MWA3P: Part One – The Individual’s Performance
Preface: November and December are holiday months, and we want them to be joyful and celebratory. Thus October is our time to prepare for them; to clear our decks so we may welcome winter in with open arms rather than increasing stress levels. My nickname for October is “sweet closure,” for it is the time to bring the year’s big initiatives and major projects to a close; to finish early, and finish well.
Kokua Kākou: To help, we are devoting our Sunday Mālama installments at MWAC to MWA3P, the Managing with Aloha study of best productivity practices. This is part 2 of a 4-part series. Part 1 was our Overview.
|
There are 3 Parts to the productivity coaching we align with the concepts of Managing with Aloha: A quick review: 1. Individual: First we look at personal productivity, so that the work of the individual is meaningful, valued and effective. 2. Team and Organization: Then we address the productivity of the entire company, so synergistic work teams flourish, and project work tackled in the best possible way. 3. Culture: Third, we work on optimizing parts one and two with value alignment (your constants) and with the innovation (your chosen change agents) that will propel you toward business excellence, personal development and growth. |
For today’s Sunday Mālama we start with 1. The Individual’s Performance
Before we share what we consider to be the tools of individual performance, it may help to have a short discussion of our convictions connected to productivity within the Managing with Aloha philosophy. For starters, we could accurately call this “pleasingly personal” productivity!
Desire is nine-tenths of the deal
Before someone can attain true engagement with a company, graduating from job to the role of an active business partner, they must want it for themselves. They must understand how everything they DO will directly affect everything they get DONE, both personally and professionally. When you seek improvement, you must change behaviors which aren’t working for you, replacing them with productive, values-connected behaviors which will. This is not selfishness, it’s being smart: Indulge your own wants in regard to your work and care for yourself first, and everything else falls into place.
Work IS personal first, professional second
Your company must want this for you too. Businesses must have the desire and patience to develop their people personally AND professionally before they tackle much else, understanding how much they need their “greatest asset” to be healthy if the business is to be healthy. A core conviction in the MWA philosophy is that work IS personal, and further, you want it to be personal when you spend so much time at it. Setting priorities and decision making all become easier when there is something personal at stake; there is also a greater probability that action follows, and the more crucial follow-up happens.
Make the consistent investment in time and money
In practice, we coach businesses on all three parts of MWA3P at the same time, for the reality is that employee-focus and customer-focus happens concurrently: Revenues fund all expenses. But are they invested in concurrently? Unfortunately, most in-company coaching gets cut as “the fat we couldn’t afford” whenever times get bad. What you really cannot afford, is to make the mistake of only investing in your people during the good times, giving them a mixed message on just how important you consider their needs to be. Consistently good performance requires consistently great commitment.
Tools and Strategies
So what do we do? In our Coaching Toolkit for Part One:
- ‘Imi ola, and Best Possible Life
We write Ho‘ohana Statements that create personal mission, one based on the personal values that excite and energize the individual, the ones they get passionate about and say are their deepest convictions. Within these Ho‘ohana Statements we focus on responsibility (Kuleana) and self-care (Mālama) first, and we teach people to dream again (‘Imi ola). Professional mission then becomes blended into one’s Ho‘ohana within the teaming process of Part 2 (the story of the Alaka‘i Nalu in my book is an example).
- Strengths Management
We employ a tool for talent assessment, so we can work toward optimizing a person’s strengths based on the talents they identified. We want to minimize those times they falter because they are confronted with their weaknesses. A personal strengths development plan is created so they are served well by their strengths, and we help by coaching them in their resolve and by offering support, keeping the guiding light of their Ho‘ohana ever present.
[For those interested in the strengths movement, I have written extensively on this at Joyful Jubilant Learning for a project there which was called Learn to Lead with Your Strengths.]
- Self-Discipline and Accountability
We believe that a lack of self-discipline is the number one killer of effective productivity; where we all get tripped up most is in not following through. Without self-discipline we procrastinate, lose focus, get frustrated, and open the door to failure. Creating better habits which in turn create trusted personal work systems may be the best gift we give to those we coach. In our toolkit is the almighty discipline of the Calendar approached the MWA way, planned in advance and reviewed weekly, so that work is done with forethought and confidence.
We coach accountability through the value of Kuleana (personal responsibility) and with Ho‘olōkahi (rethinking our agreements).
[See Three Authors on Agreements: Stephen Covey, David Allen, and Don Miguel Ruiz]
- Mālama Measurements®
We teach a self-reckoning we call Mālama Measurements®. Every business will talk about how important measurement is for their Business Plan, but I have yet to find one that teaches and then coaches this personally as well as professionally. Business leaders get tripped up with that “conventional wisdom” to keep work professional, not understanding how to keep a personal focus from being too intrusive. With Mālama Measurements® we respect those boundaries too, and we coach where individuals ask for help with the personal development which enlarges capacity, helping them to measure their own progress.
That’s it. That’s enough. The best personal system for productivity is the simplest one, for the simpler it is, the easier it is to use it. The easier is to use, the more it will get used, and become reliable — so that the person using it becomes reliable! Believe me, I have my own on-going battle with simplicity and complexity ... you can read more at A Ma'alahi Persuasion for Calm.
There are a lot of toys and distractions that can have us endlessly trying something new; lifehacking abounds, and the hardest part of personal productivity is creating one system and then sticking with it. You can tweak and adjust, but there must always be a core system you return to. There may be no more delicious a feeling as when you can count on you!
Next Sunday, Part 2: Productivity in the Organization
Meanwhile, do share with us and with each other: What have you found works best for you?
Related indexes here on Managing with Aloha Coaching:
Comments