How are those values working for you, hmm?

We are well into the third week of our value study: Ho‘ohanohano can be pretty powerful, don’t you think?

I gave you this gentle coaching back in January as the year started: Say No to Resolutions: Choose your Values instead.

“That is the core belief of Managing with Aloha: Values drive behavior. So get the behaviors you want by keeping the values you revere front and center at all times… You will best get things done through others by incorporating the values you share with them, values that embrace collaboration, and values that also are fundamental good practices… and Aloha is the most universally held value of them all.”

You really can’t go wrong with Aloha; working with Aloha basically comes down to being true to who you are, where ultimate transparency = finely attuned self-mastery. ‘Working with Aloha’ is honoring your own spirit.

However Aloha is the foundation; it is the fertile ground in which all the other values thrive and prosper with ‘root caused’ authenticity too. So which are the others you have kept front and center?

Thus far for 2008, we have studied Pono in January, Kuleana in February, and are currently immersed in Ho‘ohanohano this month. You may have decided that these values work for you too, or you may have used them to draw parallels and connections with other values.

Value Alignment in Practice

Need an example? Well, there is nothing easier to write about than a personal one… Back in January, within that same “Choose your Values instead” posting, I had shared that in my company, Say Leadership Coaching, I would be working with…

Pono, for a newly designed Rightness and Balance as a solo entrepreneur. My “we”s will steadily become “I”s.

As I had shared with my SLC newsletter subscribers this past summer, I am transitioning our 'Ohana in Business where every single person becomes a solo entrepreneur, and April 1 is the transition date where everyone is officially on their own.

Pono will continue to be my year-long self-reckoning, where I can continually ask myself, “Is this action Pono for me, and is my new business model Pono for my customers and all other stakeholders?”

Well, as of this writing, I am twelve days from that April 1 target. I made the “solo” part ahead of schedule, and SLC is down to me, myself, and I, with the partners that I do still have working with me as independent contractors who have started their own businesses: In essence, I am one of their clients in whatever capacity I may still be using their services.

However life is not meant to be a completely solo journey, and as I had anticipated, the “rightness and balance of Pono” will indeed continue to be a self-reckoning for me on the quality of all the relationships I hold with others (including you who read this site!)

Then, in February…

Grounded in basic values.
[photo of Matilda and Mummy
by Matt Batchelor]

I had chosen Kuleana in February for the sorting out I was so confident it would give me: I wanted to determine how all my responsibilities as a solo businesswoman of SLC would be handled in the best possible way (‘Imi ola) with that Pono balance.

• Which responsibilities would I keep and commit to?
• Which would I eliminate or resolve in a different way?

Ma‘alahi (a persuasion for calm contentment) figures into this quite prominently for me; it helps me keep things simple versus complicated or convoluted, and it helps me with a “first things first” focus, where I work on the essentials of my business plan and life plan (in my case, they are one and the same). My ever-present curiosity and the high learner tendencies I have take me down rabbit holes easily —and all too eagerly! So I knew that if I was to be on my own, and without the cushioning back-up of my former employees, I had to FOCUS, and get to be ‘accomplished’ versus just ‘busy.’

Getting a handle on Ho‘ohanohano
(…or giving in to it getting a handle on me!)

I had chosen the value of Ho‘ohanohano for our study this month, and continue to work within it, because I knew it would be time for me to craft my new signature as the only person truly associated with Say Leadership Coaching full time. I couldn’t get myself so overwhelmed that people would find it arduous or otherwise challenging to work with me directly.

The most difficult lessons I have learned during my management career have had to do with Ho‘ohanohano, for they have had to do with a few revelations of how who I wanted to be, and how I was actually perceived just didn’t match up at all. I wrote about one such episode in Managing with Aloha within that section of the Ho‘ohanohano chapter called Neglect is visible… I still wince just thinking about it.

Ho‘ohanohano is wonderfully instructive for me: I think of it as my coach in self-discipline. The mere mention of this value makes me cautious, deliberate, and thoughtful. It doesn’t restrict or inhibit me, but it does help me be less impulsive (which is my nature) so that I don’t make decisions as quickly and as decisively as I normally do (reading ‘decisively’ as less than open-minded).

And understand that Ho‘ohanohano is NOT an obsession with what other people think: It is an obsession with what you think about the true effects of your own behavior, and if you are happy with them or not. ...Which brings us back to the just-plain-smartness of choosing values that will guide your behavior in those directions you want them to go.

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.
Then I realized who was telling me this.”
— Emo Phillips
hat tip to Kirk Weisler for the quote

What will be our value in April?

Not so fast! We still have these twelve days more for Ho‘ohanohano, and I’m not anxious to rush them.

So again, I ask you, which values did you choose for 2008? (You can tell me in English :)

And… How are those values working for you, hmm?

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