Mālama will be the seventh value we have learned using our 5-Beat Rhythm as our learning tool and habit creator. Behaviorists say it takes 21 to 28 days for a new habit to stick with us: Will the next 28 days of April do the trick for you?
My goal with this particular posting, is to get you started with your 5-Beat Rhythm in the best possible way.
Connect.
[photo found on Flickr by bennylin0724]a) As Stephen R. Covey put it so well in his phrasing of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we will Begin with the End in Mind, and we will begin with First Things First. (Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with his book; those phrases say it all!)
b) In my role as your virtual MWA coach, I will weave in the connections to our Value of the Month Study on Mālama, the value of caring and stewardship.
c) I will also point out the key phrasing in the language we will use all month long, that which we refer to in Managing with Aloha as our Language of Intention. We have a bunch of M's going on here... Mellow Maintenance Mālama... oh! and let’s not forget Ma‘alahi!
Intention Check on our Ho‘ohana: Whose work is this?
Simply put; mostly yours. I can be the steersman in this canoe, making sure that we are always pointed in the right direction, but you need to do the paddling.
There is a Managing with Aloha mantra that goes like this: Do with, not for, not instead.
This mantra is one that an awful lot of Boomers are kicking themselves for not following over the last two decades with both their management style and their parenting. There is a Mālama danger zone of loving people a little too much, whether they are our children or part of our staff. If we loved them better, we would let them go through whatever they need to go through to learn, practice, make mistakes, fail sometimes, and then ultimately succeed in the best possible way —they do it all themselves. Perhaps with our coaching, sure, but not with our doing it for them.
Our doing too much for others can enable their weaknesses and half-baked, less than fully committed attempts, and it can clutter up their focus. Our best way may not necessarily be their best way.
I can struggle with that here, with my writing for you.
Start well to finish well
In my Day One Essay on Mālama I made a commitment to you. I had written:
I promise more Ma‘alahi; the persuasion for calm contentment... 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!
I am starting right now, with slowing down my postings so that instead of just reading from day to day, you invest in some time to do the work involved; where you would have looked for a new article before, I challenge you to think about where you are with the actions you considered taking with the previous one.
Start well. Take the time to work on your Beat 1 as you need to. It really doesn't take that long at all: Let's review:
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Where is the Mellow Maintenance?
I can guess what you might be thinking right now... “Whoa, back up the truck... this is not mellow; sounds to me like you are getting tougher on us!”
I get where it may sound that way. “Mellow Maintenance” to me is this: The right work short term, for the best work after that. Let me explain:
- We keep things as simple as possible, and as relevant as possible.
- We work on the basics; those crucially essential things that need to be Mālama’d —taken care of, before attentions get scattered on other things. When we take care of these basics, they in turn, take care of us.
- Within this Mellow Maintenance Focus, we don’t waste time and effort on those other things that really are not as important in the grand scheme of our best possible lives (‘Imi ola). We clearly begin to see them as irrelevant.
- Thus, we also keep our cool, and we remain in control. We get to that calm, contented Ma‘alahi state of being, where we feel contentment precisely because we feel accomplished: Our mission critical work is done!
- What we achieve, is the Mālama of stewardship.
Therefore... As your virtual MWA coach, I see my role as;
- Helping you identify those crucially essential things YOU need to Mālama —take care of, before YOUR attentions get scattered on those other things.
- Helping you keep your work relevant through the value alignment to Mālama —our value of the month study (primarily aiming for workplace relevance), and
- In our Language of Intention this month; Ma‘alahi, the persuasion for calm contentment means we will keep our work simple and not complex or confusing.
Now, I wasn’t cagey about what I consider some of basic things to be for managers in today’s workplaces. I spelled out a few things in my Day One Essay:
There are three themes within Mellow Mālama Maintenance that I plan to explore in April:
- Financial Literacy
- Productivity
- Learning
Three things I believe managers and leaders don’t have the luxury of stopping or putting on hold.
So now, as promised, I give you time for your own work; pick up your paddle, and join me in our canoe!
Thank you so much for being part of our learning here on Managing with Aloha Coaching. With every visit you make here, you fuel my energy in continuing our good work! Together, we WILL bring the spirit of aloha to the workplace.
We Ho‘ohana together,
~Rosa
Related Rhythm Reading:
- If you are a manager, I highly recommend reviewing The MWA Role of the Manager Reconstructed. It will help you focus on the essentials of YOUR role, just I did here with mine as a virtual coach.
- The MWA.Coaching Blog's Companion Coaching Program. This is a coaching program offered at a modest, affordable fee if you want personal coaching. It was specifically designed exclusively for the readers of this site.
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