Rosa Say's Blog: Managing with Aloha, page 4
January 20, 2019
Sunday Mālama: Are your projects and your ideas in sync?
Sense of Place: It’s January, the month of resolutions, goal-setting, and life’s way finding. In a recent newsletter, I shared this with the Ho‘ohana Community;
Two Choices: The Change I Choose.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from my own experiences with making New Year’s resolutions, it’s this:
a) Make as few of them as possible, like 1 or 2. That’s it.
b) Don’t make them for the whole year, just for the beginning of it. Force the issue quickly, then move on.
A year is too long a time frame to limit yourself within. However, a year is also too short to be dawdling within, and you’ve got to push harder and move faster (at least I do.)
Here are the Two Choices I’ll be starting 2019 with…more about them here, if you’re curious as to what those choices were for me.
This post shares more on why and how I now hold this perspective as my next-stepping within a larger philosophy, and I have tagged it with Ho‘ohana, employing energy, next-stepping, piloting projects, productivity, spirit-spilling, ideas, and self-coaching.
“Camping under the stars” by Aaron Doss on Instagram. 3 flashlights illuminating 3 journals of ideas perhaps?
Bulldogs and jugglers
I used to be a project bulldog: I’d only take on one project at a time, and bulldog it through. I was quite the “Less is more” disciple, with singular focus, commitment and devotion.
That has changed in recent years. I can’t trace back to any definitive spark for the change, but now I’m a juggler. I usually have 3 to 5 projects going on at any given time, and in light of my ho‘ohana’s self-direction, the lines between personal and professional projects are either blurry, deliberately messy and experimental, or completely missing because those boundaries don’t matter.
Do I get more projects completed now? Not necessarily, and accomplishing more hasn’t been the reason I’ve willingly gone through this change. To be sure, I’ve had to learn to be okay with differing degrees of incompleteness in my life, however it no longer stresses me out, and actually makes me feel more vibrantly alive. I’m not at all overwhelmed; I’m much happier as a juggler.
The management coach in me must pause here with a point of clarity:
I am still a dedicated finisher, and train managers to be one as well, when it comes to the Daily 5 Minutes and other conversations and initiatives we have with people. There are big differences between piloting projects and managing any people issues which arise.
Trickles and streams
I have identified the definitive spark that’s made me a happy juggler. It’s idea flow.
As a bulldog, my ideas usually were kept to a trickle, for my tendency was to suppress them; ideas were distractions which got in my way. We do train ourselves over time, and my conscious shooing away of ideas both big and little became unconscious—my brain kept doing what I had trained it to do.
I’ve become a project juggler, because I finally figured out what being a bulldog had cost me.
I was pretty good about writing my ideas down to capture them whenever I was conscious of them, but I rarely, if ever, went back to my notes, and if I did I found little excitement remained; what was once an idea, was now just the past history of a fleeting thought at best.
“Wao kele~ rain belt, upland forest~ ‘ka ʻuhane i ka wao kele’ – ‘ the soul in the rainy depths’” by Erica Taniguchi on Instagram.
I unclogged the flow of my ideas so my trickle became a stream. I still wrote them down, but gave them a page of their own with space to follow-up on them as quickly as I could. Doodles and flowcharts became part of the writing process, until I finally had to do something, anything, connected to them. I pushed myself to make them actionable in small ways that could continue to build if their momentum continued with me.
“You can’t bottle up inspiration. You can’t put it in a ziplock, toss it in the freezer, and fish it out later. It’s instantly perishable if you don’t eat it while it’s fresh.”
~ Jason Fried, Inspiration is Magical, Signal v. Noise
I felt like I suddenly had way more ideas, ideas about everything. However I now realize there aren’t more of them in general, there are more that I dabble with, stretch and question, and take action on. I do my best to assure the excitement that qualified them as ‘an idea’ does not fade until I’ve made the very conscious decision to move on from them, and onto something else.
Examine your self-talk. Understand its influence on you.
I used to think I was not ‘an idea person.’
A large part of my belief was actually wrapped up in being a manager by choice, one who felt she didn’t have grand leadership ideas, and told herself that was okay. I liked working for other visionaries, enrolling in their ideas, and helping them bring them to fruition as a damned good manager. I believed that innovative leaders needed savvy managers to actually make their grand designs a reality, and I worked to prove it, deriving a lot of personal satisfaction in my accomplishments along the way.
Then one day, my boss, a boss I thought of as a mentor, told me, “Don’t ever tell yourself that again. Why in the world do you think great managers can’t be great leaders too? You have a lot of ideas—you share them with me all the time. You just don’t give yourself credit for having them.”
“Day 56” by Margo Conner on Flickr.
I’d like to tell you I made a change right then and there, but I didn’t. I had to believe in myself as much as he did. I had to have evidence, and so I became a better curator first, determined to track my ideas, progress and outcomes.
This wasn’t that difficult: Often I was simply more generous with calling my thoughts, input or suggestions an idea when that’s what they were, and should be considered. To evoke Mahalo, taking stock of what you have going for you, definitely helps with this endeavor to be more generous with what you consider a bonafide idea to be.
To call something an idea will elevate it—you will deem it more important, and thus, more worthy of your time and effort.
“And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished.”
~ Jonathan Ives, describing Steve Jobs’ reverence for ideas
As for “time and effort” it’s true that you have make time and space for being a juggler. How can you make it so more ideas, and more time working on them, fits into your life and doesn’t drive you crazy?
Now we all know that time is finite, and time management is about how we use it. Looking back, I can now see how much time I wasted as a bulldog, because I would devote whole days to plugging away with one thing that needed to percolate while I in turn needed to recharge.
For me, shifting from bulldog to juggler has been the strategy to match my idea flow with my energy-to-work-on-them flow.
Idea flow and your energy
Knowing my energy highs and lows, and batching my project work to suit them has definitely helped me make this shift from bulldog to juggler.
Your energy level will always affect the degree of enthusiasm, action, and effectiveness you bring to making your ideas happen, whether with small steps or larger leaps.
“The sky, or in this case the ceiling’s, the limit.” by Elizabeth Sallee Bauer on Instagram.
Personally, I know I’m a true morning person; my energy levels wane quite predictably as the day wears on. 95% of my writing and all of my business strategic work is done in the morning. In the evening hours, the most I’ll usually accomplish fall in the category of housekeeping items and basic chores which have declining degrees of thought and focus attached to them—high routine, less think. When I really have to think things through, I delay it until the next morning after a good night’s sleep. As the years have gone by, I’ve better understood how valuable sleep is, and when I need to take a break with one of my projects, literally saying “Let me sleep on this; we’ll take it up again tomorrow, or the day after.”
Whether new idea, or idea turned into project, I pretty much know by now if I should work on it in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening—and you should know this about yourself too, then work accordingly.
In Managing with Aloha, we often talk about how energy is our greatest resource. Let’s treat it that way personally, so we get better at it professionally.
