Last week, Brisbane unveiled the official motto for the 2032 Olympic Games. I should have celebrated: it’s happening a short flight from where I live. But instead, when I heard the motto it made me stop and scratch my head. It sounded strangely familiar. It sounded like a typical school slogan, rather than an Olympic motto.

Believe. Belong. Become. Brisbane 2032.

It just doesn’t land like an Olympic motto. It lands like a school mission statement drafted by a tired committee at 4pm on a Friday afternoon.

The alliteration is fun enough. The sentiment is just fine. But “fine” isn’t Olympic standard. “Fine” feels uninspiring for a global event representing grit, excellence, controversy, triumph, heartbreak.

Organisers described it as “the largest consultation process Brisbane 2032 has undertaken to date”. That’s honourable, but in the wrong hands it’s also the root cause of the problem.

When we treat consultation as a numbers game, we can end up flattening any meaning. More voices often lead to less clarity. Broader reach gives a weaker signal. Everyone gets included, but no-one is inspired.

The real skill is turning all the words from all those stakeholders into something meaningful and appropriate, rather than something generic and boring.

And it raises a simple question: who is this motto actually for?

Is it for the athletes?

But they already believe. They’ve believed since they were six. They absolutely belong - they’re Olympians, part of an exclusive club of Olympic participants. And “become”? The vast majority won’t become champions. Most will become the person who didn’t make the final.

Is it for the spectators?

Believe what? That this will be “the best Games ever”? “Belong” to which group? They’re not Olympians. They’re part of the global union of couch-based sports fans? And “become…” what, exactly?

This is what happens when we design from the middle. When every comment, every post-it, every politely worded piece of feedback is weighted equally, the result is a motto that could belong to any city, any school, any corporate values poster from 1998.

At NoTosh, we spend an unreasonable amount of time talking schools out of exactly this.

Not because consultation is bad - far from it. We undertake hundreds of interviews before designing a mission statement or full-blown strategy.

But the art lies in reading the edges of the data, not the middle. The edges show desire, tension, aspiration, discomfort. The middle shows consensus, which is another word for: no one will argue, but no one will care.

We are grateful to the schools who’ve partnered with us over the last twelve intense months, allowing us to help them do the opposite of Brisbane 2032:

Look beyond the obvious.

Ditch the safe.

Say the thing they actually mean.

Craft a mission that isn’t interchangeable with a neighbouring school’s.

Because when a community articulates what it truly stands for, the subsequent strategy gains direction, staff gain focus, families gain clarity. And the school gains the confidence to move in fresh directions, not just nod along with the status quo.

A motto, a mission, a set of values: these aren’t decorative.

They’re the steering wheel.