Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

The Talking Story (occasional) Sunday Paper

I need to say I’m sorry, and I am. I’m saying it and feeling it —I’m sorry!

I have told you that Talking Story will be the single place to keep up with me, for I can be at a number of places around the web, and lately I have been negligent about updating here as much as I should. I do apologize.

So let’s catch up, shall we?

First, about the “Sunday Paper” title

Seems Sunday has always has a grounding effect on me. My dad started it with church for the whole family way back: If you were already born, you had to go too. Here in blog land, Sunday Mālama was a natural for Managing with Aloha Coaching, and for the first 6 months of writing Say “Alaka‘i” we had Sunday Koa Kākou. Both of those pilot projects/writing commitments are now in hiatus land (yes, I do dabble and experiment) and we’ve had a Sunday Paper feature here at Talking Story once before too (It was a bit different than what I am doing today). I’m thinking of bringing it back when I make another move… not sure yet, and depends how it all sorts out… keep reading…

What IS definite, is that Talking Story will get a lot more attention before I allow myself to reconsider two requests that continue to come up from the Ho‘ohana Community: For now, I hope you will understand I must say “no” in favor of my other current projects.

One request has been “Rosa, please bring back your value of the month program, Value Your Month, Value Your Life.” I honestly miss it too, and I still Ho‘ohana with it privately, but cannot do so publicly again: You can self-coach using the archives of MWA Coaching or my book – it was written exactly for that purpose!

The second request has been “Rosa, please bring back your email newsletter, Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo.” I don’t think you will miss it as much if I get better about my updates here: For now, Talking Story must serve that purpose. If you do not have an email subscription, I highly recommend you try one: More incentive will be mentioned two sections down...

My Two ’09 Projects: Updates

As I mentioned to you in Life Imitates Art (my late May update) there are two projects I am determined to complete before I take on any other new ones. They are

1. The writing of my second book (and I am pleased to say I am making wonderful progress with it!) and
2. A total revamping of my web presence which entails the platform/publishing move from TypePad (TP) to WordPress (WP).

Those website changes have started (it’s a big project), and I did alert you to the launch of Teaching with Aloha a dozen days ago. Very exciting!

One of the things I neglected to share (again, sorry!) was that Joyful Jubilant Learning was converted too: We unveiled the new look on the 4th of July. Take a quick look if you haven’t seen it yet: Snazzy, isn’t it?

Upcoming plans for Talking Story

The TP to WP project will include a move for Talking Story to its own domain: This site will soon be found at TalkingStory.org (no link ‘cause not yet!) HOWEVER unlike the conversion we did at Joyful Jubilant Learning, where older posts can be accessed in the new archives, much of what is now here at Talking Story will be newly stored in my private archives only.

In other words, if you want something here, grab it now, and print it, for old links will cease working: When TalkingStory.org launches it will be a new presentation of lots of free resources, however it might not have all your favorites. You have at least two more weeks before anything happens, maybe a bit more, and I will tell you when a new launch date is finalized.

If you have a Talking Story subscription (either RSS or email) you need not do anything else, for your subscription will automatically switch to the new site when the transition is made.

Highlights at Joyful Jubilant Learning

July has been quite exciting in the JJL neighborhood of our Ho‘ohana Community. For the first time ever (other than our Annual Love Affair with Books) I have had to turn down post contributors there, for every day on the calendar quickly filled up for the month’s theme:

July 2009: Communicating As Learners Do

I do think that the digital switch from TP to WP had a little to do with it – after all, the site is dedicated to ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian value of learning, and the WordPress platform offers a lot more learning opportunity. However I also think the theme there was a significant driver, for communication is a biggie for all of us.

Already there are quite a few overlaps there to topics we cover here on management and leadership, and I encourage you to check in with JJL regularly this month: A good way is by following @JJLhui if you are on Twitter.

Today is my assigned posting day for the month of July, and I have written on the number one tool in our Managing with Aloha stable of good practices: D5M. My post is called

Learning to Listen with The Daily Five Minutes

I think you will enjoy it: I tell the story of why, how and when the practice started for me, and in keeping with the JJL theme of communication this month, I talk about three significant lessons learned in the nineteen years since my very first D5M with my management team at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. They are all connected to listening, absolutely vital in talking story too.

Dream Chasing, A Volkswagen Bug, Freedom and Inventiveness

What do all those things have in common? Rick Cecil of Ruzuku.com and @getencouraged got something about each one out of me in a recent interview we did.

Rick has put together a new interview series as part of his product development process for Ruzuku.com and I had the honor of being the third person he featured, stepping in line behind simplicity evangelist Leo Babauta and the immensely compelling writer Patti Digh.

Rick and I both found we gained a number of insights from the process of how he approached the interviews. If you are interested, you can read more at a posting Rick did about it at Joyful Jubilant Learning:

Building Customer Relationships with Authentic Conversations

Yep, that title is spot on – true talking story stuff!

If you would like to read my interviews, you can find them listed on this page (Rick separated it into 5 parts, published last week):

Another Step Forward – From There to Here with Rosa Say

Mahalo Rick!

“What happened with your letter to your legislators?”

This had me all up in arms for a few days, remember? Walking my Talk: A Letter to my Legislators

In brief, the governor did veto the bill, and the legislators have said they will not move to override her veto. Yes, I am thrilled, however I don’t think the issue is over. I also discovered that all my legislators are horribly unresponsive despite this and other efforts I made to converse with them… not good, and thus I take no credit for the turn of events going the way I hoped for!

Meantime, Amazon.com still has kept our Hawai‘i accounts closed. I can get into my old accounts, however there is a big banner across them reading “This account is closed and will not generate referrals. Access to this site is for historical purposes only.”

This impacts both the SLC aStore and the JJL aStore: Both remain on the web, seemingly “live” for Amazon.com has nothing to lose – I am sending them a ton of links. However I cannot make any changes to those storefronts.

However none of this has affected my ability to offer Managing with Aloha to you via Amazon.com and they continue to order from me: Just sent a shipment off to them this past Wednesday, and you will find my book in stock there.

Gotta have Comics, or something funny

Otherwise it hardly qualifies as the Sunday Paper, right?

Mahalo to Aaron for sharing this with me: Web Site Story.

Now get outside for some Sunday sunshine, and share your Aloha,
~ Rosa

How to Stop Micromanaging: Part One

Micromanaging. Auwe!

The word gives us that same feeling we get when someone purposely rakes their fingernails across a chalkboard.

I doubt anyone micromanages intentionally. No one likes to think they are being accused of doing it, and no one wants to be on the receiving end of a micro-manager’s reach. No one does it on purpose unless they are truly evil (and you cannot believe that if you believe in Aloha at all) or just don’t care if they do (and none of those people bother to read Say “Alaka‘i” in the first place, so that possibility is irrelevant to this discussion).

Yet micromanagement continues to happen; why?

If you are a manager, how can you keep yourself from falling into this bad habit? We have learned that the best way to eliminate a bad habit is to replace it with a better one, so let’s do that.

What is micromanagement, and why does it happen?

mi⋅cro⋅man⋅age –verb (used with object), -aged, -ag⋅ing. to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details. —from dictionary.com

‘Minor’ is a highly relative word. So is ‘excessive.’ People assign them as relevant to a situation from different perspectives. Minor to one person is major to another; excessive can get to be obsessive really quickly.

From what I observe in many different workplaces, micromanagement is a result of impatience, and the desire for more expediency.

Catch someone micromanaging you and bring it to their attention, and you will likely hear a response like this: “I am sorry you feel that way, however we both know the work had to be done and I just couldn’t wait anymore for it was affecting the customer directly.”