Postscript: Do you want to be a better juggler? Give this more thought, by revisiting our definition of Palena ‘ole, Managing with Aloha’s 9th Key Concept. Stretch this notion of energy optimization even further, by identifying the energy quotient you best bring to the 4 types of human capacity we work on as our Key 9 growth strategy.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:
Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.
Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
January 14, 2019
Sequential and Consequential Mahalo
My speaking engagements often end with a few minutes devoted to talk story, that wrap-up most refer to as Q&A or ‘question and dialogue.’ While speaking to a group of educators this past summer, one of them asked me, “What are the kinds of things you’ve learned since Managing with Aloha was written and published, now that you’ve built a new career upon the book as your platform and mission?”
It was a good question, one I had to pause and think about before answering with more detail, for my first impulse was to just say, “Oh my goodness, lots!”
The next thing which came to mind was this: “I’ve learned to pick the work I devote my time to now more intentionally. I think about making my beliefs, convictions and values more consequential now—doing so has become my m.o., and it’s not relegated to ‘when I have time’ because all time is my time. I work for myself now, and to ‘work’ is strictly to Ho‘ohana.”
In short, “my m.o.” is the constant practice of value alignment, and our current work within Mahalo is a good example, one how what’s consequential to me becomes more patterned and sequential. More often than not, a loop gets created, where the sequential becomes even more consequential.
Admittedly, a key driver is my innate penchant for organizing: I like order, and habitually try to make work systematic and systemic. Couple that with ‘Ike loa as one of my core values (the value of learning), throw the core beliefs of Managing with Aloha into the mix, and sequential – consequential patterning often rules the day.
Our Ethos: Be True to Your Values
Mahalo, “Way of Living”
Our value alignment essay this month, demonstrates how the three attentions of Mahalo—thankfulness, appreciation and gratitude—can become sequential and consequential, and how they are no longer synonyms to me: each attention has its own distinction. In our kick-off essay, I described how Mahalo has become this;
“Mahalo helps us see abundance in times of scarcity; it replaces longing with contentment; it guides us toward understanding what we have rather than dwelling on what we don’t have.
…[we can] “recall the three in kaona (hidden meaning)”—thankfulness, appreciation, gratitude.
Thankfulness that you have it, whatever ‘it’ might be in the present moment, and whether you sense it, you get it, or you are it.
Appreciation enough to feel it clearly and as completely as possible—to understand the gift or gifts within, and have it be enough. Appreciation for others who might be connected, and who remain part of your life.
Gratitude that you are human, and thus, can make your findings humanly possible, and even more expansive. You are capable of turning the abundance you have into richness and well-being.
You are blessed. You need not want for more.”
In practicing value alignment, I’ve simply spent more time intentionally devoted to the study of each of our 19 Values of Aloha; I’ve done a deep dive into them, to make further headway into making meaning of my own history. I’ve worked to sequence them into future consequence.
What is values consequential to you?
The publishing of Managing with Aloha happened at a certain point of time, one that captured what I felt values-consequential in 2004 after a 32-year career in the hospitality and resort-development industries. In 2016 I felt compelled to re-publish it as a 2nd Edition, rewriting several sections which had evolved for us. The phrase ‘sequential and consequential’ did appear in my book, for I’d always liked order, and I’ve always been driven to make meaning of whatever I work on; it’s in the chapter about ‘Ike loa, the value of learning;
“I stand firm and unmoving in my belief that someone who calls themselves a manager of people must be a learner, and they must dedicate themselves to non-stop, sequential and consequential learning.
Sequential in that it builds upon previous lessons learned, and it takes you through a process where you question instruction and do not always accept what you are taught at face value; you polish it like a gem in your mind until something about it rings true for you.
Consequential in that it is worthwhile stuff; it makes a difference for you, and you aren’t simply collecting lessons on some scorecard. Great teachers would say, “You’re learning to think and apply, not memorize and parrot.” That’s stretch; there’s some personal take-away in exploring subject matter for you, and you aim to find it. Now that you know it, you’re going to use it.”
It’s very satisfying when whatever you’ve been working on, ends up pointing you directly toward what you’ll work on next.
Image: Scott Hodge on Instagram
One of the things which has fascinated me about my decades-long wallowing in Managing with Aloha however, is the expansiveness of studying values, because each one is so abundant in an of itself. Value pairing adds even more nuance, and more importantly, more ways to share values. Thus sequential and consequential patterning can also be imbued with ample room for creativity and reinterpretation.
The goal is not to fine-tune your way into a definitive answer, but to make them useful; value immersions are easily relevant to whatever circumstance and/or point in time you conduct them. Change is embraced and woven in, problem-solving is championed as you remind yourself of your good convictions… we aren’t looking for right answers necessarily, we’re looking for useful ones that we can immediately apply in our working environments.
Mahalo is again a good example of this relevant-to-the moment application, for during a 2006 Ho‘ohana Community immersion, we sequenced the three attentions of Mahalo differently —thankfulness was 3rd— and applied them this way: To Know, To Become, To Share.
We talked about universality of values much more back then, and so we turned to Websters Dictionary for our definitions, and added our mana‘o.
APPRECIATION: Know.
From Webster – To value justly. Recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and things.
Within Mahalo – Know how much you have at this very moment. Understand how unique you are, and stand tall. Realize there is no one else who is the person you are. To live in appreciation for the richness that makes your life so precious is to simply live in celebration of your sense of self. Take nothing in this day of your life for granted. Take exceptional care of the aloha within you, for it is the breath of your life.
GRATITUDE: Become.
From Webster – The state of being grateful; thankfulness.
Within Mahalo – Become all you are capable of being, by using all your gifts, each and every one of them. Grow into every crevice of your capacity, filling it with worthiness. Test your limits joyfully, and with confidence palena ‘ole (without boundaries). Seek to complete yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. In doing so, you acknowledge who you are in a manner which appreciates what others have done for you. You create prosperity and abundance so you will have more to give.
THANKFULNESS: Share.
From Webster – Aware and appreciative of a benefit; and expressive of gratitude.
Within Mahalo – Share of who you are with the utmost respect for those who complete your life. Say “mahalo” or “thank you” often. Speak of your appreciation of others, and it will soften the tone of your voice, giving it both humility, and fullness. People need to hear words spoken from your aloha, and in speaking them you offer a generous gift. Use your own gifts to reveal those which exist in others all around you.
Stephen R. Covey coached “Begin with the end in mind” as one of the most effective habits productive people could have. I agree with a lot of what he said, and I’ve often used that habit’s wording to guide me. Today however, over 14 years working with Managing with Aloha as the signature of my mission and vision, I mostly say, Work with your consequences in mind. Managers must be aware of how their words and actions will matter.
Mahalo, as the thankfulness “that you have it, whatever ‘it’ might be in the present moment, and whether you sense it, you get it, or you are it” contributes so much confidence, assurance, and positive expectancy; you sense the abundance in your work rather than the scarcity of it, even when faced with the “yeah, but”s others may throw your way;
When someone says, “yeah, but” we steel ourselves for their objections and excuses, no matter how tactful they are with the words which follow. We know they’re about to rationalize whatever we just proposed to them, and not in an affirming way, but to escape from it, and perhaps, to challenge us.
