropriate exercise. Yet this leaves out several important components of what being truly fit means.

In biological terms, "being fit" means "being able to provide for one's own life and wellbeing; and those for who we have a responsibility".

Psychological fitness involves building our mental, emotional and behavioural abilities in order to effectively cope with the unique and ever changing challenges (and easy ways out) of our environment and of family, living well or as Tom Hanks said, "not want as long as you live".

Fitness is not and never has been just about how much weight you can lift, or how many miles you can run. There are a number of other factors outside the realm of strength, agility and speed. Some leaders in the field have described this as is a "whole-of-body experience".

When you think, feel and act positively, toward yourself, your family/whanau and most especially your children you help protect yours and their psychological health and build overall strength and stamina. In fact, psychological fitness is just as important as physical fitness is in building stamina and performing at your peak as a parent. Strengthening your mind can carry you through tough times.

Not just being fit to the point of sufficiency, but being the fittest. So, the question is: What can you do to be the fittest you can be, or to obtain the best quality of life possible for yourself, your family/ whanau?

Fitness for purpose in its broadest sense relates to the outcome itself as well as to the practices used to develop the outcome. And we can all do that by not matching up to some general standard or thing or following what the rest are doing.

Ron Rowe is a life fellow of the NZ Institute of Management, a former Judicial Justice of the Peace and has more than 50 years of active leadership in community-based and volunteer organisations. He is a governance and strategic adviser and is based in Hawke's Bay. All views expressed here are the writer's and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.