Rosa Say's Blog: Managing with Aloha, page 30

How to Capture an Expert’s Value: 12 Tips

My last post on training workshops prompted an email from a longtime reader about this article, previously posted on TalkingStory.org. She shared a recent workshop story of her own with me (she turned tip #4 into a personal goal), and she suggested I link to all 12 Tips for the rest of our MWA community. Love to! Here is a fresh edit of the article, more essay than checklist, including selected in-linking to our recent discussions.

Initially I felt a bit strange about writing this, not wanting my suggestions to sound like the personal laundry list of a presumptuous author, but it has since proved to be a list that several people have told me they greatly appreciated, since booking speakers is not an everyday occurrence for them. It can be a dance, and they are aware of the tethers which hold them back from what I’m about to share with you.

In a one sentence preview, How to Capture an Expert’s Value: 12 Tips describes what happens when someone hires me as a speaker or trainer, and they decide we’ll become friends with a professional relationship by the time the engagement is over.

Let’s start with why as we’re fond of doing: Why bother? There are several possible reasons, and the earliest story of the list dishes a few of them up for us…

KĀKOU Partnering and ‘IKE LOA Learning

I’m a habitual checklist maker, and this one actually started within a staff meeting brainstorm held with my managers while I served as VP of Operations at the Hualalai Resort. It evolved as I describe after Managing with Aloha was published.

Hualalai Resort was then a rapidly growing and diverse operation, and we frequently hired trainers and consultants to assist us with their specialties. My department heads were encouraged to do that hiring directly, planning for it in their Staff Training & Education budgets, and it was not channeled through HR or any other approval process, however we wanted to be consistent and collaborative. Being consistent had to do with smart partnering, assuring that all outsiders would have the same good experience working with us, and this in turn, led to a highly successful evolution of our Supplier Certification S.O.P.s (I refer to this in my book as our Vendor Partnership Program). Being collaborative had to do with smart learning optimization: While booked departmentally or by division, all workshop attendance was open to the entire company for the learning opportunity it could provide. Whoever booked it would advertise it and extend the invitation. Budgets were nicely stretched this way; we avoided making duplicate bookings. For instance, everyone knew that the safety workshops done by our Landscaping & Resort Maintenance team were stellar, and they became an introductory benchmark for us in anything safety related.

Sit with these goals for a moment, and think about smart partnering and learning optimization as most relevant to your own mission, before rushing ahead to read our list of tips:

Think about your own training programs, and its possible connections. What is done to completely optimize training in your company? What improvements can you suggest and foster? i.e. How can you be a better leader in this regard? Those safety workshops I mentioned were “stellar” because those managers refused to let them get boring: They knew we could not afford any apathy in our ‘Ohana’s safety. Their program was extremely interesting, interactive and fun — yes, safety! As a result, they were our resort leaders in Loss Prevention as well.


Now think about your own relationships in networked expertise: When you hire someone — to do anything for you, anything at all — what is the ongoing partnership you work to maintain? What lasting effect will they have on your life? What lasting effect will you have on theirs? What kind of opportunities might you be missing? i.e. How can you better manage your own relationships, knowing how important they are?

If you are going to spend some time with a new acquaintance, is that inspiring newness captured, or is it squandered away and wasted? Every new meeting you have with someone comes with the potential for relationship conversion: You choose to pursue it, or you don’t (that’s a choice too).

When you boil an engagement down to its essence, people want me to speak at an event or present a workshop because they are looking for some kind of inspiration or fresh motivation. When they treat me as a vendor I do make sure they get that shot of inspiration they are expecting. However when they treat me as a prospective collaborator on their vision of greater possibility, that’s what they get.

How to Capture an Expert’s Value: 12 Tips

In bringing Managing with Aloha to the world of business I speak a lot; everything from 20-minute keynotes to week-long seminars and retreats. I love it, and I’ve enjoyed some truly terrific engagements. They were terrific because my clients were terrific, and I felt I wasn’t just a hired gun; we collaborated on the design of my presentation, and they gave me the opportunity to give more than just another speech.

With my most recent presentation I had the pleasure of staying in a magnificent hotel, and part of my fee arrangement included an extra night’s stay so that I could end my time with them much more leisurely than I normally have the opportunity to do: They specifically requested an “Open Door Morning” from me where the managers who had participated in my workshop could book 20-minute question-and-dialogue time with me one-on-one. Their offer was irresistible to me and I took advantage of it. Smartly, so did they; it was a win for both of us. They helped me create a defining moment for them and their company.

There have been more of these clients who took full advantage of our engagement in other ways, knowing how I am more coach than consultant by nature, and I think they were exceptionally clever. By the time our project was over they had received oodles of free coaching from me, and I didn’t mind one bit. In fact, they usually left me wishing that all my clients were just like them.

This is how they did it. This is not an all-or-nothing list: Pick what you like from it, and then do it exceptionally well.

1. First, I didn’t intimidate them. All of 5’1” and soft spoken when I’m off-stage I’m not an intimidating person, however they didn’t let my “expert” or “author” aura and reputation hold them back either. They took the time to have more telephone conversations with me and get to know me. They shared their objectives with me, and those transparently honest stories of why they called me in the first place. In short, they got me to know them, like them, and want to help them as new friends who had a vision and mission similar to mine.

2. If I was traveling to see them, they played meeting planner to my travel agent, booking as much of my “free time” as possible, before I filled in the blanks myself (my fees are set per project, and not per hour). I’ve become quite precise pre-and-post workshop, yet there is much more opportunity: As managers and leaders, they’d get my free advice over morning coffee the day of my seminar, or because they picked me up from the airport personally instead of sending a driver for me. They entertained me and gave me the niceties of “VIP service” so that I’d “pay” them for it with my knowledge and some free coaching, knowing that I love to give it!

3. They got me to use their products and services during my stay, whatever they were. They asked me to test them, and offer suggestions and honest feedback. My “thing” is management and leadership in business, and I travel a lot. I get welcomed into many different companies, perhaps including their competitors, and others they should benchmark. I am not going to disclose anything I shouldn’t. Still, knowing my frame of reference, they considered me a living, breathing, opinionated yet seasoned “guest comment card” for what they offer.

4. They understood that those of us who speak are always looking for new stories and new examples to pepper our presentations with personalization (say that quickly 3 times!) and they took me on plant/ property/ company tours, and introduced me to many of the people who would be in my audience both before and after my presentation so we’d make a personal connection. They were skillful conversation starters in those introductions; a chance meeting would warm up quickly, and every conversation became both interesting and relevant.

5. Along those same lines, they deliberately set out to be my newest fresh-in-mind and memorable “great story,” the one I would take to future speeches in other places, giving them fantastic, highly favorable free press in the process. Knowing I speak to hundreds or thousands of your prospective customers and candidates each year, and that people ask me for my recommendations all the time, what would you like me to say to them about you? What will you make sure I remember?

6. Most speakers, me included, are eager learners, always on the prowl for opportunities to meet the visionaries, movers and shakers in an organization. We love to interview the big shots and get inside their heads, and as a coach who has learned to hear values, I get priceless context. My best clients, the ones determined to make MWA part of their culture going forward, used me to secure their boss’s buy-in because they gave me the golden opportunity to discuss vision and mission with them.