…
Never imagined I’d be curious enough to actually look up the word one day, but I did!
But: a conjunction used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned.
The key word here is contrast, and that’s where I find ‘but’ working in our favor as the better culture builders we managers aspire to be. We don’t care for ‘but’ as a form of resistance, but we can love it as a form of simply shifting toward better:
—Resistance digs in, from negative to negative.
—Contrast shifts, and can take us from negative to positive.
There are two values which illustrate this well in our value-mapping: MAHALO and HA‘AHA‘A.
Mahalo to the rescue yet again!
Evoke and elicit MAHALO.
MAHALO teaches us to weave more thankfulness, appreciation, and gratitude into our days. To evoke it, is to bring MAHALO to your conscious mind. To elicit it, is to bring MAHALO to your responses for others.
Evoke and elicit HA‘AHA‘A…. Excerpt source: The ‘But’s Which Work to Favor.
In my years coaching managers, I’ve found that Mahalo is particularly useful with helping us to be thankful for feedback, both good and bad. Managers aren’t mind readers, and there is so much they need to know, so they can proactively address issues which arise. The most powerful words a manager can say? “Speak up, I’m listening.”
We’ll talk story about how conversation’s effectiveness becomes sequential and consequential another time. For now, decide how you’ll work on Mahalo as our current immersion—will it become sequential and consequential for you?
Postscript:
Here is how Value Alignment is described as the “form and function” of our 9 Key Concepts:
Key 3. VALUE ALIGNMENT:
Work with integrity by working true to your values, for your values will drive your best, and most desirable behaviors. Focus all efforts on the right mission and the right vision (yours!) for it honors your sense of self and brings compelling pictures of the future within your reach, making them your probable legacy. Whether for a business partnership or specific team, deliberate value-alignment creates a healthy organizational culture for everyone involved: When we want to collaborate and co-create, shared values equip and energize us.
Site category for Key 3: Value Alignment
* I have written a $4.99 ebook to cover value alignment in greater detail: Preview Value Your Month to Value Your Life here. Coaching your team through a value of the month program is the very best “Managing with Aloha jumpstart” an Alaka‘i Manager can take, for leading as you learn with customized culture-building as the result.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:
Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.
Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
January 6, 2019
Sunday Mālama: We Learn Best From Other People
“We learn best from other people” is one of my favorite Managing With Aloha-inspired phrases. I am quite sure those who know me best would say it has “broken record” status in the coaching I like to share, however I also say it as an affirmation for my own continuous attentions: I want my learning to be people-powered and people-connected, and I want to be better at listening to others with the focused intention of learning from them.
“We learn best from other people” is the core belief of the Daily Five Minutes (our workplace conversation tool which is a primary how-to within the Managing with Aloha philosophy). It is a tool turned habit, in which conversation rules supreme. We can get into each other’s heads in a natural way through conversation, and with the good intention of learning about what is there, so to fully honor and respect the immense wonder of someone’s mana‘o (their thoughts, beliefs and convictions).
“We learn best from other people” is a ‘You’re not done yet!’ reminder within Managing with Aloha’s Learning Landscape: Any research and study we undertake must include interviews of those who are most closely connected to whatever project or new learning we have set our sights on. If not, how can we possibly say, we “Know well?” People give valuable, relevant context to our professional, too0-often theoretical studies.
Consider the asset we call “intellectual property.” We understand that much of who and what companies become is invested in the people who have worked there; they’ve “been there, done that” in a multitude of different ways, and they’ve emerged successful, or at least with the most valuable lessons-learned a thriving business can hope to have. We scratch the surface of mining our intellectual property through exit interviews and succession planning, yet how much more can we learn through the everyday, intentional effort to learn best practices for their immediate use?
Related reading in the archives: Collect Stories, Dispel Myths.
Therefore, “We learn best from other people” is the ever-present mantra that sings in the background of this and every blog post within our Ho‘ohana Publishing ‘Ohana; I love blogging because it triggers conversations within our community, and at times more globally. The conversational potential of the blogging platform is amazing, whether those conversations are held on the blog itself or triggered elsewhere throughout our hub of communications.
The missions of Managing with Aloha (delivered by my business, Say Leadership Coaching) and Ho‘ohana Publishing (delivered by Writing with Aloha) are my learning and talking story constants keeping me ever-grounded yet feeling happily, busily productive.
Listen to the storytellers
Within our current value immersion (Mahalo, “Way of Living”), I had shared with Talking Story newsletter subscribers my 2019 resolution to watch more speeches:
I’m determined to watch more speeches, mostly in forums like Ted Talks and the Do Lectures, but also as readily available to me in person. I’ve always believed we learn our best lessons from other people, and talks are a form of conversational communication which inspire me. They give me more ‘I’ve never thought about that’ moments and readily meander into off-shoot ideas. When you think about it, speakers and storytellers are giving us a lot of themselves. How are we receiving what they have to say?
I am also thinking my Mahalo must be much more conversational, and I find I am wondering how to make that happen in a more meaningful way. While a magnificent opening in humility, to merely say “thank you” is not enough, no matter how sincere I might be in speaking those words —and though we don’t say them enough, I don’t believe they should be said lightly either. This is a gut feeling, plain and simple; I have a greater conversational need (and to be more accurate, mine is a greater listening need), and I have learned to listen to these feelings of spirit-spilling when they make themselves known to me.
MY MANA‘O (what I believe to be true) ~ ~ ~
In Hawai‘i, many kūpuna (elders) will say there is a reason our gut is at our physical center. Our heads and hearts must come lower; one must get out of the clouds and the other out of the clutches of others. Second, the elemental feeling we get from the land under our feet must rise up and be held in higher esteem, for there is divine power in the ‘āina, and it is our sense of place. Third, we must care about others, but we must care about ourselves first, and enough to connect to our own source, our aloha. So it is only natural that our gut (na‘au) is the true seat of our wisdom (na‘auao), for it is where all these things come together to center us with good balance.
This makes a lot of sense to me, because I experience it so much, and very gratefully so.
We now live in a world where technology has changed so much with the way we communicate. We email, we text, we Twitter. We lifestream, blog and self-publish. We star in our own mini movies and post them on YouTube for all to see. Yet do we realize how much of these new ‘communications’ are ways we broadcast more than listen, doing so with a very limited audience?
I’m one who loves these new tools and if you are reading this you know I use them extensively, but in 2019 I am newly committing to the art of one-on-one in-person communication. I want to talk story, and learn what I can from the best library and collection of wisdom which exists in our world: Other people, especially while they are still gracing our earthly living with their presence.
