Mellow Maintenance Mālama

As the end of March approaches, there is this common refrain of realization that reverberates in many managers’ heads pretty universally, despite the industry they are in. It goes something like this,

“Oh my goodness, we’re already into the end of the first quarter! Where in the heck did the time go?
What were our metric markers again?
…You’ve got to be kidding me; what Kool-Aid were we drinking then, thinking we could be doing (__fill in the blank__) by April?”

Then, if you are American (or otherwise IRS-harnessed) April 15 starts to loom large, and Uncle Sam rubs some salt in your wounds on the personal finance front too, especially when at some point you’ll read a headline or business brief that “tax freedom day” won’t arrive until sometime afterwards.

We are in some serious need for Mālama, don’t you think? I do.

Mālama To take care of. To serve and to honor, to protect and care for. ~ To Mālama, is to take care of. ~ A manager is a steward of assets and caretaker of people. ~ Mālama calls upon us to serve, to honor and to protect. ~ Acts of caring drive us to high performance levels in our work with others. We give and become unselfish. We accept responsibility unconditionally. ~ Mālama is warm, and Mālama is personal. It comes from heart, and it comes from soul. ~ When we Mālama, we are better.

From this value of Mālama comes the word mālamalama. In their Hawaiian Dictionary, Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert define mālamalama as the “light of knowledge, clarity of thinking or explanation, enlightenment” where those things you consider will wonderfully become “shining, radiant (and) clear.” Your path is an enlightened one for you when along the way you are taking care of certain things. You serve them, protect them, and honor them, and in doing so you feel better. You become better.

Mālama is almost magical in this way. In taking care of what you are truly supposed to —for it is “shining, radiant (and) clear,” everything else seems to get taken care of too.

Mālama is an exceptionally rich value.

Rich however, need not mean expensive and costly

This month, my goal is to concentrate on a few specific themes within this value which will give us a sense of continuity and reasonable connection to what we’ve been talking about here since the beginning of the year, as opposed to introducing too much that is new.

If you are still wondering, “Where in the heck did the time go?” this may help you feel better, for we have done a LOT. Let’s quickly review “what we’ve been talking about;”

• In January, Pono:

Remember this? “Pono is all about attitude, and how attitude always comes before outcome.” Then we dug deeper, exploring the premise that attitude is a result of something: We spent some time considering where our personal and professional integrity (our “sense of rightness”) comes from. Choosing our values first helped us get much more confidence; it gave us clear intention —we liked it way better than plugging through our old January habits writing New Years Resolutions! By month-end, this way-cool formula got us pretty excited about the prospects ahead:

Balance + Rightness + Integrity = Contentment

• In February, Kuleana:

We decided it was high time we became a bit more reasonable (and effective) in what responsibility we personally took on, and as managers, we made the commitment to reconstruct our role so we were focused on the four areas we should always dwell within to best serve the worthwhile work we champion:

People, Place, Mission and Vision

We practiced those great conversations of managers, and we started to explore the responsibility we have with leadership.

• In March, Ho‘ohanohano:

From the What to the Who, starting with us! Ho‘ohanohano required introspection and hard work; we were working on our own demeanor as managers, and coming to terms with our realizations (and perhaps aha! moments) on just how much the way we are perceived can affect what we are able to accomplish. Said more directly, Ho‘ohanohano was about getting out of our own way, but also allowing our commitment (and Providence) to help us! We started to prepare for Mālama (though you may not have realized it at the time :) by taking a very important inventory —one of unintentional neglect.

• In April, Mālama:

Mellow Maintenance Mālama has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? That soothing, calming melody you might recognize is ma‘alahi…

Where does this “mellow maintenance” factor in?

Essentially, that is the question we are setting our sights on answering within our April value study. More directly, and more personally, we each want to answer, “How can I Mālama, to achieve this mellow maintenance for me, and my most important concerns?”

It is those things we deeply care about that are the things most important to us, and thus caring for these things—or these people—can drive us to high performance levels which take the form of unselfishness and accepting responsibility (Kuleana) unconditionally. We fulfill two needs simultaneously, theirs, and our own. This month, I will refer to “those things we deeply care about” as our essentials.

The process of streamlining, and clearing away the clutter to focus on our essentials, is what we will refer to as Mālama Maintenance. The Mellow part? Mmmm, that is Ma‘alahi!

How streamlined can we get, and still feel whole?

We know that everything is better when it is healthy in mind, body and spirit; we’ve learned this from aloha, but it is also a kind of knowing that inherently resides within us as one of those things we just, well, know. The value of Mālama urges us to be the caretaker of good health, caring for ourselves, for others and for those things that somehow cannot care for themselves without us being connected to them. My hope for you, and my intention as your virtual coach here, is that by the end of this month you will have identified what those essentials are.

There are three themes within Mellow Mālama Maintenance that I plan to explore in April:

1. Financial Literacy —a hot button of mine that Uncle Sam always presses relentlessly in April.

Thus my feelings about the Aloha Airlines decision came in pretty strong yesterday: Mālama was already very connected to Pono (integrity and intellectual honesty) and Kuleana (responsibility and accountability) for me.

2. Productivity —when we Mālama and Ma‘alahi by keeping things simple, simpler, and simplest, (busy-work be gone!)

We couldn’t be timelier with this connection between financial literacy and productivity than right now: Ironically, having the American economy less than healthy at the moment helps us focus, and gives us a sense of urgency and immediacy.

3. Learning —something I believe managers and leaders don’t have the luxury of stopping or putting on hold.

Brex (our Ho‘ohana Community 2008 initiative with Digital Learning) moves to Joyful Jubilant Learning for the entire month of April.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
~ Alvin Toffler via Tim Milburn

I promise more Ma‘alahi; the persuasion for calm contentment

Last, I will not be publishing as much this month as I have in the past.

I know that I can write like other people breathe. Even my mom can’t keep up with me. In my Mālama for you, I’m going to edit like crazy and slow it down; Mellow Maintenance Mālama will be my melody and mantra, and I’ll be singing it for both of us!

And that, my Ho‘ohana Community, is our Ho‘ohana (intentional work) for April, on the value study of Mālama.

Mahalo, thank you for reading. Now, we Ho‘ohana Kākou, together.

Journal some of your own thoughts on this (or share it here) and we will commence with our 5-Beat Rhythm on April 3rd.

Me ke aloha,
~ Rosa

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If you have arrived at MWAC for the first time, ALOHA and welcome!

This is what MWAC is About, and Mālama is our value study of the month for April.

You are warmly invited and encouraged to subscribe and become part of our Ho‘ohana Community.

Ho‘ohana with us!
~ Rosa Say
More about me here.

Comments

[Robyn]

Rosa, thanks for introducing me to a very unique concept, Malama, and what Malama stewardship might mean.

I truly enjoy the richness of your language and the depth of meaning within.

[Rosa Say]

You are welcome Robyn. Thank you so much for commenting for me as you have! I always try to tread lightly with the balance of English and Hawaiian that I present, hoping that our value study will be a pleasure to read and not something people must slowly wade through.

Mālama is a value that helps me feel pretty resourceful within the responsibilities I choose to be a better steward of, and I hope it can have that effect for you too.