It’s a response which might be true, but it doesn’t make us feel any better. We don’t hear this message: “The customer is happy now, so let’s celebrate! And it really was no problem for me; I didn’t mind doing it.” Instead, we hear blame and subtle yet sharply stinging accusations.

We hear, “You were too slow, and I got tired of waiting for you to do it” or “You weren’t doing it right, and it was faster and easier for me to do it myself” or “You weren’t paying enough attention to the needs of our customer, so hey, thank goodness I stepped in and saved your neck when I did.” We may feel all of those things! Chances are, we don’t believe the micromanager is sorry at all, and we feel scolded.

We also feel embarrassed, perhaps even violated. Other people know when someone else is in our business.

Yuck. So now what?

When I see this play out in the workplace and have the benefit of watching it as an emotionally detached observer, the first question which pops into my head is, “Whose perception is reality?” However I let that natural thought get out and be done with, as a short-term question for which the answer doesn’t matter that much anymore —not for that particular happenstance.

The long-term, healthier workplace question is, “How can these two people get to a much better reality the next time?” and, “What has to improve so this never happens again?”

Let’s assume they are both right:

• The work had to be done, and done better. The micromanager is right.
• Next time (and there will be a next time) it needs to be done without micromanaging entering the picture. They may not have said so, but the one who was micromanaged is right about that too.

When it happens, it can’t be left unsolved

The problem is that even when a micromanager is caught in the act and confronted about it, the other person feels victimized, and they feel that the micromanager still has the upper hand. Whatever the variation of it, usually the conversation described above will end with those bad feelings left unsaid, and best case scenario, both people walk away wanting to forget about it as quickly as possible, putting it past them.

Thing is, they don’t forget, and the problem does not go away, for it hasn’t been solved. It’s not the best case scenario at all. The root cause is still at play: Impatience, and the desire for expediency, this time with an uncomfortable situation resulting for both people involved.

Feelings have immense validity. Alaka‘i managers bring the discomforts in any workplace back into a circle of comfort so that the workplace will feel healthy again. Discomfort stifles growth, and discomfort drains energy, and as we’ve spoken of before, the lack of energy and cessation of growth leads to complacency, then boredom, and then that biggest sin of mediocrity.

Both people can take better control of the situation. First of all, they can’t let it be over. If that first conversation is really way too uncomfortable, or the timing sucks, bring it up later, choosing a better time, but follow-up and be brave: Do bring it up again and deal with it. If you are the one being micromanaged, you must learn to use your manager better.

Ultimately, the buck stops with the manager. You’ve got to agree that you have a lot of other things you should be doing.

Bottom line is this: If you are micromanaging, you are doing someone else’s work and not your own. This is your work:

2. Place: Managers create great workplaces where people thrive. Managers focus on creating an environment where rewarding work happens. They continually work to remove obstacles (such as negativity), barriers, and excuses, while adding the needed support, tools and resources. Great managers are the stewards of healthy organizational cultures. —From our SA Archives on The Role of a Manager: How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture

Your micromanagement is a big obstacle.

More on “How to Stop” will be in Part Two

If you are learning to be an Alaka‘i manager, I am sure you already know much of what you have to do to end any bad habits you have with micromanaging. It IS a bad habit which MUST be replaced with a better one.

So I want you to start your own course of self-correction now.
Today. The moment you stop reading this.
Choose a person you know you have a tendency to micromanage (come on, you know you do), and commit to improving your working relationship with them, for that is the true goodness here.

When you eliminate all micromanagement from your management style, you WILL

• Improve the quality of another person’s work, renewing their energies for the task at hand. You better enable their effectiveness, enlarging their circle of influence in your organization.
• Improve the quality of your own work, for you now have room in your workday for more creative work versus maintenance work.
• Greatly improve your effectiveness by doing more leadership (creating energy) and less management (channeling energy). Management matters and will always be necessary to a certain degree, but the constant goal of the Alaka‘i manager is to lead more and not less.
• Greatly improve your working relationship with someone else, because you have also effectively shifted the degree within which someone feels managed versus feeling they are led toward a new vision.
• Have been the designer of a healthier workplace in which both internal and external customers get consistently good results long term versus interrupted and uncomfortably corrected results short term.

About Part Two:

I won’t be publishing part two until next week Thursday, July 16th. You have a full week to tackle this, getting to the details based on what you already have learned here about managing with more Aloha, and as an Alaka‘i manager who matters in your workplace culture (big hint and redirect there folks... review the links!) Think too about our more recent discussions with GEMO and progressive work, and about how you become an energy creator in your company. 7 days from now, you can then use my Part Two article as a checklist to evaluate how you did on your own.

For after all, if I just gave you all the answers now, that would be telling and not coaching. In fact, you could even accuse me of micromanaging you, and we both don’t want that, right?

If you truly want to improve, and eliminate any micromanaging from your work quickly, you will enroll that person you chose in your goal: Tell them what you are trying to learn. Show them my article, and ask them to read it. Tell them you have caught yourself micromanaging them, you know it sucks for both of you, and you are determined to correct course. Ask them to help you.

I cannot imagine anyone would say no to you. Why go it alone when you don’t have to, and when getting a second opinion and some peer-to-peer coaching will be a win for both of you? Partnering up with the person you are trying to improve your working relationship with is a fantastic way to make a great goal highly achievable.

And we can talk story here meanwhile.
Any thoughts to share?

Photo credit: Three Feet, One Tail by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Aloha Training? Make it all personal
• You Are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!
• 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces
• The Biggest Sin in Business Today
• How do you Use your Manager?
• How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture
• GEMO: When is ‘Good’ good enough?
• Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate
• While the Big Cat was Away
• Who gives you your Second Opinion?
• What the heck do you mean by ‘Achievable?

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
July 2009 ~
How to Stop Micromanaging: Part One

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

Your Alaka‘i Language of Leadership

I read this at Terry Starbucker’s blog recently:

Lesson 7: Understand that words alone don’t make the leader - proper presentation, attitude, inflection, cadence and structure are musts to inspire to action. —Terry Starbucker, My 10 Favorite Leadership Lessons

Reading it, I cheered and did my hula dance of joy at Terry’s why: “to inspire to action.” Leaders create energy.

I also got to thinking about the assumptions that all of you might have about what I refer to as the ‘language of leadership,’ a phrase I am apt to use quite often in my speaking, my coaching, and my writing here at the blog. An awareness of our Alaka‘i language of leadership is a great talk story for us to have.

In my mind, your Alaka‘i language of leadership is as unique to you as your fingerprint, for it starts within your Aloha spirit, that authenticity of self-being that others will commonly call your self esteem.

Self-esteem is values affirmation you feel good about.

Your words are the tip of the iceberg

Terry is absolutely right, and very wise to refer to this as a leadership lesson. A leader will find he must choose his words carefully nearly every single time he opens his mouth to speak, yet that is but the tip of the iceberg.

What else is involved in the language of leadership others recognize as coming from you?

Make no mistake about it, your persona as leader is recognized by others through your language of leadership. The people you will lead need not see you or even hear you to know you are definitely the one who is leading.

Terry mentions “proper presentation, attitude, inflection, cadence and structure,” and those are all things that we human beings will develop defaults for over time: We get into automatic pilot with them in much the same way we develop other habits [You Are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!].

However we are more disciplined and intentional about our habits. Unless they get to a place of fame and fortune where they’ll hire a voice coach or a publicity handler, most leaders assume that they way they speak and present themselves is just the way it is, and they reconcile themselves to “living with the cards I’ve been dealt.”

Fact is, there is a lot you can do with those cards (even without hired help), and you can draw new ones.