New technology communications and talk-story conversations do have something in common: They are only as good as what you are willing to devote to them. No input, no output. However talk-story conversations have a big advantage: You don’t need to buy something, plug it in, program it and learn to use it. You aren’t limited to others who have the same tool; for instance I am fully aware that I only reach others with Twitter accounts when I tweet, and they largely have my same habits. Those I want to learn from most, so I can grow and improve in a more diverse way are probably not there, much as I wish they were. For instance children who can teach me to play again, and to wonder again, are not there: I need to reach them personally, and talk to them on their turf and not mine. The kūpuna, our elders who can share so much history and life experience with us, teaching us to better navigate our futures, are not there: I need to reach them personally too.
People surround us, waiting for us to interview them, and ask them questions about what is most important to them, and why.
The people around us have the potential to be the best teachers we have ever had, and ever will have. They are open books, written with the wealth of their past experiences, yet reading beyond the past tense. They continue to be vibrantly alive, perpetually thinking, and willing to share their thinking with us, wrapped in both the simplicity and complexity of that beautiful weaving of belief and conviction we in Hawai‘i call their mana‘o. All we have to do is ask. But do we? Sincerely, and genuinely ready to listen as patiently and completely as need be?
In the coming weeks, in the spirit of our current Mahalo immersion, I will give my thanks for the mana‘o which lives within the children and elders I am blessed to have close in my life. I invite you to join me, and to newly experience for yourself how “we learn best from other people.”
Phil Gerbyshak and Dave Rothacker of our Ho’ohana Community. Phil shared, “Had a cup of coffee and exchanged about a million ideas with my pal from long ago Dave Rothacker. Dave and I met years ago on a blog dedicated to lifelong learning, hand curated by @rsay. It’s something we are both fully committed to. Voracious readers and sharers made us fast friends back then – and allowed us to reconnect fast in person too.
When I moved to Tampa, I realized he lived here too. While we don’t get together often enough, when we do, it’s one lightbulb moment after another… To coffee, connections and conversations. May you enjoy many of all of them with people who bring out the best in you.”
Postscript:
In addition to its conversational association the Daily five Minutes, “We learn best from other people” is a core teaching of Key 5 in our 9 Key Concepts: Language of Intention, the key which explores what we want our Aloha Communications to be all about;
Key 5. LANGUAGE OF INTENTION:
Language, vocabulary, and conversation combine as our primary tools in business communications, just as they do in our lives: What we speak is fifty times more important than what we read or write. The need for CLEAR, intentional, reliable and responsive communication is critical in thriving businesses — and in learning cultures, for we learn an extraordinary amount from other people. Drive communication of the right cultural messages, and you drive mission momentum and worthwhile energies. Communication will factor into every single value in some way as its primary enabler. The Managing with Aloha language of intention is inclusive, and is therefore defined as the “Language of We” with the value of KĀKOU as guiding light.
Site category for Key 5: Language of Intention
Sunday Mālama has been when I will share my off-the-workplace-highway scenic route kind of posts. Not as a normal weekly feature, but whenever they seem to be writing themselves. As the embedded links and archive suggestions above attest to, Sunday Mālama can also beg leisurely reading time, romping through a few of our older lessons-learned. These posts can also seem a bit unfinished, inviting you to finish them up for yourselves as you will.
You can access the Sunday Mālama archives via this category link, also residing with my site footnotes.
Subscribe for our weekly newsletter:
Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.
Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
January 1, 2019
Alonui
“Wherever you are, make sure you’re there.”
— Dan Sullivan
What are the good habits which empower you, and make you feel stronger?
One of my Hō‘imi reflections was this: After a ten-year investment ‘dabbling’ in social media, I realized it didn’t qualify for me as a ‘good habit.’ Not Flickr or Instagram, not Twitter or Tumblr, not LinkedIn, not Pinterest, not any of them. Not even close.
[Archive Resource Reading: Looking back to Hō‘imi Forward.]
Life is short, and I’ve come to realize that my good habits should be focused on human elements like well-being, happiness, quality of life, control of emotions, socialization and presence. Where do those feels-good satisfiers come from—how do they actually happen in my life?
Nine times out of ten, the answer is that they happen up close and in person, where all five senses are firing away on all cylinders, boosting our awareness in their sensory, deeply perceptive way. The feelings are lush. Tuned-in. Human. Elemental. Meaningful. Special and fulfilling.
Compared to the flighty, more scattered distractions of social media, the goodness for me in recent years has been with working (my all-inclusive word for how Managing with Aloha directs my life, i.e. my Ho‘ohana), the travel which gave me time with family and friends and opened up more sense of place experiences, and gardening for both its beauty and the joy of patiently watching life grow under the care of my own two hands. All required me to be ‘up close and in person,’ giving the all of me, and ignoring digital screen time save for my Ho‘ohana related work.
Thus the phrase I’ve chosen to theme 2019 is Alonui.
Alonui~Presence
You know ‘Alo’ as our inner word pairing for Aloha: Alo + ha.
Alo, demeanor and presence + ha, the breath of life, combines into the uniquely personal Aloha Spirit we each can share with the world.
[Archive Resource Reading: What is the Aloha Spirit? It’s you!]
‘Nui’ is an amplifier. It boosts, expands, and lengthens concepts, and will mean ‘much’ or ‘more.’
Alonui will have our 2019 kaona (hidden meaning) of full presence. Wherever we are, we’ll make sure we’re completely, intentionally, and generously there.
With every value immersion we undertake this year as a Ho‘ohana Community, my first question will be, how can I be fully present within the goodness of this value?—How do I receive? My second question will be, how does this value make me interact with others, and communicate better?—How do I give?
There are so many benefits. With presence;
We hurry less, scurry less, and chill more, curbing anxiety.
We learn to enjoy patience, which helps us learn to savor.
We still ourselves by tuning into all 5 senses: We hear, we see, we smell, we touch, we taste. We begin to separate those sensations and appreciate each one individually, and new experiences and challenges no longer overwhelm us.
We learn to concentrate and focus our attentions better; less scatter-brained distractions, less feeling out-of-touch.
We make personal connections faster and more intimately; we broaden our professional connections with more complementary curiosity.
We give the gift of ourselves to others, and find they reciprocate in kind.
We take more initiative, because we’ve learned to rely on our own talents, strengths and intuition more than we had previously—we’re no longer watchers; we’re doers.
We learn more inclusiveness, and experience a greater willingness to share what we have, because we have the empathy of what we’ve just felt like through our own immersion.
With all this new learning, we also experience unlearning, for we discard convention in favor of more personal freedom. We don’t settle; we welcome in experimentation.
We ask more questions, and we listen better to more fully understand the answers we may be given.
“Watch a pig wallow in the mud. Watch a chicken take a dust bath. They know how to feel the earth and be a part of it. They stretch out their roots just like plants do, just in their own way.” —Farmer Joe Medeiros
“Here’s the deal. The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is.” —Parker J. Palmer
These are the value immersions ready and waiting for us this year:
January-February 2019: Mahalo (thankfulness): Now published —Mahalo, “Way of Living.”
March-April 2019: Nānā i ke kumu (well-being)
May-June 2019: Pono (integrity)
July-August 2019: Ka lā hiki ola (hope)
September-October 2019: Aloha (love)
November-December 2019: Ho‘ohana (industriousness)
By the time we cycle back to Aloha in September, we’ll have 8 robust months of exploring our Alonui presence through our receiving and giving…can you imagine the influence that can have on our personal well-being?
