Lōkahi Teams: Just how personal should they be?

As you might imagine from what I write of, one of the niches Say Leadership Coaching serves in Hawai‘i is for what businesses here will refer to as ‘acculturation.’ We are often called upon to do a special class within new-hire orientations given to people living and working in Hawai‘i for the first time; it addresses how the island culture may seem “different” and therefore additionally challenging, with even seasoned veterans in management and leadership roles feeling they are somewhat out of their element here.

I did such a class recently, and is my habit, left my phone number and email address for anyone who might have a personal question for me in the days that followed, for I leave them with homework that can quickly force some relationship triggers.

I answered such a call yesterday, with the gentleman on the line wanting to talk through his discomfort with “how personal my employees get; they will talk about anything and everything – there are no boundaries here!”

Ah yes, welcome to Hawai‘i!

For some people this is a breath of fresh air – all managers who hate mind-reading, and rather know what they are dealing with, raise your hands.

For some people, like my caller, this is very scary and unwelcomed stuff – all managers who feel they are business professionals and not Dear Abby, raise your hands.

In the rest of the call I gave him a few suggestions on how he can set some boundaries that will be respected by everyone, and how he can do something I call coaching a business partner toward the business. I felt he also needed to open his arms a little more to greater engagement with his staff, and we talked about how effective managers always expect professional demeanor in an ‘Ohana in Business, while understanding that for everyone concerned everything is always personal. For instance, I firmly believe that strengths management is personal. Further, your values are personal; you don’t leave them at home when you go to work each morning, and then gather them up again when you return at the end of the day.

Our values are with us constantly; they are doing the driving!

At the top of this site’s home page, in the post presenting our value of the month, read the sub-heading “Why do we study values?”

However I also thought his question was a good one with our present Lōkahi discussions here at MWA Coaching, for while our “Hawaiian Style” may make this a more-often-than-usual occurrence, this question of personal-professional balance is not at all unique to the islands.

Think about this: When groups get more narrowly defined, that is, they get more intimate by means of specific team assignments, projects, or departmental groupings, the degree of “getting personal” increases exponentially the smaller the team is. It is somewhat natural for people to feel they can communicate with each other better if they know more about each other. Folks, it’s called relationship building.

Then there is the time variable: The longer teams work together the safer they will begin to feel, and they let their guard down to where it does indeed start to feel like “nothing is sacred.” We very instinctively will call upon our Lōkahi learning in regard to cooperation, compromise and collaboration so that harmony will continue to happen within the team – as we should. Just because you achieve it once does not mean you can assume it won’t break down again.

I would love to gather more thoughts on this from all of you: When it comes to the team you work with most, just how personal do you feel it should be? If you have a team you feel works well with a pretty high degree of getting personal, how did it happen, and how do all of you keep things comfortable for everyone?

I look forward to your comments.

There was a great caption to the photo above, clipped from Flickr:

"...you push from your side, I'll push from mine, then we can both eat..."

---

Footnotes to the links embedded in this post:

• If you are joining us for the first time, this posting was our kick-off for our value of the month study: September 2007: Lōkahi and Your Greatest Team
• RE: Homework - From Joyful Jubilant Learning: Classroom Mission: Reinvent Homework and Reinvent Learning
• RE: Homework - From Managing with Aloha: Homework for the Workplace
• RE: Employees as Business Partners - From the archives here: The ‘Ohana in Business is a Place for Business Partners and Every employee a Business Partner? Yep.
• RE: Strengths Management, the ‘Ohana in Business, and Value Alignment: These are three of the Eight Key Concepts in the Managing with Aloha philosophy. The links offered are to the index now compiled for each individually here at MWA Coaching.