Ho‘ohanohano Helps us Identify and Cure Unintentional Neglect
There is a direct connection between the uplifting of personal dignity (Ho‘ohanohano) and eliminating hurtful neglect.
Cause and Effect
In the workplace, neglect can most often be diagnosed as the cause of unexpected and unanticipated loneliness. It is pretty amazing how lonely people can feel at work when to all appearances they are surrounded by lots of other people and a rush of activity.
Sometimes that is exactly the problem: There’s a whole lot of seemingly important activity, but they aren’t part of it. They are the spectators who have to be there for some less than fulfilling reason, and they feel they are little more than part of the furniture.
Yes, you can wince now, for ouch… chances are they are really hurting inside. Neglect and loneliness hurt —big time.
Give that Sense of Belonging
We all need to feel we belong. Do you remember learning about Maslow’s pyramid?
“Sense of belonging” is right in the middle of what Abraham Maslow called our “hierarchy of needs,” as a need which must be satisfied before we get to the goodies of self-esteem and self-actualization. Here is a great picture of the pyramid from Wikipedia:
My Managing with Aloha coaching is built upon my belief that in a thriving workplace, everyone needs to be in the green and blue of the pyramid. EVERYONE. Managers, employees, vendors and suppliers, customers —everyone associated with a business needs to feel that the business “lives” in that green and blue, and by association, they do (or can) too.
The Manager’s Role
The technique that managers need to learn is not that complicated: Be sure you take notice of everyone by ‘taking inventory’ of your people often.
That old advice to manage by walking around is good, sage advice. Get away from your desk, out of your office, and connect with other people. Make a simple daily effort that, “Today I will have a conversation with someone I haven’t talked to for a while: Who have I been missing?” Figure out who seems to have fallen off your radar screen, and why.
Create and nurture a workplace culture where no one feels unimportant, lonely, or neglected. Instead, foster Ho‘ohanohano.
Practice The Daily 5 Minutes® religiously, and track your logistics well. There is no other tool better than the D5M for helping you with this, because it involves every single employee under your charge and related to it. Review these MWAC postings:
- MWA Success Stories! The Daily Five Minutes®
- What’s the skinny on the Daily 5 Minutes?
- The Role of the Manager in Managing with Aloha: The case for a better way to work.
Stories help tell the tale
I have mentioned one story earlier this month found in my book on page 165. It is called Neglect is Visible. A short excerpt:
About a year before I left Hualalai, I discovered that as self-defining as dignity and respect seemed to be, I could continually learn about Ho‘ohanohano and treating people better with foresight and intention. It was a very difficult and painful lesson about “unintentional neglect.”
An employee became very angry with me for not continuing to involve her in my work, and she became very bitter about the organization as a whole in the process. She felt that I had made her an outcast, because in reassigning her to another manager I severed the line of communication we previously had. As my own job evolved, I found I no longer needed the service she had once provided me with. However, I recognized her contributions and wanted her to have a new role in our company, and I felt we had agreed upon a reassignment as the best course of action.
I truly believed that her new role would be much better for her. I felt that it was expected, understood and fully explained; however I was wrong thinking she was okay with it. I felt all these things, but I hadn’t fully considered how she truly felt, and I totally missed seeing the hit to her dignity. One of our issues was that she was unable to communicate with me very well; she was very uncomfortable with open and honest dialogue. The words that were spoken didn’t complete a full picture. This became my problem, not hers.
Managers, it always becomes your problem.
Here are two more stories which I have previously published online; both are at Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching: Please do take the few minutes it will take to read them, to help you understand Ho‘ohanohano more completely. They are two of my most popular stories there.
The results of our February strengths experiment may be worth another visit too. If Maslow’s pyramid intrigues you, I have written more about it here: Strengths, Values, and that Pyramid, and that Wikipedia page is pretty good.
If you have arrived at MWAC for the first time, ALOHA and welcome!
How do you feel about all of this?
I hope to hear from you, for we Ho‘ohana together,
~ Rosa
Value your month, Value your Life with Ho‘ohanohano, the universal value of dignity and respect.
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