[Archive Resource Reading: Value Your Month for One — You.]
“A value of the month program feels strategically proactive as we look ahead toward months that currently seem pretty distant. It is also immediately practical and sensible: In working two months at a time, we break our big picture vision into 6 chunks of more manageable mission-driven work effort.”
—From our Ho‘ohana Community TinyLetter
2019, I’m ready for you, and so is our Ho‘ohana Community.
We Ho‘ohana Kākou, together, and within the abundance of our Aloha Spirit.
Postscript:
I am doubly excited about Alonui because of its direct connections to our 9th Key Concept, Palena ‘ole: We will talk story about this more as the year unfolds.
Key 9. PALENA ‘OLE:
Palena ‘ole is the Hawaiian concept of unlimited capacity. This is your exponential growth stage, and about seeing your bigger and better leadership dreams come to fruition. Think “Legacy” and “Abundance” and welcome the coaching of PONO into your life as the value it is. We create our abundance by honoring human capacity; physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. When we seek inclusive, full engagement and optimal productivity, any scarcity will be banished. Growth is welcomed and change is never feared; enthusiasm flourishes. PALENA ‘OLE is an everyday attitude in an ‘Ohana in Business, assuming that growth and abundance is always present as an opportunity. Given voice, Palena ‘ole sounds like this: “Don’t limit yourself! Why settle for ‘either/or’ when we can go for the ‘and’ and be better?”
Site category for Key 9: Palena ‘ole
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Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
December 26, 2018
Looking back to Hō‘imi Forward
Hō‘imi is another Hawaiian value, one that blends parts of Managing with Aloha’s ‘Imi ola (create your best possible life) and Ka lā hiki ola (hope, promise, and optimism), with generous helpings of Nānā i ke kumu (look to your source, particularly with Sense of Place).
Hō‘imi is a powerhouse in value-verbing, for it literally means to look forward, looking for better and best, and to do something about what you see. There is an element of restlessness with it, and the wanting to move on, shift, and tweak things, yet that discontent of Hō‘imi is positive and eager — for again, it expects better and best to be waiting in the wings.
The looking and ‘to look’ part (imi) is a distinction of Hō‘imi: Visualization and visionary thinking is a big part of it. You look at what is, to see it as clearly as you can, and you look toward better and best possibility — you expect that possibility is where you can see it, even if only in mind’s eye. At least for now.
We call it the value of positive expectancy, because the confidence in Hō‘imi is convicted by the experience of doing and getting things done. Remember, values reside in people, and in the elements of our human nature.
Just imagine the powerful, proactive punch in the value pairing of Hō‘imi and Ho‘ohana!
Look Back with appreciation, See Forward more clearly.
We’re within the final stretch of 2018, and it’s a good time for this exercise using our 19 Values of Aloha.
For my business, I like to do this as a team journaling practice during Thanksgiving week because the value of Mahalo is so pervasive: We are more appreciative, we speak to our thankfulness much more readily, and gratitude influences our reflections. We “live in thankfulness for the richness that makes life so precious at work and at home, and we are able to sense our gifts elementally.”
Thus, at Say Leadership Coaching, we do this individually first, and then we compare notes as a team in one of our Thanksgiving week huddles.
Christmastide week (between Christmas and New Years Day) is when I will turn to this exercise on a personal basis.
I have structured the rest of this post in workbook page form for those of you who prefer digital ease: Copy-and-paste the section below, and then add more writing space to it before you print. The exercise is simple, but I do encourage you to take your time with it. Give some thought to the “trigger phrase” after each value’s name which I have taken from our “language of we” used here on this site. Then, write down 2 impressions for each value — express your current mana‘o.
Look Back (value-verbing done): How did you turn this value into a verb in 2018? How might it have expressed itself in a life of its own, taking you for the ride? What has that meant to you as a keeper, and lesson-learned? If it was barely a blip on your radar, just skip it and move on to the others, and move on to the next part.
See Forward (value-mapping desired): How do you want to use this value in 2019? Is there something specific you intend to do? Why? Do you have any partnership with someone else in mind, or a tangible goal it connects to?
As part of 2. See Forward, you may want to give it a theme, (similar to what I did here in 2013: Going Forward into 2013, with Aloha and here in the beginning of 2018: Good) for the double duty of this exercise, is that it can be your draft to Value Your Month to Value Your Life in the coming year.
One more coaching: Focus. It is easier to say “no” to extra baggage and the irrelevant, when there is a burning “yes” inside you. You may not call that “yes” your Ho‘ohana yet, but this can be a start.
1. Aloha ~ the value of your Aloha Spirit
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
2. Ho‘ohana ~ the worthwhile work of choice
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
3. ‘Imi ola ~ personal vision in professional mission
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
4. Ho‘omau ~ your tenacity, persistence and resilience
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
5. Kūlia i ka nu‘u ~ your striving for those higher summits of accomplishment
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
6. Ho‘okipa ~ being of service in Aloha
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
7. ‘Ohana ~ surrounding yourself with other people
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
8. Lōkahi ~ standing up for your individual role, collaborating with your team
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
9. Kākou ~ speaking with Aloha in all communications
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
10. Kuleana ~ taking on responsibility, and new readiness in accountability
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
11. ‘Ike loa ~ lessons learned, and the 2015 curriculum you desire
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
12. Ha‘aha‘a ~ humility opens us up, and will sometimes surprise us
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
13. Ho‘ohanohano ~ distinctive behaviors in dignity and respect
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
14. Alaka‘i ~ What was your Managing / Leading ratio, and will you shift it?
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
15. Mālama ~ the definition and objectives of your stewardship
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
16. Mahalo ~ actions in appreciation, thankfulness, and gratitude
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
17. Nānā i ke kumu ~ your Sense of Place and your health
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
18. Pono ~ your sense of balance, and personal/professional integration
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
19. Ka lā hiki ola ~ “the dawning of a new day” and your Sense of Hope
Looking back:
Seeing forward:
After you’ve completed your worksheet, write a paragraph which sums up your impressions. Capture whatever it is you’re thinking. Now put it aside to sleep on it.
Be an arrow, shot with Hō‘imi attitude
When you find pockets of quiet time in the holiday days to come, play with your worksheet a bit more, and decide what you’ll do with what you’ve learned, and what you now perceive as your current truths. These, after all, will be a draft of your own intentions.
In playing around with it, you might want to reorder these values in groups, in value pairings, or for batching and project-steering. The usefulness of this exercise is all about the choices you make: Ethos.
Postscript:
When Managing with Aloha was written 14 years ago, I had identified 48 different Hawaiian values in my studies with kūpuna. Hō‘imi was not included in the 19 Values of Aloha of my book because I chose to focus on Hawai‘i’s ‘rootstock values’ as a universal collection. Hō‘imi is, however, one of the Core 5 Values of my company, Say Leadership Coaching.