7. If I was just one speaker in their conference, they invited me to the entire affair so that I would be available to their participants both on stage and off. You can bet this strategy also made me pretty competitive, and determined to be their best speaker, and the one sharing the most Aloha with their people.

8. They understood that they’d be flushing their money down the drain if my presentation needs were not taken care of (audio-visual, lighting, desired room logistics) and if I was not well seen, heard, and experienced by the audience. They kept the venue as intimate as possible, and they ensured that I wasn’t competing with any digital distractions like unanticipated video-taping: Good hosts do cover behavioral niceties with their participants on a speaker’s behalf.

9. They had read my book knowing it as my brand, or at least had skimmed it pretty thoroughly and read the book reviews. They were very familiar with my blog and my website. They distributed an article I’d written to their audience ahead of time in a newsletter, announcement, or email blitz to create some anticipation and excitement, and so they’d start thinking of questions for me.

10. They asked me to help them with my introduction before my presentation, i.e. What part of your bio should I mention? instead of just reading it… and — the part most people miss — they asked how they should end it, i.e. if they were offering my book at a special price, my website links for continuing MWA education, if I was sticking around for the remainder of their conference etc. Speakers don’t like to end presentations with a sales pitch — even free resources sound suspect, and less than a good deal. When the organizer does it, they get the credibility for negotiating that free e-book or digital handout out of me exclusively for their audience.

11. If they have asked me to include a Q&A time, they planted (prepared!) people with good questions to start us off with, questions on things they wanted me to cover briefly anyway. Better than a Q&A time, they scheduled round-table discussions immediately after my presentation, asking their groups to come up with Next Action idea lists connected with it, and asking me to remain and walk the room as speaker turned coach — what I do best!

12. They scheduled a post event debrief with me (i.e. a conversation of their agenda, whereas the one I include is my coaching follow-up agenda.) The more involved and longer my engagement, and the more of your people I meet, the more feedback I am going to have for you. Will you secure your opportunity to get it out of me, or are you letting me escape with it as you politely say thank you and goodbye? They ask the critical question in this debrief: What is your advice on how we use your message within our organizational culture, so the learning sticks?

Which of these 12 Tips can you use?

Think about these things the next time you hire any consultant or expert, and blend it with your goals, and your personality as Mea Ho‘okipa — they are part of your being the best host you can be, however they are tips that will also get you your money’s worth. Even better, they can help you groom a great new relationship with someone.

Since first publishing this a few years back, a good part of the feedback I have received has been in the vein of, “I didn’t know I could even suggest these things, and have an expert welcome them instead of feeling I was being pushy and presumptuous!” I think you will be pleasantly surprised once you try them out: I feel quite confident in saying that most experts will welcome an enhanced relationship with you, just as I do! Plus, experts are big boys and girls; they’re professional and know how to say no gently (and they will, without thinking less of you, believe me). Keep this distinction in mind: In securing their expertise, experts have found their Ho‘ohana. They do what they do because they genuinely want to share what they know and help you, so ask away!

All you speakers out there reading (and I know there are several of you), please chime in the comments here if you feel I’ve missed something. What have your best hosts and hostesses done for you when you teach, speak and present?

The Sentence I Hear in Your Workplace Classroom

Workshop scenarios can play out like this:

You hire me with a passionate story on why you would like to have Managing with Aloha taught in your workplace. Great!

We get to know each other a bit in our planning of the workshop I will deliver for you, for if I’m to deliver on your expectations, I need to learn what they are. It is impossible to teach all of Managing with Aloha in a single workshop, so we settle on the specific MWA message, value-mapping, or skill set we will cover.

I always arrive at least a half hour before the workshop is to start, for I am hoping to converse with others too, and learn more about all of you informally. Sometimes people come early enough for that to happen (especially when there’s food!) however they often aren’t let off shift with very much time to spare. That tells me they won’t be sticking around afterwards either, and I mentally commit to our break times as our in-workshop windows of opportunity.

You’ve been there to greet me and to make sure I have everything I will need, and most of the time (not always) you will introduce me, to share something with your staff about why I am there.

Then, to my great dismay, which I have gotten very good at hiding (at least in that particular moment), you quietly slip out as I get started.

People notice. What I will hear from your staff at some point during the workshop, and sometimes with alarming repetition as they take turns saying it, is this:

“I wish my boss were here to hear this too.”

So do I.

It’s YOUR classroom, and your workplace culture. Why did you abandon ship?

What in the world were you thinking, hiring me for a training that will now be impossible for you to follow-up on with any sensibility or credibility whatsoever?

No matter how inspirational they are, no hired trainer or motivational speaker will ever be able to give you a return on the investment you have made which is equal to, or greater than what you’ll secure on your own.

It starts at the workshop. You cannot follow up with teaching that you never hear in the first place.

Trainers present. We don’t implement (though we often wish we could!)

Besides, are you completely sure you will concur with everything I say in a workshop? If I were you, I wouldn’t be!

Training has to be talked about within a team, and agreements have to be made on what follow-up will happen in the workplace, and what will not, and why.

Your people need to hear directly from you as to whether or not you agree with a trainer. Your reasons why, or why not, are important to them, as are your new expectations now that the workshop has been presented.

Even if you have heard me speak before, you are missing out on the fabulous questions your staff will ask, and the discussions which create learning excitement for them. You miss seeing the opportunities you will have, to turn learning into action which makes a difference in your workplace. You miss those aha! moments, when someone gets thoroughly engaged with something we have talked about, and makes a supremely relevant connection to the work they do. You miss those magnificent maybes that fresh new ideas germinate in, needing your encouragement.

Your absence speaks with a very loud voice.

To me, yes. Frankly, I do think less of you. I am so disappointed, knowing I must lower my own expectations of how Managing with Aloha will play out in your culture. (In short, it probably won’t. Not without an Alaka‘i Manager or person aspiring to be one.)

Your absence speaks in even greater volumes to your people. The moment you step out of the room, they wonder, “Why bother?”

When you are not there, you send your staff a message that you are not interested, or that you think you are better than they are and above it all, or worse, that you hired someone to whip them into shape and “fix them” for you.

If workplace training is considered the new flavor of the month, unlikely to last and unlikely to get integrated into the workplace culture, chances are you didn’t sit long enough to partake of the meal. When good management is missing, leadership never makes it to the table.

Next time, show up and STAY. Learn WITH your staff. ENGAGE with your people. Make a commitment to convert learning into relevant, actionable ideas and intentions.

Then I can help you with more too. We can co-author the follow-up which starts momentum in your workplace, and grows you into the leader you are capable of being.

A healthy workplace culture is a participatory one.

The scenario I’ve described doesn’t happen in MWA workshops anymore, because I’ve learned my lesson, and am much more proactive in our planning. I will specifically require the managers involved to attend my workshops, or I simply won’t do them. This isn’t about me or my ego, it’s about my workshop participants and what they deserve from both of us: When you aren’t there, fully intending and expecting to follow up, I have failed them.