I think it helps to first consider where your defaults may be coming from.

You learned how to Listen before you learned how to Speak

And you know what? Listening still works better.

Mothers of young children will tell you that one of the most frustrating times of their children’s lives —both for mother and for child —is before that child gets better command of language. Young children must totally depend on their behavior to both act for them, and explain for them, and we adults miss an awful lot in our “listening” to their behaviors.

So what approach will mothers (and fathers) take at the same time they are teaching their children to speak? They immediately begin to teach values, with “no” and disapproval communicated to their children when they misbehave. Much praise, smiles and hugs follow when behaviors have been good, and good means those behaviors are well aligned with family values.

It doesn’t really matter what is going on in the rest of the world, and what anyone else thinks: “We are honest in this family, we don’t hide the evidence when we’ve messed up or made a mistake. When we start to speak, we don’t lie about it.” And so on.

When you think about it, you learned how to behave well before you learned how to actually explain how you were behaving and why. You learned how to listen before you learned how to speak.

Sometimes we forget this, but think about it: Listening well works much more magic for us than speaking well does. Still does, even as adults, and especially in the workplace.

You learned a Language of Values

The dialect we first learned may have been composed of words in English, Hawaiian, Japanese or something else, but the language we all learned from our family first and then others, was the language of our values.

Mahalo: “This is when we should be appreciative, grateful, and thankful…” Kuleana: “This is when we are responsible…” Ho‘omau: “This is when we keep trying… This is when we let it go…” Mālama: “This is when others know we care… This is when others feel we don’t care…”

We didn’t just learn words as we started to speak: We associated them with good beliefs and not so good ones, and we were given that opinion before we figured out we could form an opinion of our own. In other words, we were taught values.

And what do the values we hold do for us? They serve us exceptionally well: Values drive our default behavior.

Therefore, within your language of leadership, your personal values speak loud and clear, even when a single word has not been spoken. Your leadership values are doing the talking for you.

This is a subject we will continue to talk story about here at Say “Alaka‘i” for it is a rich one! Any initial thoughts? Let’s talk story!

Coming up on Thursday:

How to Stop Micro-Managing Every manager does it to a certain degree, and there is a way to stop, developing a new management style that both you and your staff will be much happier with. Not only can you stop, you can gain some great fringe benefits in the process.

Photo credit: Public Secrets by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Bring Hawai‘i to the Workplace by ‘Talking Story’
• If you want to know, ask!
• You Are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!
• Who says you can’t do that?
• When Made to Stick Will
• yHow do you Learn? Really, how?

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
July 2009 ~
Your Alaka‘i Language of Leadership

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

What the heck do you mean by ‘Achievable?’

We have all heard the conventional wisdom attached to smart goal-setting: Although they should stretch you, make your goals realistic, and make them achievable. I included an expanded checklist in my book, Managing with Aloha:

“…you cannot choose a goal on the merit of the goal alone; it must be judged in the context of the employee who sets the goal and the mission that drove it. The relationship you initiated with Ho‘ohana is already paying you dividends here. The more you have learned about the employee you coach, the better you’ll be equipped to help him or her set goals that are:

• Realistic for them, and realistic within their job environment
• Achievable, while challenging them to stretch
• Meaningful, leading them toward worthwhile work
• Exciting and fun, keeping them enthusiastic while they work on them
• Satisfying and rewarding for them, and conducive to your business success.”

Yep, I used the word too. Achievable.

Though it was never intended to have one, conventional wisdom has had a major loophole: “Achievable” is usually up for too much misinterpretation.

Enter the Alaka‘i manager, and just in time. If you’ve been following along in recent weeks, this will not surprise you…

The new Achievable has got to be About Change

If I were to rewrite that section of Managing with Aloha today, and publish one of those “newly revised” editions, I’d definitely spice it up.

It’s an okay checklist, and there isn’t anything about it which is wrong; good Alaka‘i managers will coach Ho‘ohana and ‘Imi ola this way (If you have Managing with Aloha, it came from page 46 and the chapter on ‘Imi ola in regard to mission statements).

In my coaching today, achievable gets defined this way:

• Make it hard (we defined ‘hard’ this past Tuesday)
• Make it cool and sexy ( because energy doesn’t come from boring goals)
• Get a double whammy

The “double whammy” is Goal + Shift: Achieve the goal, and achieve a shift into a re-energized day-to-day beyond everyone else’s ‘normal.’ The goal you choose should be a goal which gets YOU to change versus getting everything/anything else to change (or anyone else to change —that’s a no go in which you set yourself up for failure.)

A quote attributed to organizational change pioneer Richard Beckhard is insightfully accurate:

“People do not resist change; people resist being changed.”

No one can coerce or convince you to accept significant and lasting change: That’s something you have to do for yourself. You’ve got to submit. Submit yourself to an effort that will be hard for you.

Now this is tough, and Alaka‘i managers know this, so they make sure you don’t have to achieve your double whammy goal feeling you’re all alone and without a shoulder to lean on.

Enter the Alaka‘i manager, and just in time

There is one thing about that section I’d written in Managing with Aloha which would not get edited even today —especially today. It is written about the way managers work with their people. Alaka‘i managers set their own double whammy goals in self-management first, and then they coach others with doing the same thing for themselves too.

People who achieve great goals (as opposed to boring, mediocre ones) are not normal in our society today, and they like it that way.

Thus the first truly achievable goal I recommend you reach for, and stretch yourself to achieving, is getting to be okay with the you who is no longer normal.

So here’s the big money question: Do you have a relationship with your manager where you can go beyond normal? Are you going to be okay with them being hard on you?

The ‘just in time’ for today, is that the manager you partner up with could be the one to save you from mediocrity.

So another big money question: Are you willing to be the manager who does that for someone else?

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Make it Easy, Make it Hard
• Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate
• 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces
• How do you use your manager?
• The Biggest Sin in Business Today

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
July 2009 ~
What the heck do you mean by ‘Achievable?’

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

Do you Teach?

So many of us do. School was just the beginning.

We teach at home, we teach at work, we even teach at play.

We discover that often, the best way to learn is to teach what we’ve learned to someone else.

Yes, teaching is a skill the successful will master.

Teaching is a skill those who serve will master.

Imagine learning to teach within the framework of the values of Aloha.

I am so very pleased to offer you that opportunity today!

Click on this beautiful badge
designed for our Ho‘ohana Community by Jesse Petersen,

and take a look...

Great Mantra: Make it Easy, Make it Hard

Quick review:
We’ve been talking about banishing mediocrity (because it is THE biggest sin committed in business) and about creating energy instead (because energy generates to Ho‘ohana power). Energy is the greatest resource managers (who both manage AND lead) have at their disposal.

No energy, no action. No action, no business life to speak of.

And in my view, business, whether the business of work, or the business sensibility of life, is a great playground to Ho‘ohana within.

Let’s dig into this a bit more. I’ll share one of my favorite mantras with you from an Alaka‘i leadership perspective today: Make it easy, and make it hard.

Make it easy for your Customers

Here’s a quote for the day:

“I’m so tired of watching us lose our customers. Just because we work for the government doesn’t mean we shouldn’t run the operation like a business.” --- Joan Capinia

You’ll never guess where Joan works. Reinvention can happen where you least expect it. Came from this older article about the US Postal Service, but it’s still relevant today (and hope the mindset stuck with the USPS).

The reputation that government and much of the public sector is saddled with has to with something that is an even bigger sin than mediocrity, for it equates to chronic mediocrity which is now regulated and institutionalized: It’s Bureaucracy.

Rules. Antiquated, or just plain stupid rules.