September 3, 2018
Labor Day Aloha
For the longest time I considered Labor Day nothing but an extra holiday. I wasn’t aware of the true history behind this American holiday, and I wasn’t curious about it either.
Growing up in Hawai‘i meant it was an extra beach day (no school!) and a really ono barbecue grinds picnic day. As a kid, that was pretty much all I needed to know!
Then came my learning about Ho‘ohana and my growing into the beliefs I have today about what this Hawaiian value of intentional, worthwhile work can be all about.
Hana ~ work
Ho‘o ~ make something happen
Ho‘ohana ~ make work happen as a Hawaiian value of living well
within our sense of place
Let’s explore this through some acronym fun that speaks to our Labor Day Aloha shall we?
WORK is a highly underrated word.
When work is good, it is really, really good.
You can belabor it, or have it be a labor of your love and Aloha. It’s completely up to you.
Ho‘ohana work is intentional work.
Your Ho‘ohana is the work you do on purpose, with passion, and with deliberate intentions, consistently seeking to match up your attentions to that intention. Ho‘ohana is your value-connected work. It might be your job, it might not. I think of Ho‘ohana work as connected to Aloha this way:
ALOHA is about you living with authenticity in a world populated with other people. We human beings were not meant to live alone; we thrive in each other’s company. Aloha celebrates everything that makes you YOU.
HO‘OHANA is about you making your living in our world in the way that gives you daily direction and intention. It leaves you with a feeling of personal fulfillment every day —not just when you have accomplished large goals.
Image courtesy of How to do nothing, by Jenny Odell, as captured for Sunday Mālama: Stretching your 8 Hours.
I prefer this kind of LABOR;
L – Love your work and the job you do. If you don’t, find new work you will love (and co-workers you’ll love being with). Your life is too precious to squander away in mediocrity or boredom.
A – Accept the reality that work IS personal. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and be personal while doing your work. Other people will relate better to you that way.
B – Brand what you do with your personal signature. Stand up for your work. Be proud of it, and be proud of being associated with it. Kukupa‘u—have your enthusiasm shine through all the work you do.
O – ‘Ohana (your family) is connected to your work whether they want to be or not. Understand that, and make it a good thing. When you come home at the end of the workday bring only the good parts home with you.
R – Relationships at work are important. Welcome them. Invest in them. People first, tasks second—always. Friendships and teamwork can co-exist, and productively so (even when you compete).
Our DAYs will add up to our ethos—the characteristic spirit of the life we have;
D – Daily work must point toward your ‘Imi ola, your Desired Destiny. Otherwise you’re wasting your time, and you probably aren’t having too much fun. Fun is useful: It gives you more energy and it keeps you healthy.
A – Actions do speak louder than words. It’s true (…and you know what a big fan of words and language I am). Walk your talk. (Which by the way, is a cakewalk when you love your job—go to the top and read L again.)
Y – Everything starts and ends with You. Your work life is what YOU make it. Take responsibility for your work, and on this Labor Day, celebrate the wonderful fact that you have a choice in everything you do. (Yes you do: No victim mentality allowed in the self-leadership of Alaka‘i thinking).
Be Congruent with a focus on our Aloha Intentions.
We say “Be Aloha” because ALOHA makes everything even better;
A – Authenticity is very attractive when connected to Aloha: “Alo” on the outside, and “ha” coming from the inside. Pretending you’re something or someone you’re not is way too stressful, (and it annoys everyone else you work with). I’ll bet you’re pretty cool just the way you are.
L – Livelihood is a word we must all define on our own terms. Money is not evil, but it is the currency of our society, so define your terms in a way you can live well with, both physically and emotionally.
O – Optimism drives so much, and it’s magnetic. Be practiced in sharing a positive outlook and you will find it begins to influence everything you do, and all work which comes your way. Magically, it will also be the work you want.
H – Have Ho‘ohana be your Labor Day mantra, today and every day. Ho‘ohana is the Hawaiian value of intentional work, and if you have chosen to live and work in our Hawai‘i nei, you have chosen our sense of place (as defined by our cultural values) regardless of the blood type running through your veins.
A – Appreciate work because you can do it! Appreciate your health because it enables you to do the work of your Ho‘ohana. Appreciate others who work, because you need them as much as they need you. They make your life interesting, and worth the living of it.
Today, on a day where millions of Americans will celebrate Labor Day in a time-honored way by deliberately avoiding labor let’s be grateful for work in all its form and function. Think about it: Work creates the possibility of play!
If you will be playing today, do enjoy it thoroughly. However notice it thoroughly too: If not for the work that so many do so brilliantly, providing the possibility, would you be able to enjoy what you will savor today?
We Ho‘ohana Kākou, together, and within Aloha.
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Preview the updates in Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
July 25, 2018
Make Follow-through your Superpower!
Whether you call it Follow-up or Follow-through, great managers get it done as their Ho‘ohanohano signature of distinction.
Conduct yourself with distinction
We, at Say Leadership Coaching, have been able to enjoy many wonderful talk stories over the years, which were sparked by Ho‘ohanohano’s signature catch phrase, “conduct yourself with distinction.”
We’ve sparred about what that phrase means, and about what it reminds us of. We’ve shared our experiences with watching Ho‘ohanohano distinction come alive in various definitive, noteworthy actions.
All those talking story contributions considered, I’ve remained pretty steadfast with my choice on what the epitome of an Alaka‘i Manager’s distinctive conduct is as their Ho‘ohanohano signature. I love when they’re kind and compassionate; yes. I cheer when they display honesty and integrity; yes. I swoon when they know how to sincerely apologize and immediately aim to make things right; I really do. Yet the epitome, top of list for me, has always been when an Alaka‘i Manager has good follow-through.
They follow-up on what they say they will do, and they will do so over and over again, without fail. They err on the side of following up twice, rather than wonder if their first stab at follow-through was good enough for anyone who possibly could have been involved. For them, to not follow-up and not follow through well, is simply not an option.
These are the Ho‘ohanohano obsessed managers who consider multi-tasking a sin in random focus, half-a**ed work, and indifferent carelessness. There is no Next in view for them, until they’ve surpassed Finish Well with whatever is already on their plate, doing so with flying colors.
Those are the managers I adore (and will hire on the spot if I’m recruiting), for they are likely to have the focus and discipline they need to accomplish whatever else we will need to accomplish together—more than ‘likely,’ it’s virtually guaranteed they will. The hallmarks of their character are usually that they’re patient, they listen well, and they learn new things thoroughly. They ask really good questions, and they don’t hesitate to ask for help when need be—they will follow-up no matter the cost.
Image: yogysic/Getty Images
Make Follow-through your Superpower!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how’s your follow-up?
I admit mine can be better, even though I value it in others as much as I do (I’m probably a 7).
We can all work on improving our follow-up;
—Make simple actions like writing things down, and then reviewing your notes every few days, your habit.
—Get people to help you: Don’t hesitate to ask your coworkers and partners directly, “Is there anything you’re waiting on from me, or because of me?” Trust me, they’ll love you for it.