Your partnership is crucial and I value it highly, I sincerely do! All of the workshops I deliver include a pre-workshop coaching with managers and a post-workshop debrief where we’ll chart a course for the follow-up calendar which should ensue. We’re still at your mercy though, and cannot force your hand in a culture we don’t participate in: Trainers present. We challenge, and we do our best to inspire, knowing we must fire up the motivations within our audience. Much as we’d love to, we don’t implement: It’s not our culture, it’s yours.

I’ve written this posting as a plea: Healthy culture building is impossible without the full involvement of managers in ALL training, and not just mine. And not just new training; Alaka‘i Managers will participate in annual certifications too.

Workshops offer a manager sequential learning and consequential opportunity:

The 1st time you take a class, you’re there to learn the subject matter, just like everyone else. This is also your best chance to be understanding, being empathetic to what will be required of the first-time learner: You are both having the same experience.

Assuming you have put some of your learning into actual practice or other relevant usage, the 2nd time you take a class, you’re able to zoom in on whatever you missed or were not able to implement the first time around. You compare notes with the rest of your team, and collaborate on helping each other, knowing that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

It will usually take a 3rd time before you are fully able to take a class in manager-coach mode as compared to student-learner mode. This is when the subject matter becomes secondary to your role in coaching and supporting your team. You can now shift your attention to their needs instead of your own, and as the workshop proceeds you watch them, not the trainer. You listen to their questions and statements, and you make notes on how you can support and encourage them going further.

You become an Alaka‘i Manager who works, manages, and leads with ALOHA.

I have been busy in a great way lately!

To review the workshops I currently devote most of my attentions to, visit this page on RosaSay.com and let me know if I can help you.

Key 4. THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER RECONSTRUCTED:

Managers must own workplace engagement and be comfortable with facilitating change, creative innovation, and development of the human asset. The “reconstruction” we require in Managing with Aloha is so this expectation of the Alaka‘i Manager is both reasonable and possible, and so they can channel human energies as our most important resource, they themselves having the time, energy, and support needed in doing so. Convention may work against us, where historically, people have become managers for reasons other than the right one: Managing is their calling. A new role for managers must be explicitly valued by the entire organization as critically important to their better success: Managers can then have ‘personal bandwidth’ for assuming a newly reinvented role, one which delivers better results both personally and professionally, and in their stewardship of the workplace culture.

Read more: The 9 Key Concepts of Managing with Aloha

The sentence I hear in your workplace classroom

Workshop scenarios can play out like this:

You hire me with a passionate story on why you would like to have Managing with Aloha taught in your workplace. Great!

We get to know each other a bit in our planning of the workshop I will deliver for you, for if I’m to deliver on your expectations, I need to learn what they are. It is impossible to teach all of Managing with Aloha in a single workshop, so we settle on the specific MWA message, value-mapping, or skill set we will cover.

I always arrive at least a half hour before the workshop is to start, for I am hoping to converse with others too, and learn more about all of you informally. Sometimes people come early enough for that to happen (especially when there’s food!) however they often aren’t let off shift with very much time to spare. That tells me they won’t be sticking around afterwards either, and I mentally commit to our break times as our in-workshop windows of opportunity.

You’ve been there to greet me and to make sure I have everything I will need, and most of the time (not always) you will introduce me, to share something with your staff about why I am there.

Then, to my great dismay, which I have gotten very good at hiding (at least in that particular moment), you quietly slip out as I get started.

People notice. What I will hear from your staff at some point during the workshop, and sometimes with alarming repetition as they take turns saying it, is this:

“I wish my boss were here to hear this too.”

So do I.

It’s YOUR classroom, and your workplace culture. Why did you abandon ship?

What in the world were you thinking, hiring me for a training that will now be impossible for you to follow-up on with any sensibility or credibility whatsoever?

No matter how inspirational they are, no hired trainer or motivational speaker will ever be able to give you a return on the investment you have made which is equal to, or greater than what you’ll secure on your own.

It starts at the workshop. You cannot follow up with teaching that you never hear in the first place.

Trainers present. We don’t implement (though we often wish we could!)

Besides, are you completely sure you will concur with everything I say in a workshop? If I were you, I wouldn’t be!

Training has to be talked about within a team, and agreements have to be made on what follow-up will happen in the workplace, and what will not, and why.

Your people need to hear directly from you as to whether or not you agree with a trainer. Your reasons why, or why not, are important to them, as are your new expectations now that the workshop has been presented.

Even if you have heard me speak before, you are missing out on the fabulous questions your staff will ask, and the discussions which create learning excitement for them. You miss seeing the opportunities you will have, to turn learning into action which makes a difference in your workplace. You miss those aha! moments, when someone gets thoroughly engaged with something we have talked about, and makes a supremely relevant connection to the work they do. You miss those magnificent maybes that fresh new ideas germinate in, needing your encouragement.

Your absence speaks with a very loud voice.

To me, yes. Frankly, I do think less of you. I am so disappointed, knowing I must lower my own expectations of how Managing with Aloha will play out in your culture. (In short, it probably won’t. Not without an Alaka‘i Manager or person aspiring to be one.)

Your absence speaks in even greater volumes to your people. The moment you step out of the room, they wonder, “Why bother?”

When you are not there, you send your staff a message that you are not interested, or that you think you are better than they are and above it all, or worse, that you hired someone to whip them into shape and “fix them” for you.

If workplace training is considered the new flavor of the month, unlikely to last and unlikely to get integrated into the workplace culture, chances are you didn’t sit long enough to partake of the meal. When good management is missing, leadership never makes it to the table.

Next time, show up and STAY. Learn WITH your staff. ENGAGE with your people. Make a commitment to convert learning into relevant, actionable ideas and intentions.

Then I can help you with more too. We can co-author the follow-up which starts momentum in your workplace, and grows you into the leader you are capable of being.

A healthy workplace culture is a participatory one.

The scenario I’ve described doesn’t happen in MWA workshops anymore, because I’ve learned my lesson, and am much more proactive in our planning. I will specifically require the managers involved to attend my workshops, or I simply won’t do them. This isn’t about me or my ego, it’s about my workshop participants and what they deserve from both of us: When you aren’t there, fully intending and expecting to follow up, I have failed them.

Your partnership is crucial and I value it highly, I sincerely do! All of the workshops I deliver include a pre-workshop coaching with managers and a post-workshop debrief where we’ll chart a course for the follow-up calendar which should ensue. We’re still at your mercy though, and cannot force your hand in a culture we don’t participate in: Trainers present. We challenge, and we do our best to inspire, knowing we must fire up the motivations within our audience. Much as we’d love to, we don’t implement: It’s not our culture, it’s yours.

I’ve written this posting as a plea: Healthy culture building is impossible without the full involvement of managers in ALL training, and not just mine. And not just new training; Alaka‘i Managers will participate in annual certifications too.

Workshops offer a manager sequential learning and consequential opportunity:

The 1st time you take a class, you’re there to learn the subject matter, just like everyone else. This is also your best chance to be understanding, being empathetic to what will be required of the first-time learner: You are both having the same experience.