Red tape. Loop holes. Both are negatives: Loop holes are normally thought of as idiotic, as cheating, or as the tacit approval of stupid rules. Both red tape and loop holes have to do with jumping through hoops versus acting like a dignified professional (or an honored customer.)

Inconvenience no one seems to care about, saying/thinking “Just put up and shut up and deal with it; that’s the way it is.” can be a sneaky part of bureaucracy too.

Perception, reality and your reputation

Yeah, I’m starting to squirm uncomfortably and get irritated thinking about this too. Every business needs to figure out how to make it easier for their customers, and how to make processes streamlined and just plain common sense (and in business it’s all a buying process when you think about it).

Though the private sector can be just as bad, the public sector is a very easy target with this; think about the last time you might have visited a City & County office of any kind on any island. Personally we all feel for those affected by the current furlough discussions; we empathize with them as human beings in similar tough spots. However we all have heard (or said) the whispers between friends along the theme of “Could be a real good thing… maybe now they’ll be forced to improve and strip away all the red tape. I’ve never been happy paying taxes to support such thick-as-thieves bureaucracy.”

Perception is reality, and reputation is about that combination of what your customer experiences, and what they think they experience, especially if they feel they have been greatly inconvenienced, taken for granted, or abused or wronged in some way.

Great Alaka‘i leadership creates visionary pictures of how the future will be easier for the customer, an easy which delivers great experiences (and for both internal and external customers.)

Make it hard for your Business Partners

By ‘business partners’ I mean your employees, staff, co-working peers and your vendor partners; anyone and everyone who is responsible for delighting the customers who create cash flow. Hard ups the game, and fires up the energy.

Hopefully there isn’t anything which is unreasonably hard for anyone, but if push comes to shove, the hard stuff should get taken care of by those associated with the business, not the customer.

Remember this? Fulfill the biggest need:

There are two things business owners are focused on right now, and they go together:
a) Boosting cash flow quickly
b) Making customers deliriously happy

Said another way, cash is King and a paying customer’s loyalty is Queen.

We talked about it before in terms of creating job worth (Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch) as the advice given to job-seekers: Position yourself to fulfill the biggest need of the employer.

Same goes for this discussion: Those associated with the workings of a business – any business, no exceptions —must position themselves to fulfill the biggest need of the customer.

And customers want you to dazzle them, and exceed their expectations. Today, they expect you to Lead the Slow Charge, and they are happier when they do not have to share your limited attentions with other customers!

What that means, is that of course it will always be harder for you! Hard is a good thing in this context, for it is not normal —and we had said that excellence is not normal. (Review the section called “2. Avoid the Middle and Work on the Edges” within our last talk story here: 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces).

Bring ‘hard’ into your Language of Intention

What Alaka‘i leaders will do, is reinvent the internal vocabulary of what ‘hard’ for your business partners means. In this mantra, “Make it easy, make it hard,” hard is pure excellence.

However we use the word ‘hard’ instead of excellent because we want that association with energetic effort too: Hard means with vigor, with strength, and with force to be reckoned with. Hard resists cracking under pressure because it is sure, it is intently confident. It is virtually flawless and exceptional.

In work cultures managed and led with Aloha by Alaka‘i managers, hard is about constantly learning to improve so everyone can live better, work better, be better. Hard has good kaona: Small word, big meaning.

Get hard to be about an exciting challenge, one which requires —what? That’s right: Increased energies. Mediocrity-banishing energies.

Get hard to mean rock-solid goodness —no stupid rules, no red tape, no loop holes, no basic standards, just extraordinary ones (we talked about that last time too; it was the 3rd way that managers create energetic workplaces.)

On Thursday we’ll get into the management side of the “Make it easy, make it hard” leadership initiative. Hope to see you back for, What the heck do you mean by ‘Achievable?’

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

Photo credit: Bonzai Wannabe by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• The Biggest Sin in Business Today
• 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces
• What’s your Calling? Has it become your Ho‘ohana?
• hope the mindset stuck
• If you want to know, ask!
• Can you define your Leadership Greatness?
• Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch
• Lead the Slow Charge
• When is ‘Good’ good enough?

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
Make it Easy, Make it Hard

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

Competing Strengths in The Battle of the Learner and Over-Achiever

I have posted over at JJL today with an early wrap-up of the month of June.

You will recall our learning theme there has been connected to the mid-year goal check that many of us will do when July arrives:

Has our mid-year check given you more butterflies?

Has it given you more stress, or anxiety about your goals?

Or has it helped to know that you aren’t alone, and the best laid plans do go awry… we can simply make a new agreement with ourselves and move on, move better.

Or maybe you’ve been one who has read different conversations here, and thought to yourself, “This is so cool, I think I’ve gotten a lot more done than I first thought!” (And by the way, if you haven’t tried it yet, that is precisely the magic of Rapid Fire Learning.)

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re probably up in arms, deep in the throes of the Battle of the Learner and Over-Achiever. At ease! (Please?) Pull up a chair, and let’s take a break.

The "chair" we pull up has to do with a sandbox...

From Joyful Jubilant Learning:
The Battle of the Learner and Over-Achiever

Oh come on, it’s Sunday. You can play too. Click on over.

Even if you aren’t reading this until Monday, or Tuesday, July isn’t until Wednesday, so get a jump on it! Two tips there to help you win your own battle, even if slightly different than the one I talk about. Always great to feel you’re ahead of the game, right?

Walking my Talk: A Letter to my Legislators

In the past, I have urged you to be brave, and get involved in your community, both online and offline. Then a couple of days ago I posted a tweet on Twitter, after I had read this in our local paper: Hawaii lawmakers send governor bills to tax Internet transactions

If you are a Hawai‘i resident, you can get this info here:

• Directory of House Representatives
• Directory of Senators 

If you are in another state or country, Google/search for it: Pretty easy to find.

Briefly, there are two bills our Hawai‘i legislature has passed and I am hoping our governor will veto: From a summary by the Honolulu Advertiser Government Writer Derrick DePledge:

INTERNET TAXES

State lawmakers have sent two bills to Gov. Linda Lingle that could lead to greater tax collection on Internet sales.

Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SB1678 SD3 HD1 CD1) — Allows Hawai'i to join 23 other states to simplify tax laws and encourage retailers to collect and pay state sales and use taxes. Requires federal legislation.

Internet general-excise tax (HB1405 HD2 SD2 CD1) — Imposes the state's 4 percent general-excise tax on Mainland retailers that establish an economic nexus in Hawai'i through local Web sites.

The article ends with:

"Several local Web entrepreneurs have also urged Lingle to veto the bill, arguing it would handicap the growth of Hawai'i's online business and media industry.

Local Web sites can become affiliates of retailers like Amazon.com or sign up with brokers such as LinkShare, which connect local bloggers and publishers with advertisers. Local Web sites receive commissions when customers follow links to Mainland retailers and buy products or fill out surveys and become future leads.

Dean Takamine, president of Synertech Media, an online marketing firm in Honolulu, said that if the bill becomes law, many Mainland retailers will drop affiliate marketing in the Islands.

"Basically, what they'll do is they'll just kick off all Hawai'i advertising affiliates," he predicted."

Well, his prediction has come true.

Is this constitutional?

I have a personal interest in these bills as an independent businesswoman who leverages the internet within my own business (Ho‘ohana Publishing ring any bells?). I received a letter from Amazon.com this morning stating my account will be canceled with them on July 1st. They consider these laws an "unconstitutional tax collection scheme."