Lastly, pay it forward with recognition and appreciation: When someone follows-up in a way that impacts you favorably, let them know you noticed, and tell them you are grateful. As they say in supervisory training 101, acknowledge the good behavior you wish to see repeated—it’s another Ho‘ohanohano kind of thing.
Follow through on this reading, with a mini self-coaching module from the Managing with Aloha archives:
1. The “I said I would… (and when)” Trace File
2. 1-Catch the Good, 2-Tell Them!
3. On Ho‘ohiki: Keeping your promises
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Preview the updates in Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
May 11, 2018
Golden Rule Management
I’m sure you know of The Golden Rule:
“Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”
The Golden Rule is the inspiration for what we who manage with Aloha call “Golden Rule Management” and it goes like this:
“Do for, and do with others, as you would have them do for, and do with you.”
We discard “unto” purposefully, and not because it’s the language of ancient times. You see, we don’t think of managers as fixers—those who do things, even ‘good for them’ things, to other people. We think of managers as those who will work with others and for them, ‘with’ meaning within Aloha-centered partnership, and ‘for’ meaning in service to others, and in coaching support of their workplace responsibilities and contributions.
Throughout it all, we task Alaka‘i Managers—those with a calling for management who practice Managing with Aloha culture-building—with being Alaka‘i by modeling good behavior, whether that behavior is considered self-managing and self-leading, or teaching, coaching, and mentoring.
Modeling Performance Behavior
Modeling good behavior, behavior you want repeated throughout your organization, is as basic to culture-building as it gets: It is foundational to our Aloha Intentions (Key Concept 1), our Value Alignment (Key Concept 3), and our Language of We (Key Concept 5). It is foundational and it is essential.
[Review all 9 Key Concepts in Managing With Aloha Culture-Building here, and here.]
Remember: Culture is simply defined as a group of people who operate within the same set of values. Therefore, “culture building” is basically done through on-the-job common practice, and it is highly likely that ‘common practice’ requires an element of training, coaching, and mentoring. Culture is “the way we do things here” directed and taught through specific value alignment.
In the first part of my management career, I supervised, managed and led the ‘rank and file’—those we think of as employees and non-managerial staff. In the second part of my management career, I primarily supervised, managed and led other managers. I would also concentrate on peer-to-peer managerial, vendor-supplier, and networking partnerships much more intensively than I had before.
I would primarily remind myself of Golden Rule Management in two common circumstances then, and still do in my current career as a Workplace Culture Coach:
I. When encountering the employee attitude that “my manager should be able to do everything I’m able to do…if not, they have not earned the right to manage me.”
—In this instance, I know I’m tasked with changing that employee’s attitude expectation that his or her manager is out to do something to them, instead of working in partnership with them. We probably need to have a good talk about role and responsibility (Key Concept 4 and Kuleana), and our different levels of expertise and contribution, for it is not true that both employee and manager should be able to do the same things—in fact, it’s far better that they don’t!
II. When coaching performance and/or behavior issues with managers, leaders, executives and business owners.
—In this instance, will the person I am coaching, learn a good deal about Golden Rule Management in the process of receiving their own coaching? Will they learn about the worthwhile effort, and rewarding results, of ‘doing for, and doing with others, as you would have them do for, and do with you,’ in both of their roles as subordinate, yet boss to others? Will they gain more empathy, patience, and ‘compassion with tough love’ through the experience of being coached, so they can retreat the process with others?
Our 19 Aloha Values will guide and intersect with each of these scenarios in different ways, depending on the personal values of the employee or manager being coached. As general guidance, the five values I align with Golden Rule Management the most, are;
1. Aloha: We can never remind ourselves enough, that “People are good, and therefore, they can always return to their centering of good spirit” and that those efforts to do so are always worth it.
2. Ha‘aha‘a: Humility is needed in any uncomfortable situation which calls for new learning coupled with behavioral change—slices of humble pie must nourish both coach, and the person being coached.
3. Ho‘ohanohano: The value of good behavior, and professional conduct ‘with distinction.’
4. Mālama: Care, yes. Compassion and patience, yes. Most of all however, this is our value of stewardship, and managers are the stewards of healthy workplace culture.
5. Ka lā hiki ola: “The dawning of a new day.” This is the value of optimism, hope and promise. We are reminded that life affords us many different opportunities, and each coaching conversation is one of those opportunities. Let’s go forward, and put any uncomfortable, unproductive past behind us for good.
Adopt Golden Rule Management, and you will be reminded of these values, and “Be Alaka‘i” too.
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Preview the updates in Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
April 30, 2018
Rapid Fire Learning
The month draws to a close today, and it is therefore time for Rapid Fire Learning. Got your journal open?
Because some things are meant to be, and LEARNING is one of them.
Rapid Fire Learning
One of the ‘elders’ in our Ho‘ohana Community is an ‘Ike loa learning habit, a month-end practice we named Rapid Fire Learning (RFL).
RFL was created on TalkingStory.org in September of 2006, a month where our value immersion had been on ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian value of learning. It started as an essay invitation I extended to other bloggers in our community, publishing their contributions in a month-long forum. We quickly and overwhelmingly agreed that our learning was something we couldn’t contain in a single forum and then declare over: Lifelong learning after all, is lifelong learning! We had created an educational momentum we couldn’t ignore, and a learning community we did not want to let go of, and our forum spun off into a website of its own.
The website was dubbed Joyful Jubilant Learning, and a new essay was published every single day for over 3 years. The site was retired* in 2010, for after a very robust run, our contributing authors and I found we’d graduated on to other endeavors. I’ll admit the end of JJL was a bit sad, but we were nostalgic and not disappointed, for isn’t a goal of learning to revel in the effort, triumph in its accomplishment, and then move on?
The site may have retired, but the learning habits we’d created along the way certainly have lived on. The one habit most of us have retained, is Rapid Fire Learning.
We think of RFL as a combo between learning and gratitude journaling, and it’s a very quick and easy practice:
On the last day of every month, you sit with pen and paper, and quickly reflect:
What were your top 3 to 5 learnings during the month?
You jot them down briefly, just in a sentence or two. There are no other rules or guidelines—you write RFL your way, in however learning happened for you or made an impression on you.
RFL is a simple curation practice which makes you feel accomplished in learning. You will feel grateful—you are indeed a lifelong learner!
Learning may not have a defined beginning or end—it happens within us constantly. With RFL you see incremental improvements in the form of your ‘smaller learnings’ because they do make an impression on you. You celebrate your leaps forward as well, recognizing when the biggies have occurred—you did it!
One thing I like about it, is how the practice prompts you to think about your follow-up; what did you learn, and what are you going to do about it? When you learn something from another person, have you let them them know, and have you said Mahalo?
I handwrite my RFLs each month, and I have a moleskine journal dedicated to RFL and nothing else. It is, without a doubt, the best re-reading of anything I do, for I go back over my older entries and check myself: Did you really learn this enough, really? Is it time for a revisit? Past entries will remind me of things I had once been very excited about, and I often revive them with renewed energies if they have since fallen from active practice.
