Are you up for a Love-minded Aloha Challenge today?

What better day is there than Valentine's Day to celebrate ALOHA, the universal value of unconditional love of others, and the unconditional love of self?

Yet as I thought about this, I wondered how I could help with a more concrete coaching suggestion on how to make this Valentine's Day more useful for us at work. What could we all do that was pretty simple, but could also be pretty effective?

This is what I came up with: We could reveal our strengths, and we could ask others we work with to reveal their strengths too.

Why? Pure and simple, strengths make us feel stronger, better, and more confident. More useful to others.

So, I'm sending this missive out as a Valentine's Day suggestion to all of you who have some kind of subscription with me, either for my newsletters or my feeds: Wear your heart, and your strengths on your sleeve today! It's not that hard to do; you just do what you love...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Aloha Valentines Day Ho‘ohana Community!

Are you up for a Love-minded Aloha challenge today?

I've been having conversations with managers this month about their Kuleana, and what is and what is not their responsibility. We all seem to agree on this:

• Managers matter most when they work with people.
• Therefore, it is the manager's responsibility to help people thrive.
• People thrive at work when the vital work they do is an expression of their strengths.
• In other words, thriving work is vital work you are really good at.

Here's our challenge though: Strengths can be hard for managers to spot unless they look like tangible activities. Strengths can be hard for people to explain, even when the ones they are trying to describe are their own.

Well, I can tell you this. 99 times out of a 100, when someone is doing something at work that they LOVE to do, that "something" is somehow connected to one of their strengths. When we work within our strengths, we get positive jolts of energy, and feelings of satisfaction that make us feel great. We feel a part of our own aloha spirit.

So managers, look for, listen for, and put your feelers out for the LOVE. In fact, you don't have to be a manager for this challenge; everyone who cares about the other people they work with can take it up too. Today is Valentines Day, and it is the PERFECT opportunity for you to do this. Here's some help you can say you got from a workplace aloha coach: Me.

Copy and paste, or forward my message in an email: Send this message (a challenge for you) to the people you work with (an invitation for them)... Here's my Love-minded Aloha Challenge for you both today:

Don't wait until you go home to celebrate your Valentine's Day Aloha. For the last hour of your workday today, do only what you most LOVE to do at work. Do it before then if you can, but do it for the last hour for sure —we all will.

Trust yourself: Trust that if you LOVE it (LOVE it, not LIKE it, or are OKAY with it), it comes from within the aloha you feel when you're at work, and trust it is GOOD.

Have yourself an Aloha Valentines Day.

“Managing with Aloha” is not enough today: Live and work with Aloha.

Be a lot nicer, speak a lot kinder, feel a lot stronger. We all will!
~ Rosa

Valentine Card photo credit: a photoset on Flickr by valart2008.

Comments

[Lisa]

Aloha Rosa!
I LOVED this month's message ~ one of true aloha! I think if you think about your strengths it not only validates your self worth but helps you realize what makes you happy. Therefore, if you do what makes you happy it's contagious to everyone around you! I think you can then see what other employees strengths are and encourage and appreciate what makes them so valuable at work. I also thought your presentation from the "find out" to the cute valentine cards were creative & fun! "Work" doesn't have to be a negative...it can be something fun to look forward to; a win-win all the way!! Love you!! XXOO

[Rosa Say]

Thank you so much Lisa :) I agree 1000% with what you say about strengths validating our self worth, and what a positive contagion that can be. The attitude (and happiness) of every individual within a workplace contributes to the whole of what that organizational culture ends up to be.

Mahalo nui for the energy and optimism you added to the exercise Lisa - I am sure your peers appreciated it greatly, and I loved your message of sharing here for us, thank you.