What that means to you, as part of my Ho‘ohana Community, is that you will no longer be able to buy Managing with Aloha from Amazon.com, AND I will no longer be able to offer you my other recommendations in the ease of the SLC Store and the JJL Store. It seems  unlikely that I will have the option of opting out of their affiliate program so I can keep the aStore convenience of supporting books sold by others in our community - and in other states (i.e. even if strictly as a non-commissioned storefront). Amazon.com writes that as of July 1st,

"...we will have to terminate the participation of all Hawaii residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that day [the Hawaii law takes effect]. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from Hawaii residents."

Walking my Talk

Will I comply with the law? Yes, I am a law-abiding Hawai‘i citizen. However I am very disappointed. The constitutional question aside, I don’t think that either the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (Bill SB1678) or the Internet General-Excise Tax (Bill HB1405) make much sense, economic or otherwise.

This is one of those times however, that simply being “disappointed” doesn’t cut it.

There are other Hawai‘i websites which have composed form letters you can copy and send to the governor, but I doubt this will help for two reasons:

1. Form letters largely are ignored (when did you last read or respond to one?). You need to write a personal one to better your chances, and even then you have to hope they will read it.
2. We are a Democratic majority State with a Republican Governor, and should she veto these bills, it is highly likely both the House and Senate will move to override. (Tell me again how our government two-party system is not broken?)

When laws affect you, think about your own personal circle of influence. Who do you know, and how can you get heard?

This is the letter I sent via email to my House Representative, my district Senator, the Speaker of the House (and yes, in the spirit of full disclosure, Speaker Calvin Say is my brother-in-law: I am married to his younger brother), Senate majority leader Colleen Hanabusa and Governor Linda Lingle. I will be printing them and mailing paper copies as well, and thanks to the power of citizen publishing on the internet, I hereby publish it on Talking Story with links inserted in the hope that SEO-savvy Google Alerts work better than flooded inboxes.

I hope they don’t move to tax my blogs next....

12:45pm Update after a bit of Twitter talk-story:
To be clear, this is not about a loss of affiliate advertising revenue for me. You will notice that my websites are all advertising free, with the exception of the Amazon.com aStore as a convenience and in support of the other authors in our Ho‘ohana Community. I usually don’t make enough referral income to even cover my monthly internet access bill, and this is how my affiliate income, though modest, is used: The JJL Literacy Project.

My concern with losing the partnership of Amazon.com and other internet retailers, is about the loss of the storefronts, for we are already at a significant distribution disadvantage in Hawai‘i, and our options for promoting Made in Hawai‘i products are severely limited.

Think about this as a Hawai‘i consumer: How many times have you wanted to make a purchase over the internet for something not available here in the islands, only to get to your cart check-out and get the message that, “We are so sorry, we cannot ship to Hawai‘i.”

3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces

This past Tuesday I stated that the biggest sin in business today is mediocrity. Today’s post is about what I feel the answer is with correcting that sin, so if you missed it, click over to: The Biggest Sin in Business Today and then come back. (Great comments here at the Talking Story issue.) We’ll wait.

Ready?

How do you, the Alaka‘i manager, banish mediocrity in your workplace? I believe your best possible strategy is this:You replace mediocrity with energy.

Energy generates Ho‘o Power

As with Ho‘ohana, [intentional, Aloha-driven work], Ho‘o power makes things happen.

Blast from the past:

My favorite Hawaiian coaching word is a very short one: Ho‘o. We hear it more as a prefix to other Hawaiian words, as it turns nouns into verbs. By itself, ho‘o means to make something happen. Ho‘ohana: Work on purpose, and with intention. Ho‘ohanohano: Bring dignity and respect to your actions. Ho‘okipa: Give unconditional hospitality, and serve. Ho‘oponopono: Make things right, bring them to balance.

Workplace energy functions the same way batteries do for your favorite electronics: You can have the most high tech camera in the world, and it will do absolutely nothing if its battery is dead. It no can Ho‘o.

Our Say “Alaka‘i” vocabulary is worth repeating:

• LEADERSHIP is the workplace discipline of creating energy connected to a meaningful vision.
• MANAGEMENT is the workplace discipline of channeling that mission-critical energy into optimal production and usefulness.

Great managers cannot channel good energies they are unaware of, or energy which doesn’t exist. And remember – you can’t shift this responsibility to someone else within our discussions here: Alaka‘i managers are those who both manage and lead. We refer to management and leadership as disciplines, not as separate roles, titles, or positions on an org. chart. If a designated leader is not creating energy, then the buck stops with you.

Alaka‘i managers are Energy Creators

If you are a manager (and all business owners are managers too) assume the role of energy creator in your company. Change the title on your business card to Energy Creator; come on, I dare you. Whatever you have there now is probably more normal, and normal is boring.

Your greatest resource in any workplace is NOT time (or financing), it IS the energy required to make the time and other resources you have available count for something worthwhile and meaningful.

Your greatest asset in the workplace is NOT your people, it IS those people with the most consistent energy levels; energy to dream, create, evangelize, and perform magnificently.

Energy powers your production capacity.
Energy powers your service capacity.
Energy is what will dazzle and delight your customer.
Energy is what sustains a vital business, and a lack of energy is what will kill it.

Mediocrity is your red flag that energy is missing, however that’s never a situation that a great manager can’t fix, and fix pretty quickly.

To Start, Be Kūlia Contagious

Great management takes great work and there are no magic pills: You aren’t going to get a complete how-to in this one blog post. The over-arching goal of Say “Alaka‘i” is to trigger possibility, help you reach higher, and break things down into week-to-week actions you can work on, continuously recharging your own battery cells of self-motivation.

However what we can do today is remind ourselves of the big picture view, while making that big picture embraceable and achievable: We can set the stage for positive energies to grow and flourish more than they presently are.

Here are three ways you can begin to be the Energy Creator you need to be, starting TODAY.

1. Be Contagious, for Energy begets more Energy

Ho‘ohana: Work on you first, and produce the best work you possibly can. As far as your staff and partnerships will be concerned, self-management must be in residence within the person in charge before they’ll allow any management or leadership technique to step foot in the door. Your reputation for being a self-managed individual will be key to the privilege you earn in your calling for managing and leading others.

Then, get excited: Tap into company vision by remembering why you are in business in the first place, and set your sights on making magic happen. Yep, magic. When you really think about it, the Ho‘okipa I still crave will be great, but you want more than deliriously happy employees and customers don’t you. Of course you do! You want magic in your own life, so go for it. Magic for you doesn’t happen in boring work. Amp it up, take some risks and have some fun while you work, and set the best possible example for others to follow. Make room for them so they can join you, and co-lead with you. There will always be enough followers, but there are never enough leaders.

2. Avoid the Middle and Work on the Edges

Commit to the value of Kūlia i ka nu‘u: Excellence generates enthusiasm and is contagious; everyone loves it and everyone wants it. However excellence isn’t ordinary or normal – when something enters the realm of the normal it’s no longer viewed as excellent. The more something is thought of as normal, the more ho-hum boring, commonplace and mediocre it gets. Even if you copy the best practice of something, it’s still a copy and is no longer as compelling, exclusive, cool or sexy.

Therefore, if you want excellence (and really, why bother with anything else), you’ve got to be willing to push at the edges of virtually everything, and nothing can be sacred – absolutely nothing. In fact, the more unexpected your targets and projects the better. Constantly ask your team “Why not?” about every wild idea which comes up, and be enthusiastic in recognizing and rewarding their creativity. You have to pursue what others think of as impossible, and you must repeatedly insist: Everything we know of was impossible until the first person did it. Let’s be first. “First” is found on the fringes and way up in front. “First” leads and never follows.