Here’s my RFL for the month of March 2018. I share it as a quick example—
1. I learned—again, and repeats are so useful!—that I need to fully trust in my first impressions when I visit a new place. Sense of place may feel elusive, and may be tough to explain at first, but the feelings are always strong, and I need to pay attention to them, whether comforts or cautions.
2. I learned that it is very easy to take advantage of people who are your family, and ‘easy’ certainly doesn’t make it right. On the other hand, being kind, polite to, and considerate of family is HUGE when it happens, and it’s glorious for everyone. No one likes to be taken for granted—why do we assume family is any different?
3. I learned where the Snake River ends, emptying into the Columbia River at Tri-Cities, Washington, as its largest tributary. A commonplace fact for some, this was more noteworthy and meaningful for me after our family vacation two years ago in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the Snake River rises.
The Sacajawea Heritage Trail Project is a recreational and educational trail along twenty-three miles of beautiful Columbia River shoreline in Tri-Cities, Washington.
4. I spent most of my time away from Hawai‘i this month, and I learned about the tenacity and resiliency of people who farm a “true four seasons life” changing their labor spring, summer, fall and winter, to adjust their income streams (and spending) as well. I was so impressed, and I am eager to learn more.
5. I learned—another welcomed repeat—that the telephone is your best friend when you newly meet someone, but cannot do so in person. No matter how articulate or eloquent a writer a person may be, communicating by voice always surpasses email and text (and voicemails don’t count).
Join me and write up your own RFL—what did you learn this month?
* Joyful Jubilant Learning had been hosted by Say Leadership Coaching, and we let the domain expire; if you find it, it was purchased by someone else.)
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Preview the updates in Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
April 28, 2018
Values represent the good in your life
I’ve just had a run of delivering speeches and workshops to several groups of people, and I’m on a high—Mahalo for being there if you were a part of any of them!
If you’ve ever attended one of my presentations, you’ve seen this slide or had these lines printed in your handouts, and you have heard me say them:
To talk about Managing with Aloha in any way, shape, or form, is to talk about values, and understand how they work
—in our lives: Let’s Define Values,
—in our business models: Values Centered Management: Where VBM falls short in business, VCM intercepts, improves, and reinvents it.
—and in the value studies we choose: The 19 Values of Aloha, and About our Practice of Value Immersion.
I love teaching Managing with Aloha to others, not as a means of teaching a Hawaiian way (though I do love that too, along with the concepts of Sense of Place) but as sharing the realization that our values do serve us—they represent our good, and they in fact, are our walking, talking, breathing, human nature toolkit. The values we choose, are always at-the-ready, a practical and relevant toolkit innate in us as expressive human beings. Values are easy to use, and natural to us in practice, equipping us with a toolkit which is magnificently adaptable to whatever we face on a daily basis.
To understand this, and then, to identify and articulate the values in your own toolkit, is truly empowering stuff.
Values represent your good.
One of the core Hawaiian beliefs the Kūpuna, our elders, will eagerly share with us, is that “people are born good,” and therefore, when we behave badly, we must remember that “we can always return to that place of being within our good” and make that self-correction.
However, a question I’m often asked is this one: “If values represent our good, what’s the bad stuff?”
I do understand how it can be helpful to name that stuff too, and in Managing with Aloha we articulate “the bad stuff” as bad behavior and phobias to make it clear—There aren’t ‘bad’ values. Your values evoke and empower your innate positivity and goodness.
I have had this distinction pinned to my Twitter profile, and thought it would be helpful to bring it here to the MWA blog as well:
What’s the big deal about Values? Values drive our behavior (and explain it). To managers, mining values is resourceful—behavior is energy.
Values equip us—they define our WHY; they give us our HOW-TO(s). As such, values create the most meaningful, and good energy possible.
Are there bad values? No—Values are good by definition; they challenge us to be better. We confront, and seek to change, bad phobias which ignore good values.
Hate, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, misogyny—these are phobias; an irrational fear of, or aversion to something, stemming from insecurity.
Phobias also stem from a lack of confidence, a lack of self-worth, or not having a sense of belonging. Insecurity can erupt as envy or hate.
Thus, choose Values instead, and align your behavior with those values, to get rid of your phobias and fears, and become more self-assured.
If what you choose to believe in does not add good to your life and to your emotional well-being, it is not a value. Choose values. #BeAloha.
Values will give you a surge of energy, whereas that fear driving phobias will drain your energy away.
Another litmus test you can apply to this distinction, is that values come from abundance; phobias stem from scarcity. Within scarcity, we struggle for a better sense of self-survival. Within abundance, we look for more opportunity to prosper and thrive.
“Abundance is not something we acquire, it is something we tune into.”
—Wayne Dyer
Pretty clear where it is healthier, and better to be.
Sometimes, people will say, “There’s a whole lot of morality in your definition of values Rosa.” To which I respond, “Yes, there is.” Morality is not something I overtly attempt to preach to you, however I’ll never shy from it either. The way I see it, morality is a good thing too.
GOOD is our theme for 2018, including a whiteboard lesson, which harked back to the very beginnings of Say Leadership Coaching in 2004: We work on Goodness first (some have said, “it’s my personal”) and Greatness second (the professional.).
Related Reading in the Managing with Aloha Archives:
Sept.2017: Well Served by Our Values: Recalling 911, with Aloha.
Jan.2017: The Values that Matter: Yours & Ours.
Aug.2016: Teaching Family Values.
Jan.2015: Goals Change. Values are Forever.
Dec.2015: Values or Virtues? Both!
A message worth repeating, first published as our Aloha Intentions for 2016:
Always On Trend: Your values are good for you.
1. Trust in your values. Choose them deliberately, articulating them for your own clarity, whether in Hawaiian, English, or another language, as long as they are stated in your own Language of Intention: Make them about behaviors you will commit to, and grow better within.
2. As the saying goes, “to err is human,” forgive yourself and move on: If you find you start in a somewhat negative place of dissatisfaction with your current state of affairs, walk through understanding it, forgive yourself with grace, and choose your values based on the good intentions and positive expectancy you want to move forward with, and set a good example for others with.
3. Understand that less is likely more in terms of focusing well and working both reasonably and realistically. With less, you can avoid being regimented in over-organization, and have open spaces for whatever the coming year will surely add to your plate without you even sensing it yet. You don’t want to settle for checking off some lengthy, all-inclusive list: You want to become accomplished with what really matters.
4. And again, why bother? So you can dwell in your Aloha Spirit, expressing it through your ever-optimistic and inherently good-natured values. Not only do values lived and worked help you feel morally on track, they equip you in ways which make you stronger.
5. Prepare to take action. We call it next-stepping in the MWA lexicon. Don’t stop at getting your clarity down on paper… specify what happens next, and get your good intentions done.
Be as good, and as powerful as I know you can be.
Be happy, being you and all you as said when I last stepped into your inbox.
~ Rosa Say
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Preview the updates in Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer, 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