Assuming you have put some of your learning into actual practice or other relevant usage, the 2nd time you take a class, you’re able to zoom in on whatever you missed or were not able to implement the first time around. You compare notes with the rest of your team, and collaborate on helping each other, knowing that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

It will usually take a 3rd time before you are fully able to take a class in manager-coach mode as compared to student-learner mode. This is when the subject matter becomes secondary to your role in coaching and supporting your team. You can now shift your attention to their needs instead of your own, and as the workshop proceeds you watch them, not the trainer. You listen to their questions and statements, and you make notes on how you can support and encourage them going further.

You become an Alaka‘i Manager who works, manages, and leads with ALOHA.

I have been busy in a great way lately!

To review the workshops I currently devote most of my attentions to, visit this page on RosaSay.com and let me know if I can help you.

Key 4. THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER RECONSTRUCTED:

Managers must own workplace engagement and be comfortable with facilitating change, creative innovation, and development of the human asset. The “reconstruction” we require in Managing with Aloha is so this expectation of the Alaka‘i Manager is both reasonable and possible, and so they can channel human energies as our most important resource, they themselves having the time, energy, and support needed in doing so. Convention may work against us, where historically, people have become managers for reasons other than the right one: Managing is their calling. A new role for managers must be explicitly valued by the entire organization as critically important to their better success: Managers can then have ‘personal bandwidth’ for assuming a newly reinvented role, one which delivers better results both personally and professionally, and in their stewardship of the workplace culture.

Read more: The 9 Key Concepts of Managing with Aloha

Ethos: Be true to your Values

It’s advice you’re likely to hear several times in your lifetime, and read in countless books, essays and articles:  “Be true to your values.”

What does it mean?

Looking at it through the lens of ALOHA, it means,

“Manifest your spirit: Be you.”

Still a big phrase though, isn’t it.

To “Be you.” is to make several key choices, and then decide to live your life by those choices:

You choose your values, knowing they will either help or hinder your behavior — hindering in a good way, curbing rash impulses.

You choose the company of others you keep close, knowing that they will either encourage you, or challenge you with the honesty of love. This includes family, kept close (or not) for ‘OHANA is the ‘human circle of Aloha’.

You choose the work you devote your efforts to, knowing that your work will sustain you physically, intellectually, and emotionally. You HO‘OHANA as a person who does good work.

Those are big choices. Sometimes they’re clear, and we are tasked with keeping them clear. More often, they’re muddled and we need to sort through them. Yet whether clear or muddled, they amount to choices and decisions in just three things:

Values.

Relationships.

Intentional work.

Thus, those are the foci at the epicenter of a Managing with Aloha practice: Values. Relationships. Intentional work. We make a big deal about values most of all, because values drive the other two as well.

Values, relationships, and intentional work. Is that where you devote your efforts, or are they in some periphery?

The reason to bother with all of this is clear. “All of this” equates to wonderful self discovery.

Discovering who you are meant to be in this lifetime, is discovering the relevant answer to nearly every other question you’ll wonder about, because you now know how you fit in, and how you’re part of the whole we call our humanity. You have your sense of belonging. You feel PONO.

And the really great thing? As serious as this all sounds in its life-defining gravity, once you make those key choices, and commit to living your life by those choices purposefully, they bring pleasure, satisfaction, and true joy to your life — your efforts become fun, even playful.

Imagine how much simpler navigating our increasingly complex world would be, if everyone was true to their values. We could get on with our greater possibilities so much quicker than we now do.

This is a great way to think about the HO‘OKIPA service of servant leadership as well: We serve others best, by providing them with values clarity when they deal with us: We’re authentic. What they see, what they hear, what they feel radiating from us, is truly what they get. It becomes clear to them, how they fit in too, and fit in with us.

We seek to be what ALOHA is all about. We’re true to our values.

ethos |ˈē θ äs|

noun

the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations.

ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from modern Latin, from Greek ēthos ‘nature, disposition,’ (plural) ‘customs.’

Footnote:

Value Alignment is the subject of my third book, Value Your Month to Value Your Life: I wrote it to guide Alaka‘i Managers through the what, how, and why of Value of the Month programs conducted in the workplace. In my view, these programs are pure gold as a Managing with Aloha jumpstart, for you choose your own values and begin your culture-building in a personalized way as you learn more about the MWA philosophy as a whole.

From the book’s synopsis: “Value mapping is a way that good begets good, beginning with the good which already resides within you in the form of your personal values. To illustrate, we’ll cover two workplace how-to’s: The Value of the Month program, and Value Steering for Projects, both which help foster healthy business cultures.”

See the Table of Contents on RosaSay.com. You can buy VYLVYM on Kindle and on Smashwords.

Managing: Learn how to ask “Why?”

We dug into a managing-as-verb suggestion last time (Be a Big Fan of the Small Win) and I’d like to offer you another suggestion as follow-up:

Learn to ask, “Why?” in a manner which conveys “Please, tell me more.”

Managers can weigh themselves down with a self-inflicted, ill-conceived and unreasonable burden (doing this to ourselves!): We think we should have all the answers, when reality is, that we’re tasked with finding them, not with having them. Our basic job, is to use our findings in the best possible way.

We don’t just employ people, per se. We employ the information and data-rich/experience-rich intellectual assets held by our people. Our people. We employ their talents. We employ their strengths. We employ their convictions and their values. That means we have to partner with them in doing so, and a single “Why?” question, smartly and thoughtfully placed, will get us on track.

Comprendo?

Alaka‘i Managers will invoke the power of good questioning as their method of securing better understanding, the full and complete understanding necessary in having a worthy, optimally useful finding. It’s how they get ‘the lay of the land’ — and more: Good questioning helps us explore the value alignment present in team behaviors, and in individual behaviors. It will also illuminate any voids — situations where we want a value driver, (as with KULEANA) but it’s not in play as it should be.

Good questioning is also how managers train themselves in listening well.

The workplace should not be a kingdom of managerial decree: It simply doesn’t work well that way. You want to reach decisions collaboratively, with co-authored solutions arising within your findings.

1. Asking good, persistent “Why?” questions uncovers root causes below your everyday radar. It will also reveal automatic pilot and sacred cows, busywork and unproductive comfort zones. It may reveal your possibility robbers, or give you the aha! moment which fuels another idea.

2. Asking good, persistent “Why?” questions creates higher quality dialog in the workplace because it’s much more inclusive (KĀKOU). It piggybacks well with the Daily Five Minutes in getting everyone more comfortable with talking about anything and everything – when we are Working with Aloha, no discussions are off limits!

Note: We define ‘persistent’ as HO‘OMAU.

Pick your moments.

There’s a working balance to be maintained here, for you don’t want to overdo it. There’s no nagging or nit-picking within the power of good questions.

No managing ‘method’ can be overdone, not even the good ones, for auto-pilot tends to degrade them: Overdoing it strips away the genuine sincerity in having a light, yet perceptively personal touch (the opposite of micro-managing). In my experience however, most managers are on the other side of the balance scale, where they don’t ask “Why?” nor say, “Please tell me more.” often enough.

So, do self-assess. Where are you on that scale, from clueless neglect at one extreme, and a Managing with Aloha partnership on the other, and where should you be? Conversational inquiry is an essential skill worth your intentional mastery.