3. There can be no Basic Standards, only Extraordinary ones

At this point I can guarantee some of you are getting an attack of the “yeah, but”s and are thinking, “Well Rosa, reality bites. I can’t work on cool, sexy and edgy until I can clear my decks of all the existing normal stuff.” You know what? You’re right.

However it’s also true that the minute you clear your desk something else lands on it – also in that category of the “normal day to day stuff” and you feel like you’re caught in a vortex or vicious circle. While there is a good case for the importance of standards, they really can hold you back and weigh you down unless you are more intentional and deliberate about them.

Sidebar: Dave Navarro recently wrote a good essay about this: Why You Do What You Do (And Why It Should Scare You). I highly recommend you give it a read.

There is really only one answer: As the saying goes, you have to kill two birds with one stone. As you “clear your decks” you need to tackle them with the first two approaches we’ve spoken of: Ho‘o and Kūlia: Be relentless about being the best, and excel. Eliminate or reinvent any process which drains energy instead of generating it.

And don’t you dare wimp out and stop at systems and processes! Be the Best Boss with the highest value standards and develop your people: Not only do people love and want excellence for themselves, they want to be surrounded by it, finding it in their peers. No one wants to be associated with a mediocre workplace which is populated by mediocre people.

Ready to Roll?

If I am missing anything here I would love to hear from you: Let’s make Ho‘okipa energy happen. Is there anything else you feel is critically important in the big picture view of creating energy in your workplace?

If you don’t want to publicly comment here for me, that’s okay – IF you talk about this with your own workplace team. Ho‘okipa, the Aloha-inspired way that we in Hawai‘i should be delivering great customer service – to the visitor, and to each other – is what will keep you in business.

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

---

Photo credit: Yellow Orchids by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• The Biggest Sin in Business Today
• What’s your Calling? Has it become your Ho‘ohana?
• Be a Deskless Manager: Ho‘o!
• If you want to know, ask!
• Can you define your Leadership Greatness?
• Who says you can’t do that?
• How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture
• You Are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!
• While the Big Cat was Away
• The 2 C’s of Technology and Early Adoption
• Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

The Biggest Sin in Business Today

A Preface for Talking Story:
Right upfront, this post is a bit longer than most (my rants turned into stories usually turn out that way.) However I think this is important, and I hope you will take the time to read this, and choose it as one of those posts you copy and share with your staff in your next huddle: This concerns them too. Get their help.

Planning ahead:
Today’s post presents a problem, and my follow-up post Thursday will present what I feel to be a big part of the solution we can collaborate on.

---

We interrupt our normal programming of Tuesdays’ leadership topics to talk about Ho‘okipa: Aloha inspired customer service. But then again, everything is about leadership —or the tragic absence of it.

I need your help

I recently set a goal to write about exceptional customer service in our Hawai‘i nei, for we are the land of Aloha, right? I love spreading the good word about how our values play out every day the way they do. So I went in search of a new story I could share with you and also build a presentation around (my Ho‘okipa class schedule resumes in September), one which would inspire and motivate us anew as we Ho‘ohana together.

Unfortunately I failed. In fact, I ended up with a rant I had to sleep on and tone down. I hate when my writing slips into any negativity at all, however I also seek to write about what’s current and about the way things are; I have learned that it’s best to tell the truth, even when it is less than pleasant. So I need your help in creating a new truth I can write about.

Here’s the story the way it played out.

It’s not because of the recession

Last week was one of assorted errand-running for me; it happened to be one of those times I could batch the things I had to get done into workdays which were scheduled close to home. So I lined up those appointments which fall into the category I’ve come to call, “the business of life” —servicing my car, going to the dentist, picking up a printer I’d taken in to repair; those sorts of things. I was sure I would have lots of opportunities to work on my Ho‘okipa writing goal.

The businesses I happened to visit would all qualify as those who are more recession-proof than most; competitive pricing and discretionary patronage isn’t really part of the picture. Consider the dentist: Skipping your semi-annual appointment with the hygienist can really come back to haunt you. When you (the customer) seek out these basic-need, business of life companies, you just need them, period, and you’re counting on them performing well for you. Chances are you’ll need them again one day in the future, and so you have this vested interest in them; you truly are pulling for them, wanting them to succeed and do well, remaining in business for the long haul. You know they support you, and you are willing to support them.

Customers want to feel smart

A good part of this wanting them to do well, is that you ARE going to pay for their products and services because you do need them; due to different variables, you feel that your choices are limited. So you want to pat yourself on the back for being an intelligent, rational and choosy consumer, making a smart choice even if reality bites and you don’t really have that much of a choice at all.

Sometimes you’ll feel this way on O‘ahu, but when you live on a neighbor island “slim-pickings” can be quite the understatement, and you learn to live with scarcity and the so-called “price of paradise” at the extreme ends of the scale. When I took my run yesterday morning they were changing the price at my neighborhood gas station to $3.27 for regular unleaded – and the cars were patiently lined up, waiting their turn to obligingly swipe in their plastic charge cards for a full tank.

Sadly, the businesses I visited over the last week were a bitter disappointment. They made me feel like a dummy customer and a victim of their complacency – pure yuck.

I didn’t have much choice with certain things – for instance, where I live, my spare tire had to make a 45-mile drive for me to get a new one from the only place which had it in stock (which doesn’t necessarily mean the new tire would match my other ones; it doesn’t). I waited over an hour past the time they committed to having it done, two hours altogether for a 15-minute tire change, and then just as I gratefully approached my ‘finished’ car to leave, I noticed that the tire pressure was so off balance the car looked visibly crooked.

The mechanic didn’t disagree when I pointed it out to him and asked him to recalibrate the tire pressure for all four tires; he did so. However I felt so deflated and disappointed; how dare they make me feel like a fool for choosing them? How dare they make me feel grateful to finally leave them and their stifling hot waiting room, where no one bothered to let me know the job would take longer? How could I be so foolishly accepting of a new tire which cost me $131.73 (yep, one tire) and so much aggravation, a price tag I paid without a second thought or complaint? How dare they make me now feel that it wasn’t a good choice to have been there at all, and I was the one who was wrong, dumb enough not to chance driving another twenty miles on my spare tire to give my business to someone else?

Is there a pulse here?

This is just one example of what I think of as the biggest sin committed in business today: complete mediocrity. By the time the week was over I’d collected a few more unfortunate stories which gave me a very severe case of Ho‘okipa withdrawal. I was craving some exceptional service somewhere, or even uneventful service, but from lively and engaged people! My expectations were getting so low, that surely the warmth of Aloha alone would trump product and service quality, wouldn’t it?

I am sure that no one working at the businesses I visited wanted to do a bad job, or deliberately set out to get me (believe me, I know that being a nice customer works much better than being a complaining one).

No one intentionally lied to me, and no one was rude to me. They did something worse: Either they ignored me or took me for granted.

No one abused me or flagrantly ripped me off (I don’t think… please let my ignorance be bliss, and don’t tell me what you paid for the tire you last bought for what is one of the most common cars found on our roads today).

It seemed that no one had enough energy to intentionally be awful; they just kinda slumped their way into a downslide, and then they stayed there.

No one seemed to have a pulse. Everyone was just so blah and uninspired. So going through the motions unremarkable. In fact, they weren’t even passably good. They skipped steps and didn’t even notice that they did.

The biggest sin in business is mediocrity

Customers today expect more, even if you are the only game in town. If anything, we the customers who feel forced to patronize you for basic needs feel that you’ve been assured of our continuing business, and thus are able to do better – you’re the one with a palpable revenue stream right now! We can clearly see your veins; an example is the monthly bill we get for your ‘utility,’ but your pulse with not taking us for granted is getting alarmingly weak and hard to find.

I didn’t wait two hours for that new tire because they had too little business, but because they had too much business and couldn’t keep up. And it wasn’t an unexpected jump in business – they’re always like that. The only customers who actually wait in their establishment are those like me who live the coastline drive away. When they got behind, they didn’t seem to care; when a customer sitting in your waiting room for hours doesn’t make you or your staff uncomfortable, something is very, very wrong.

I don’t blame any of this on the recession.
I blame it on a lack of energy, the absence of imagination, and the death of creativity and vitality that results from poor leadership and poor management.

Your employees and partners blame it on you too, even if they are the ones doing a rotten job or uninspired and mediocre work. You’re not around or engaged enough as their leader, managing and leading enough to improve things. You are settling for less than is possible, no matter how horrible the economy might get – attentive energy isn’t totally dependent on your bank account. There is always something to be improved and reinvigorated; there is always someone to be coached into achieving their full potential.

Your customers blame it on you too. As is the local way, they will generally be very forgiving of your employees – I was, and I’m a coach who has a very hard time keeping her mouth shut when I’ve got a living laboratory right before my eyes! Customers will blame anything hinting of monopoly behavior, an arrogant resting on laurels, or a recession cop-out attitude on you the owner, you the boss, you the manager. They will blame it on your poor leadership and management, and in my opinion, they’re right, for you’re better than that.

If you are committing the sin of mediocrity, allowing energy to drain out of your company, your business will die. Your customers may not have a choice now, but the day they do, it will be all over for you.

If you have customers right now, dazzle them

Please: Be Alaka‘i great. [From the archives: Can you define your Leadership Greatness?] Help your employees and every one of your business partners be great every single day, and with every single customer. Banish mediocrity by proactively choosing to lead and manage exceptionally well.

It is not that difficult knowing how to begin: Look at your business the way a customer does. Start where you can visibly see you need an infusion of fresh energy. We will talk more about this in my next posting on Thursday.

Turn your customers into raving fans who feel smugly smart for choosing you and giving you their money. When you do that, this negative, “oh woe is me” recessionary thinking will end for all of us. The raving fans you want talking about you (and writing about you) are those customers who feel savvy and in-the-know brilliant that they chose you: When someone recommends you to their family and their friends, the quality of their opinion is on the line, and they know it.

I am not giving up on my goal.

No way. If anything, I am more determined than ever to talk about Aloha-inspired Ho‘okipa customer service.

Has mediocrity been banished from your business? If you think your workplace has service levels which will dazzle me, please write and let me know about you.

And don’t waste your time telling me about your product features: Even a great product never reaches true excellence without a human service component attached to it.

On the other hand, if you are Aloha and Ho‘okipa exceptional, our Say “Alaka‘i” readers deserve to know about you, and I want to help them choose you and give you the patronage which will help you thrive.

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

Photo credit: Hawaiian Time Hours by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Aloha Training? Make it all personal
• And in Aloha our government officials shall lead us
• Be a Deskless Manager: Ho‘o!
• Set your price, charge it, and stand behind it
• Lead the Slow Charge
• Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate
• We’re supposed to be good at being ‘local’
• If you want to know, ask!

---

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
The Biggest Sin in Business Today

---

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate

---

Finding versus Making

Some of the best management advice I got over the years came from my dad. When he heard my news of an early-in-my-career promotion, one of the things he said to me was, “Now you can find your decisions instead of making them all by yourself.”

He was very aware of my natural tendency with on-the-spot decision-making based on my own sense of logic and common sense. In fact, he’d counted on me honing in on confident decision-making as one of my strengths: I was the oldest of five children, and my siblings were often left in my care as both my parents worked to make our family living. But wise man that my dad was, he knew that once I got into management, I had to get better at finding the right decision about a whole wealth of different things. Another secondary strength with explaining my own intuitive, from-my-gut-feeling decision already made, would serve me much better as a contingency and back-up option when my hunt-and-seek missions came up empty.

Finding versus Making would serve my workplace better too; it would deliver more Lōkahi [unity and harmony]. Now to find the really good stuff, I had to learn facilitation and coaching.

Coaching has become a big management expectation

‘Coaching’ is an example of an old word which has exploded into management overwhelm because it became a new profession. Yes, it’s a profession which includes me, influencing my decision to name my business Say Leadership Coaching six years ago, so no small wonder that I believe the coaching profession to be helpful and worthwhile. It provides a great service to many, and it is personally fulfilling for me. However the downside to coaching having gone professional and certifiable, is that coaching as the verb has become intimidating to many managers, and they will say, “But I am not really qualified to coach my staff.” Big, big “yeah, but” and I say, you are – once you choose to be, and start working on developing your coaching skills within your management calling.

Your Alaka‘i Kuleana [responsibility] is this: If you choose not to develop your own people, at the very least you’d best claim your responsibility with helping them find someone who will, and whom they choose to. The alternative is to settle for a stagnant, mediocre working environment of non-learners likely to resist change. [From the archives: How do you Learn? Really, how?]

Susan Mazza, author of the Random Acts of Leadership blog, has written an excellent article that delves into this question of manager and/or coach, and I highly recommend it: 3 Ways to be a Manager AND a Coach. She writes:

Of course a manager CAN be a coach to someone who reports to them. But the assumption that once I am your manager I am also your coach is seriously flawed.

I continue to see this assumption at play in organizations of all sizes. It can cause a lot of mischief in the relationships between managers and the people who report to them.

Don’t get me wrong. I am an advocate of managers developing strong coaching skills. Yet when we fail to establish the foundation for a successful coaching relationship, we end up with far more failures than successes and a whole lot of unnecessary frustration and disappointment.

Susan has crafted a terrific article, and you’ll learn much from the comments she’s attracted as well - do take the time to read them. As you make your own decision about this — “will I be a manager who coaches to develop people?” — I’d like to suggest learning facilitation skills as a good place to start.

Alaka‘i Managers must facilitate

Must. This is not an “if” or “when you choose to” for me: I believe that facilitation comes with the management job, harking back to when you first earn any supervisory stripes at all.

Supervision implies other people in the mix, and the assumption I’m making here is the same basic assumption made in Managing with Aloha:

“I have come to realize that yes, good managers do work with good processes, however the great managers are the ones who concentrate on how they manage people.”

Let’s not allow facilitation to intimidate us the way that coaching might. Let’s keep this simple.

To facilitate is to find a decision, just as my dad had taught me. That decision is the best-in-time result of the input of those people involved with, or influenced by the scenario that decision will seek to improve.

When we had that early conversation, and it came up repeatedly, my dad was coaching me to be absolutely sure that I asked versus told, and that I learn the humility [Ha‘aha‘a] of open-minded and inclusive [Kākou] thinking. It had usually been okay that my younger siblings were not included in my decisions while I alone was responsible for their well being in my home care; it was definitely NOT okay that I leave out my employees in our workplace, not to mention that big fact that they knew way more about the work situations they were much closer to than I was. To leave them out of my decision-making process was downright foolish.

Don’t make your next decision; find it.

Learning facilitation skills requires two things as prerequisites to the actual skill-learning: Curbing your impatience for quick decision-making, and the willingness to have many more conversations than you are presently having, both one-on-one and in the meetings, team, and group environments we are more accustomed to associating facilitation with.

Practice this. Your opportunities will present themselves daily. Do it the local way, and bring more conversation (and sense of place) to the workplace by talking story. Don’t jump to making your next decision impulsively or intuitively; FIND your next decision by talking to the people who are involved.

You may prove your initial gut feeling to be right, but chances are that you will learn much in that affirmation, and better yet, you will earn a higher degree of respect and appreciation from those you’ve asked for input.