And please, set yourself up for success: Pick a moment too, when you can engage well, and you will. Don’t self-sabotage, by asking “Why?” and saying, “Please tell me more.” when there’s little chance you’ll have the time or energy in following up well, for that’s a sure-fire way of drying up the well… you cannot have your people thinking that conversation with you is a waste of their time. The caveat: Don’t forget. Ours is not a perfect world. Not forgetting is the single best reason for writing things down, so you can make the right time happen.

How about The 5 Whys?

“Many people want to jump right to solutions. When I hear the phrases ‘we need’ or ‘there’s a lack of’ I start the 5-why-routine.”

— Timothy Johnson, Chief Accomplishment Officer of Carpe Factum, Inc.

“The Five Whys is one of the simplest methods for looking below the surface. Taiichi Ohno, creator of the Toyota Production System and a pioneer in the continuous quality movement, believed that if managers wanted to start with a clear and accurate assessment of any company problem, they had to ask “Why?” five times before creating a solution.”

— Laurence Haughton, in It’s Not What You Say, It’s What You Do. How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company

My take on it: DO “look below the surface” so you can collaborate on solutions. DON’T get hung up on 5 or any other number. Concentrate on your ALOHA intentions, and on why you ask your questions in the first place.

The sign of a healthy, and optimistic workplace of positive expectancy:

If good, well-placed questions become your habit, you can usually accomplish this solution finding in less than 5 questions, for people in your workplace culture learn the drill of the culture: They jump ahead in their own answers for you, and they become those People Who Do Good Work.

Basically, the 5 Whys teaches you to dig in when you should, and to be more curious in those instances when you shouldn’t accept quick answers at face value. You start with one “Why?” question, and you take your cue from its answer to ask the next why, following each all the way to the root cause.

Here’s a best-work-life ‘IMI OLA example which had cropped up in one of my coaching conversations. ‘IMI OLA, because it questions if form truly follows function:

1. Why is on-the-job the way (form) we’ve been choosing to train new staff (the function)?

The answer was: “We tag team the orientation and training which happens in HR first, and we run lean and mean, so by the time we get a new hire, we’re usually anxious to put them to work.”

2. Why are you so anxious?

The answer was: “We’ve been working more projects than we can handle with the staff we have.”

3. Why are you taking on so many projects?

The answer was: “We don’t say no. When new business is there, we grab it.”

4. Why are you so focused on new business versus repeat business?

The answer was: “We have to be. It would be better to work with fewer customers, but our repeat business rate isn’t high enough to sustain us.”

5. Why isn’t your repeat business rate high? Might working a correction there help you get off this vicious cycle?

As you can see, if I had asked only the first question and stopped, we may have gone off on a tangent with the training issue, which actually is a result of a probable issue with product and service delivery to customers. [As a footnote, OJT (on the job training) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In this case, it was simply where the conversation had started.]

On the other hand… Learn when to stop!

However, I also chose this example as one that still begs more questions — perhaps many more than the first 5, and these streams of opportunity:

Why do we do it (whatever the function is) this way?
Why have we accepted this (the traditional, or precedent-comfortable form)?
Why haven’t we been bolder, or taken a different route? Can, and should we innovate?
Why do we perceive certain obstacles? Exactly what are the risks?
Why not tweak it somehow, experiment, or run a new pilot? What more can we learn?
Can you suggest other good Why? questions you have found helpful in seeking the best possible form for your work?

It’s easy to go overboard… too easy. You’ve got to know when to stop!

In these instances, where your managers brain goes on overdrive, you want to watch body language carefully: Are you frustrating people because you were so willing to go down a rabbit trail (the issue was training, and you leap-frogged over it), or are their eyes widening with possibilities they had not thought of before?

I prefer to shape the 5 Whys as a HO‘OMAU exploration in persistence, where you simplify-with-courage instead of adding more complexity. Your questions should create better focus for you, so that you are working on the right problem or issue, and not spinning your wheels. And not only is spinning your wheels less productive, it gets interpreted by your staff as, “Good grief, my manager still doesn’t get it. He/she keeps changing the subject, talking in circles about this!”

Another tip in knowing when to stop, is to look for the most immediate opportunity for action in the short-term, and then move on, resuming your questioning later. In other words, eat the elephant one bite at a time with next-stepping.

Findings are useful and practical culture-builders.

To sum up: Keep your eye on the goal, and be smart about this. Channel your attention and your energy, and be practical. Question for the good ALOHA intention of stimulating conversation, and not simply for any methodology.

As we said before: Our basic job, is to use our findings in the best possible way.

Managing: Be a Big Fan of the Small Win

Alaka‘i Managers — those who manage with ALOHA — are big fans of small wins.

Small wins represent the next-stepping which is incremental — we feel the win when we’ve made a small change, yet know it’s a significant step. As the adage says so well, good things have come in, or from, a small package.

That small change feels like winning to us, because it means we’ve set a certain path of accomplishment, and we aren’t going back now; we’ll keep going forward.

In a word, growth has happened.

That’s why the Alaka‘i Manager is such a big fan: A small win means that someone in their care has learned, gotten accomplished, and progressed — they’ve grown in their talent, strength, skills and knowledge. They’ve gotten better in a small way that is big to them: They’ve improved, and thus, they’ve become more competent and more self-assured about their own prowess.

When you are a great manager, your day-to-day focus is on fostering small wins. The joys you relish most are when they happen, and everyone in your workplace can celebrate them.

You have an eagle eye for where small wins might be germinating, and you fertilize those spots.

You are equally aware, and painfully so, of where small wins haven’t popped up for quite some time, and you go on the hunt for the root cause of any blockage so they can begin to bloom again, no matter the adversity.

In fostering small wins, the value which can help you the most is KULEANA: Take some time to review it, both here and in the pages of Managing with Aloha (KULEANA is the subject of Chapter 10.) Also recommended for your review: Next-stepping and other Verbs

On a person to person basis, start by getting crystal clear on what their responsibilities in your workplace entail, for responsibility tends to be a big word — it can use your help, help where you chunk it into the “good things in smaller packages.” Less is only more when clarity has led you to work with the right chunk in the first place.

Help people set goals which will give them those small wins which amount to acing their primary responsibilities first and foremost, for they get grounded in their true sense of belonging that way. Think in specifics, and in those bite-sized possibilities that can result in feeling a small win when they’re worked on purposely, and more effectively. As their manager and coach, see the next-stepping progression in your mind’s eye so you can guide them toward it.

Kuleana is one’s personal sense of responsibility. The person possessing Kuleana, believes in the strength of this value, and will be quick to say, “I accept my responsibilities, and I will be held accountable.” Kuleana speaks the workplace language of self-motivation, ownership, empowerment, and the personal transformation which can result. Effective delegation becomes about the sharing of Kuleana with others, recognizing where it rightfully belongs, or where it can facilitate hands on learning.

Kuleana can give us amazing clarity about what begins and ends with us as individuals. It will also give us a brutally honest clarity about our expectations of others: Are those expectations reasonable or not?

From Managing with Aloha (Chapter 10 preamble):

KULEANA

Kuleana is the value of responsibility. It drives self-motivation and self-reliance, for the desire to act comes from accepting our responsibility with deliberance and with diligence.