Facilitate first, then learn to coach. If you aspire to be an Alaka‘i manager and feel you have that calling, I’ll bet you can do it — and I’m sure you will discover you are developing your own strengths in the process. When you are ready to coach for people development, I’ll bet the people you manage will choose you to, for you have shown them you possess a very necessary qualification: You listen.

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

---

Photo credit: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom by Thomas Hawk. Thomas writes in his caption:

"Ran into San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom tonight at the Powell Street BART station. Mayor Newsom was out talking to homeless people who hang out and panhandle at the BART station with a few of his staff. He was trying to tell them about his programs for them and when I asked one of his staff members what they were doing he said that they were out on the streets of San Francisco talking to the people and trying to clean up the City. It was interesting to see the Mayor out on the streets just talking to people. There were no reporters or TV crews or anything else, just him and some of his staff talking to homeless people mostly."

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• What’s your Calling? Has it become your Ho‘ohana?
• How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture
• Can you define your Leadership Greatness?
• Who gives you your Second Opinion?
• If you want to know, ask!
• Bring Hawai‘i to the Workplace by ‘Talking Story.’

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

The 2 C’s of Technology and Early Adoption

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
The 2 C’s of Technology and Early Adoption

---

A new reader who’d checked out a few of my ‘techie-type’ posts in the archives sent along an email saying,

“You seem to be an early adopter, but most of the managers I work with don’t embrace technology this much: How important is it that we keep up with the newest advances? Isn’t it smarter for leaders to work on their own ideas, and hire others who specialize in this technological stuff, having experts do it for them?”

Great questions.

Hire an expert, or learn it yourself?

I’ll answer the second question first, and then we’ll get back to the early adoption part of it:

Isn’t it smarter for leaders to work on their own ideas, and hire others who specialize in this technological stuff, having experts do it for them?

I’d say it depends on how much technology is part of the idea that leader is working on, and where their own strengths will best serve the project at hand. Thus the answer is an industry-by-industry call, and the technology menu of options gets bigger every day. Go with your strengths (i.e. where your stronger work activities will serve you best), and compensate for your weaknesses.

However do understand that the most successful leaders have big-picture awareness: They may not do it all (and usually can’t), but they are aware of what it takes, and most importantly, they are aware of what might be possible. I believe that bigger visions result from consequential learning [the Hawaiian values of ‘Ike loa and ‘Imi ola in action.]: The more you learn, the more you realize how much more is possible, and the bigger you dream.

Remember our Alaka‘i leadership definition: Leaders generate energy, and energy doesn’t come from lackluster visions which don’t get us excited about future possibility.

Generally I do agree that partnering with others is a fantastic collaborative and creative strategy – especially when you hire those who are smarter than you, and who will raise your own game. Not only can you attain greater synergy, it’s usually much more fun. In most things both in and out of business, life is not a solo proposition; we human beings feed off each other’s brains.

That said, I do believe that technology has become a very basic workplace competency expectation, and to not learn whatever might be considered the basics in your industry – plus a bit more to give you a competitive edge – handicaps you. It’s shortsighted and possibly foolish: Prospective employers will judge your learning capacity on a technical AND technological scale (see the difference here: Job Competencies for 2009: Let’s figure them out.)

Answer the bigger question: Why Bother?

If I may, I’d like to point you back to this posting in the archives: Can we still opt out of technology today? Take a quick look and come back: Within that article I stated that the primary “tech effect” on business today is two-fold:

1. It’s about Competency, as mentioned above,
2. and it’s about Communication.

It’s in this area of communication that I feel technology today is extremely exciting, particularly with social media and virtual community-building, because there are pronounced trickle effects. Maybe you’ve said “No” to Facebook, to Twitter, and to LinkedIn, and you don’t spend much time online at all; you wouldn’t dream of writing a blog. If you are reading this at all, or even the print version of The Honolulu Advertiser, I’ll bet you now know other people who have become adopters, and if they send you emails, the way they write them is now different. Whereas before they’d explain in detail, they now embed a link, or a photo, or a YouTube clip. They expect you to know about Google, and search for a definition whenever you encounter a word you don’t know instead of asking them to define it for you. Don’t feel they are being lazy: Take it as a compliment! They feel you are up to speed, and in-the-know.

From what I see, technology is getting us to talk to each other more, not less, and it’s encouraging us to welcome more people into the conversation. One of the most frequent challenges I have with managers, continually finding it within a wide spectrum of workplaces, is in getting them to network and benchmark their learning; I challenge them to reach out to others beyond their own workplace. Independent and silo work is still done where teams and interdepartmental networking would achieve far, far better results. When you are ready to lead, you must clear your insular industry hurdle as well.

The great Alaka‘i managers today push non-stop communication relentlessly; they have to if they are to achieve any competitive edge whatsoever. They also know that technology is a tool, an enabler: The truly consequential learning to be gained is to be found within other people.

So ask yourself that “Why Bother?” question for each of those 2 C’s:

• Why bother in the context of Competency, and
• Why bother in the context of Communication, for Communication is our Killer App.

Early adoption is not all it might seem

Back to the first question:

You seem to be an early adopter, but most of the managers I work with don’t embrace technology this much: How important is it that we keep up with the newest advances?

I’m not really an early adopter; I’m a right-time-for-me adopter.

For example, I have enough techie knowledge to publish my own websites, yet I’m a long-time PC user who still hasn’t made what many who do what I do would consider as the “obvious” switch to Apple’s Mac. Gadget-wise I’ve actually regressed a bit: Used to work with the Palm Pilot, but ditched it when I left the corporate world and still say “No” to the iPhone and Blackberry. My cell phone is for making and receiving phone calls, and that’s it. It has a camera, but I’ve never used it (even though I'm a big fan of Flickr), and despite all I do online, it’s not hooked up to the internet. I am well past 6,000 tweets on Twitter, but I only tweet from my laptop.

Early adoption has pros and cons, as does late adoption, and I am usually somewhere in the middle. I’m one who likes to give new advances time to get the kinks worked out. I’m not one to go to a new restaurant until they’ve been open for about six months or a year, and I feel pretty confident they’ll dazzle me with what they’ve learned since opening. I want a good meal, and a great experience!

However I love staying informed: Do I know about the newest toy on the market? If they are on the radar of those I communicate with most, and if they matter within my Ho‘ohana, [my calling to worthwhile work] then yes, I certainly do. I find out enough relevant to my purposes.

Here’s the Alaka‘i-relevant way that I look at this: Leaders emerge in the right time of any best-selling blockbuster story, and it’s not always in the beginning.

Mahalo for the questions.

I know this was longer than usual, and I hope you stuck with me! I admit that I do love thinking about technology today and working with it, (LOVE knowing you are using those archive indexes!), and it’s so great when you ask me, “Why?” because I will gain my own reality check that way too.

“Why” is always a good question, and all Alaka‘i managers should be asking it – a lot.

Let’s talk story.

So what might you be adopting these days? And what is your right-time-for-me reason: Why do you bother?

---

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Do you ask good questions?
• If you want to know, ask!
• Hiding from the Web is Foolish: 5 Steps to Smarter
• Job Competencies for 2009: Let’s figure them out
• Can We Still Opt Out of Technology Today?
• Talking Story, Meet Twitter
• How do you Learn? Really, how?
• Can you define your Leadership Greatness?
• Communication is our Killer App
• What’s your Calling? Has it become your Ho‘ohana?

Photo credit: Glad someone knows all this! by Rosa Say.

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
If you are already receiving this via email alert, do click in and comment directly on the blog so everyone can meet you!
Read more at this page About the Site.


Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email