Responsibility seeks opportunity. Opportunity creates energy and excitement. Kuleana weaves empowerment and ownership into the opportunity that has been captured.

There is a transformation in Kuleana, one that comes from ho‘ohiki, keeping the promises you make to yourself.

Fridays with the Alaka‘i Nalu

Preface:  The story which follows was originally shared on ManagingWithAloha.com within the first year my book was published, for this very special group of Hawaiian watermen and women had starred in a few of my chapter stories, and many readers had asked me to share more about them. My Fridays at the Hualalai Resort with the Alaka‘i Nalu have come back to mind for me with all the warmth and joy our best memories hold within them — how could they not turn out that way, when you work with people who live their lives with Aloha? So here once more, is,

Fridays with the Alaka‘i Nalu

Every Friday my alarm went off at 4:30am. After a few weeks, my body’s rhythm adjusted, and I could naturally wake up just 5 or 10 minutes before the buzzer sounded, clicking it off before it woke my husband and children too.

My Friday mornings were for Hui Wa‘a, a weekly paddling program our resort did for residents and guests, so they could get a beginner’s taste of what it’s like to be part of a traditional Hawaiian canoe club. The paddle started at 7:30am, and so by 5:30am I’d meet my Alaka‘i Nalu to get their read on the morning’s surf conditions. As they stood on the beach and watched the wave sets come in, sensing the mood of wind and water in intuitively trained habit, I waited for the rising sun to light their faces. They read what the morning would be like in their way, and I read it in mine.

An Alaka‘i (spoken as noun) is a guide or leader. Nalu is the word for waves or surf. The Alaka‘i Nalu were my watermen (and women), my leaders of the waves, and guides in the surf. I was their manager, and they my staff, and never would I think of going into the ocean’s arms without them. Neither would I want any of my guests to. When the ocean called, the Alaka‘i Nalu listened, and they became her appointed teachers and coaches. The rest of us were their students. They would teach us: Nānā i ke kumu, “Look to the source” and the ocean was their source. She was their everything, their inspiration. As their manager I did only one thing: I brought both groups together, teachers and students. I wouldn’t have it any other way, for I trusted my Alaka‘i Nalu completely, and I myself would never be one.

As usual, we’d start our Hui Wa‘a paddle with a briefing we called our ‘ōlelo. Guests were taught about the canoe and how best to paddle her. They were always reminded to respect the ocean, and we would offer a pule, a short prayer to keep us safe in her arms during our paddle. Then, being sure everyone had tabis to protect their feet on our rock strewn beach, we’d prepare to launch the canoe.

On this particular morning, I watched Ikaika’s eyes settle on a teenage girl during our ‘ōlelo. In the day’s group were several return guests, anxious to skip the preliminaries and add an extra ten minutes stolen time to the paddle. However the girl was new, a first-timer, and Ikaika carefully watched her for any sign of nervousness or apprehension. I didn’t see these things in her, instead recognizing the almost haughty I-don’t-care attitude I’d seen dozens of times in a teenager’s demeanor, and I let my own attention return to the other guests.

However Ikaika knew better. He was assigned to be a steersman that morning (the steersman would be the captain of each Hui Wa‘a, the single authority we all deferred to), and in making his canoe assignments, he sat the girl in seat 5, just in front of him. Ahead of her, in seat 4 he put Aaron, the Alaka‘i Nalu who normally would have been the stroker (the pacesetter) in seat 1. His decision thrilled another return paddler who was given the privilege of stroking the canoe. The girl’s parents were put in Na Maka Eleu, a different canoe. I wondered why Ikaika chose to split them up, but I respected his decision and said nothing.

The sea was calm, glassy and welcoming. It was a perfect morning for a paddle, and conditions couldn’t have been better. As we ventured beyond the protective bay of Uluweuweu, the soft creamy blue of the water suddenly changed to a brilliantly intense marine color: deep beneath us, the ocean floor dropped away at the shelf. Skipping off the water’s surface, the breeze picked up a slight chill, and rolled gentle surges beneath us. Just as suddenly, the girl panicked and bolted up in the canoe in desperate fear, looking for a way out.

Ikaika had kept his canoe, one of four that morning, in the back of our hui. Paddling ahead of him, the rest of us never saw what happened. I’m told that the other three guests in Ikaika’s canoe (seats 1, 2, and 3, front to back) sensed a fleeting change in their rhythm, but eyes ahead, they kept paddling to sync with their stroker as asked to, uninterrupted by the drama unfolding directly behind them in seats 4, 5, and 6. The steadying, as the canoe surged forward, gliding over the deep.

By the time we’d all come together again on the beach, the paddle over, all we saw was a girl transformed, with exuberant joy on her face, the joy one sees when their child first learns to walk, or comes home from school to tell you they made starter on their soccer team. In the weeks which followed, the girl and her parents would become our self-appointed Hui Wa‘a ambassadors. Ikaika and Aaron starred in the stories they told, as a family’s modern day heroes.

What happened?

ALOHA and MĀLAMA (the value of caring, compassion, and stewardship) was in that canoe that morning. ALOHA was in Ikaika. And Ikaika was bound and determined to share it, in his mālama, his care for another who had come to Hawai‘i hoping and dreaming she might find it. And thankfully, because of the respect which I had for Ikaika, and how naturally confident I felt in trusting him, I didn’t get in the way of it happening, despite all the good intentions most managers have with safety, liability, and just plain needing to know everything themselves so they can control it.

In normal workplace talk, that last paragraph may read a bit differently: “There were talented paddlers in the canoe that morning. They had been trained well. They had a job to do, and they did it, making sure their guests were safe.”

All of that was in place, but mostly, it was ALOHA. It was just another story of how ALOHA makes a difference in people’s lives and in their work, and it happens in our islands every day. It was another story of how the unique character of Hawai‘i, our Hawai‘i, our home, is shared in someone’s workplace all the time when that someone loves the work they do, and understands work brings meaning to life. Life brings meaning to work. The work we do is personal; that’s just the way it is.

We are currently living in an age where the need for reinventing work has never been more pronounced. We all want to bring meaning to what we do, and in our world we have the many blessings of paradise to inspire us; ALOHA is not reserved for Hawai‘i alone. There are more stories to be shared, to be learned from, and to be multiplied. Our stories, all stories of Aloha.

I hope you will tell us yours.

Postscript: This was a true story in the worklife of Ikaika Kanuha, one of the Alaka‘i Nalu who created a legacy as the watermen of the Hualalai Resort at historic Ka‘ūpulehū. Ikaika’s dream, is to have the wonder of Hawai‘i’s ocean environment respected and loved by all who live in and visit our islands. He has chosen to make his work his life. He understands he can make a difference, and that dreams can become one’s legacy.

Above: Heading out from Uluweuweu Bay, gentle low surf at low tide.

Below: North Kūki‘o Beach, 6:45am — nearly 2 hours brighter than the dark the Alaka‘i Nalu will read conditions in, with their waterman’s accuracy.

The Acid Test of a Healthy Workplace Culture

Last update, we narrowed in on the manager’s working relationship with others as the Good Basic of a workplace managed with ALOHA:

Managing: Let’s talk about the Basics.

The next morning I received an email with this question: “What’s the acid test for a manager, in knowing if you have a good relationship with your staff or not?”

I thought I’d answer it here on the blog as well, for I’m curious as to what the rest of you would say:

What’s your acid test for an optimal working relationship?

About the ‘acid test’ idiom:

From The Free Dictionary: “a test which will really prove the value, quality, or truth of something.”

The expression is thought to have its origin in the California Gold Rush, when nitric acid was used in a test for distinguishing real gold from other base metals.

A career in management and leadership can quite accurately be called a career of one acid test after another. In fact, the more you love managing, the more of these tests you welcome, knowing that they each leave a learner’s mark on you. Will you make it a mark of HO‘OHANOHANO distinction?

Mark me up!

For me, my truly noteworthy acid tests have occurred while assessing a combination of these two questions about my team:

Will they tell me when something is wrong, no matter what it concerns?
Will they ask me for help, even if it means exposing one of their weaknesses?

Those questions are about watching for hesitancy, reluctance, apprehension, and fear, and making sure that none of those things are present in my workplace. People must be willing to learn through their mistakes, and they must always feel safe in coming to me for help — for anything, really. I want to be their partner first, and boss second.

As a manager, I wonder about those questions constantly, mostly on a person to person basis, and also as I pace the working progression of teams (LŌKAHI), assessing their working relationships with each other. As the Alaka‘i Nalu would say, “Is the canoe moving at a fast clip or not? Where’s the stall?”

The ‘manager’s stall’ often requires looking in a mirror: What’s going on with me, or with my place, keeping my people at bay, anchored in their hesitation?

A healthy workplace culture is a voyager’s ocean of calm seas before the sailing wind. And in Managing with Aloha, CULTURE is simply a group of people who share common values, and operate within those values — there can be no hesitancy holding them back. No headwind (a wind blowing from directly in front, opposing forward motion.)

What’s your acid test?

How do you know when you have great working relationships?

What are the specifics that you watch for in the work that you manage?

What do you do with forethought, so reluctance and fear can be nipped in the bud, and people constantly feel safe and unrestricted in their work?

In Managing with Aloha, the Daily 5 Minutes helps us be proactive about grooming conversational working relationships in our ‘Ohana in Business (OIB is our business model, Key 6): The ease, frequency and reliability of the D5M conversation creates a Circle of Comfort hosted by managers open to listening, and hearing well: Speak up, I’m listening. It’s a Circle people know they can step into whenever they need to, and no matter what. People who are managed with the conversational ALOHA they can count on, are the people who do good work!

What do you do in your quest to be an Alaka‘i Manager?

How can we learn from you?

Footnote: About the Alaka‘i Nalu

In July of 2002, the Alaka‘i Nalu (watermen, and ocean guides) and Ho‘okele (navigators) of the Hualalai Resort became my ‘acid test’ for Managing with Aloha as a philosophy I felt ready to tell the rest of the world about. In the year to come, this team of 13 would play a starring role in the Ho‘ohana na ‘Imi ola (personal and professional mission statement) I then wrote for myself each year, from summer to summer.

When I first stepped into their world, the Alaka‘i Nalu and Ho‘okele were known as a dysfunctional team who’d sink managers reputations along with their own: Managing them, was the assignment no manager wanted to receive. What I also knew, however, was that our guests were often their raving fans; they loved all of their interactions with them. I gave myself that management assignment out of a growing curiosity, but I had to be the person they would invite in at some point — a point where a billowing wind would fill our sails and propel us forward.

Page 44 of Managing with Aloha, on ‘IMI OLA, and the writing of your personal mission statement:

“…I had written down my mission to help the Alaka‘i Nalu of Hualalai reinvent their reputation, for I believed in them and what they were capable of achieving. The Alaka‘i Nalu are incredibly talented watermen; they welcome guests to enjoy the bounty offered by the ocean environment, offering lessons and tours in canoe paddling, sailing, surfing, fishing and swimming. They had shared their passions with me, and as their manager I was bound and determined to help guide them from passion to mission to performance. I felt they had a story that was still to be lived to its fullest potential, a story that would prove to be worthy of the retelling for the benefit of so many others. Today they embody some of my proudest achievements, yet they have also become my teachers.”

Little did I know what a crucible of change that year would turn out to be — for all of us. My Ho‘ohana na ‘Imi ola for Say Leadership Coaching was written in July of 2003, exactly one year later.

When the people you manage place their trust in you, willing to sail uncharted waters, it’s a gift of ultimate ALOHA and Lokomaika‘i generosity, for it’s the key to what a manager’s life can become. As I wrote in my book’s MAHALO:

“The names that must be recognized here for the ultimate in their generosity, as I have told of in their stories, are those of my Alaka‘i Nalu and Ho‘okele. Aaron, Daniel, Ed, Ekolu, Ikaika, Janelle, Jerome, Lily, Mahea, Matt, Puaita, Rick, and Sam, you have my Aloha and you will be my ‘Ohana —always. You willingly became my living laboratory for Managing with Aloha and gave me your complete trust, and this book could not have been written without all you had taught me, and without your faith in me. You brought me to Pono, and I love you.”

More of the Alaka‘i Nalu story is told in the pages of Managing with Aloha, my book, along with the mission statement they wrote for themselves to chart a new course. It was exhilarating. An acid test like the one they gave me that year, is one I would gladly take over and over again, choppy seas and all.

… site archives: What should you do with your life? Find out!

Managing: Let’s talk about the Basics

The ‘basics’ in Managing with Aloha are about basic good. Basic. Good.

Neither is complex. Do them well, and I daresay most of management’s complexity will get solved for you.

“Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Because of what I do, and because it’s our nature to talk about our struggles more than our successes, people tell me a lot of stories about workplaces gone sour. I don’t commiserate, but I will always thank them for speaking up. All can be sweetened again, their issues solved, because all these stories have something in common: The behavior of human beings.

That’s why we make such a big deal about Good in Managing with Aloha as good intention.

Intention is deliberate. It requires on-purpose thought and “I’m wide awake, and fully here now!” actions. When others are involved, intention requires ALOHA authentic conversations so our Basic connections with each other can be made, and made well.

Basic is primary: it’s a grounding at base level.

Basic is elemental: it’s related to, or embodies the powers of nature.

Basic is fundamental: it’s what forms an essential foundation of any kind.

When we add human beings to the equation, something we do in all workplaces, basic is common to, and required by everyone.

Basic becomes inviolable: it’s never to be broken, infringed, or dishonored. Dignity, for instance, is inviolable.

Basic becomes inalienable: it shouldn’t be taken away from someone or given away voluntarily. Respect, for instance, is inalienable.

In Managing with Aloha, we’re talking Basic Human Rights. Inviolable. Inalienable.

Basic then, is the minimum Good which is required in every workplace, and in every working partnership.

If we look at this from an employee’s point of view, we come up with Basic Human Rights that sound like these:

Respect my sense of belonging: Train me before I face the public.

Give me the tools I’ll need before you expect me to perform with excellence.

Correct me, yes, I need you to do so, but correct me in private.

Correct all of us who need correcting, and not just me.

Drop my baggage, please. My work will continue to look dingy to you if you don’t expect me to improve. I rise, or fall, to your level of expectations, so don’t make it easier for me to fall.

Give me my space and don’t hover, but I need you to care, so don’t completely disappear!

Talk to me more than you do, and about more, and not only when I’ve messed up (or you think I have).

Know the whole story. Investigate before you jump to conclusions.

Keep your promises, and don’t make them lightly.

I’m not a child. Don’t edit information as if I were one. I can handle way more than you give me credit for.

Ask me questions — I know stuff too!

Say “please.”

Once in awhile, tell me “thank you.”

“Know that I watch you. I see what you do, and I know what you don’t do. I copy you.”

That wasn’t a comprehensive list. It was the reading between the lines I did, as I listened, just yesterday, to a story of a workplace gone sour. A story told by a person who had applied to work there with high hopes, and received damaged dreams instead.

One story, which sadly, is likely magnified in many workplaces.

But we’re here because we believe in better possibility!

It’s a story you can sweeten and solve forevermore when you’re a manager who cares about Basic Good, and will give it your immediate and constant attention.

When you are a manager, your Basic Good is fully invested in the relationships you have with the people who report to you, who are your peers, and who you report to. Relationships are where Basic Good takes residence so it can thrive and prosper.

People can fix broken processes.

Processes cannot fix broken-in-spirit people.

Paperwork, systems and processes, mission and vision, even customers as consumers and buyers or reason for your cause, must be secondary to the Basic Good of caring for the relationships that are primary, for without them, the rest of it cannot follow. Any greatness is built upon a good foundation.

Basic. Good. Make your own list of easy-solve basics as you watch your own workplace stories unfold before you. Get into those stories one at a time, as you get into the relationship you have within each story.

Please.

Just pay attention, with those two words — Basic. Good. — running on repeat in your head, and in your heart as a manager of purposeful ALOHA intention.

Thank you.

An important note to Bosses and Business Owners:

If you have a manager in your organization who refuses to honor and invest in Basic Good, please remove them from your employ immediately — that’s one of your basics. If you fail to do so, know this: I hold you personally responsible for the damage they do (and they are doing severe damage.) KULEANA: Hold yourself accountable.

Postscript: This was a 5-item list of Good Basics I wrote many years ago, and we still use it in our MWA workshops for new managers:

5 Essentials Employees Need to Learn — From You

Reading paths

If you have already taken our New Here? reading pathways, here is another one related to this Good Basics conversation, composed of articles published more recently:

A Sense of Place Delivers True Wealth
People Who Do Good Work
Myth Busting with Aloha
Start with two words: “with Aloha”
Speak up, I’m listening

Intuition x9

Let’s look at intuition — as ability you can groom and master, and product of your ALOHA spirit-spilling — in alignment with our 9 Key Concepts.

Key 1. The Aloha Spirit

To know yourself better, and to know others better through ALOHA, is a matter of how you can master having, and giving unconditional acceptance. You accept ‘as is’ as a place to start, for if intuition is a product, unconditional acceptance isn’t just a static thing: Spirit-spilling is active sharing, it looks for connection between people.

“Built into you is an internal guidance system that shows you the way home. All you need to do is heed the voice.” — Neale Donald Walsch

Key 2. Worthwhile Work

The best work we can do, is work which is steeped in self-trust, for it will constantly move us forward to that discovery of our HO‘OHANA, our work of complete intention. The work we ‘get to do’ becomes the work we want to do, feeling that it completes us as the work we were meant to do.

“It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my Intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner.” — Jonas Salk

Key 3. Value Alignment

One of the things I value most about intuition is its speed: Intuition is quick!

“There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.” — Malcolm Gladwell

There are at least 3 place-holders for our values (in the context of healthy work):

Individually — by you, and in what you believe in
Organizationally — by your company, and in company culture
In Living History — by your community, and its heritage, traditions, conventions, and active culture, largely determined by Sense of Place.

We’ll instinctively seek our sense of belonging in each of these places, and trusting in our intuition will speed up the process, helping us feel we belong because of what we bring to the table. What we bring, is how our abilities will begin to serve others once we have arrived.

“Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.” — Michael Burke

Key 4. The Role of the Manager Reconstructed

Managers are largely taught to select working teams, and direct them based on their qualifications and experience with projects at hand. When intuition is valued as part of the equation, managers will also value a good balance between past history and those leaps of faith progressive change will often require. Intuition has a way of finding opportunity that may be completely new: We feel it rather than qualify for it.

“Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.” — Robert Graves

Key 5. Language of Intention

Review those words related to intuition in your dictionary and thesaurus (or in mine), and then make your choices. Which will you begin to use in your conversations more purposefully, knowing they can become part of your Language of We? Tip: Choose the words which evoke and elicit your visionary values, the ones connected to your cause.

“You must train your intuition. You must trust the small voice inside which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide.” — Ingrid Bergman

Key 6. The ‘Ohana in Business Model

Once you accept intuition as ability and product, it can become part of the metrics that all sound business models will track. To track the Intuitive Capital of your company, is to track the knowing it is certain of, a knowing born of your company’s history of intuitive success.

“I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.” — Richard Branson

Key 7. Strengths Management

If a candidate told me, “My intuitive sense about things is a strength for me.” I’d be hungry to learn more, and I’d probably hire them on the spot. That’s a statement of confidence and self-assurance, and it tells me that person can tap into their intuition for its bountiful human energies.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein

Key 8. Sense of Place

In my experience working with them, intuitive people connect to place quite easily, and they respect it. They don’t require that much logic and order in their places either, for they have an ability to accept chaos as a temporary state of serendipity and movement. Place is alive.

“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great, pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature, and is manifest in each of us through intuitive knowledge.” — Deepak Chopra

Key 9. Palena ‘ole, Unlimited Capacity

Consider your four-fold capacity with the self-mastery of intuition-as-ability as your lens: How will you grow your intuitive sense physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? This is a big question for many of us, and intuition does a fabulous job of helping us prioritize our efforts where they’ll serve us best; we say no to shoulding and other restrictions.

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” — Alan Alda

A hattip to Angela Artemis, author of The Intuition Principle, who had collected these quotes on intuition, and published them on her blog: 25 great Intuition Quotes from some of the greatest minds.

If this was shared with you, this article is posting number 4 in this conversation:

Day 1 for Job 1: A Good Selfishness
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Trusting Your Intuition

How we use the 9 Key Concepts within Managing with Aloha:

You can employ these 9 Key Concepts in one of two ways.

Use them as a learning construct (as we do on this site, by using them as our categories), or apply them to your own business model and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Alaka‘i Managers do both, using the 9 Key Concepts to learn, and to design strategic approaches to the work at hand (for their workplace locations and missions differ). They ask themselves a series of questions for each of these concepts, and their day-to-day work gets shaped by their individual answers:

How does this conceptual conviction support our values?
How does this support our mission (i.e. current work) and our vision (i.e. our best possible future)?
How can I help the work make sense, using this concept to continually improve our systems and processes?
How will this conceptual conviction fuel positive energies, helping us grow and get better as human beings?
What more can we learn about this?

Read more here.