In the past three weeks we talked about core assumptions with learning within the Managing with Aloha workplace philosophy. If you have not yet read those 2 essays, I would encourage you to start from the beginning and come back to this: This will be the only essay here for another week; you could even take your time and read one a day (preferable really, then you can truly engage, and do something wonderful with what you have read!)
- Day One Essay: July 1st ~ ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian Value of Learning.
- Tuesday 1: July 8th ~ Learning as a process: Beginning, Middle, and End.
- Tuesday 2: July 15th ~ is this one, The Learning Process of Managing with Aloha.
Aloha, I am so glad you are here with me today.
Last time we talked about the tertiary learning that we focus on as adults.
A quick and brief review: With tertiary learning, school as we had known it is over, but learning is still in session, and if we aim to be life-and-work successful on an on-going basis, it always will be. To be a lifelong learner is to grow. The big difference, now that school is over, is that we are making the choices in regard to what we learn, why it is meaningful and useful to us, and how we will go about the learning of it. Deciding on some beginning, middle, and end to our self-chosen lesson plans can be very helpful, particularly in the context of the adult workplace. Learning the Managing with Aloha workplace philosophy syncs in with this well, with the vital key concept of cultivating Ho‘ohana for every single person involved with that workplace.
This week we will move forward with more about the Managing with Aloha Learning Process.
Altogether, MWA can also be considered a learning program with a Beginning, Middle and End too.
Beginning:
1. You read the book for an Overview.
2. Choose to adopt the MWA Philosophy, understanding and articulating the M.U.H of your choice (the Meaning, Usefulness and Ho‘ohana we talked about last time.) Get clear on your learning intentions. In my consulting work, we do this “getting clear on intentions” together, and we come to an agreement on how we will work together, and on how much work will be involved. To be blunt, within the program, MWA must become the CEO’s 5th Obsession.
Can you skip buying the book and achieve this with me by reading MWAC (this site) faithfully? Yes, probably, but not as comprehensively, and not with the complete, ‘big picture’ in mind. To be frank, it doesn’t make sense to skimp and not fork out the $25 and devote the time to reading MWA first. The learning process will take much longer, and you have to consider your own time to be more valuable to you than that. The book will greatly help you fill in the blanks with what we cannot feasibly cover in only a month’s time here.
Here is a very good overview of what MWA covers: The Core 21 Beliefs of Managing with Aloha. The book is structured to cover 19 different values, one per chapter, and you can search inside the book at Amazon.com.
Middle:
The middle of MWA integration is the process of value alignment. You choose which of the 19 values in my book are in closest harmony with your own, (either personally, or with the vision-direction of your workplace; if you have chosen the right job for your Ho‘ohana, those two ‘types’ of values are a match.) Then, value by value, you bring your organizational culture in actual practice with the values you espouse, with the help of a few value-specific MWA concepts.
Essentially, this is the best way to use my services for free and within the MWAC-guided self-coaching of this site (and after you have begun well as we spoke of above):
You actively (i.e. not anonymously, and not via email with me, but here on the blog and within the comments) engage with the MWAC community during the months I present a value on your own value-alignment listing. The blog + community format of MWAC is designed to give you the universality possible with Managing with Aloha, current-day timeliness, and perhaps most important of all, global and virtual community support.
End:
You discard old habits that you now know are NOT value-aligned, and you integrate your new learning by setting a rhythm with new habits that will now be continued within your organizational culture (OR, if doing this personally, within your personal trusted system: This is where most of the MWA Productivity/MWA3P devotees seem to engage with me online.)
This beginning, middle, and ending framework for MWA can be drilled down to apply for each value individually as well.
Within this value-alignment crucible of Managing with Aloha, you are sure to cover the MWA-critical values of Aloha, Ho‘ohana, and ‘Ike loa: These three values are nonnegotiable within an organizational work culture that is managed and led by aloha.
Here is another freebie for you: A PDF download for Chapter 2 on Ho‘ohana.
The 9 Key Concepts of Managing with Aloha
Depending on the values you have chosen to study, you will have visited – not covered – the other key concepts of MWA in this overview Beginning, Middle, and End.
Thus, the final step to the “Overview End” is to chart your next “Beginning” so that you will eventually, comprehensively learn and integrate the remaining Key Concepts of the MWA workplace philosophy. This can vary per your industry, strategic goals and current needs, but I have most often seen them sequentially occur within my MWA consulting practice over the last five years in this manner:
1. The Role of the Manager Reconstructed: If this is not shifted, the rest will not happen, for your managers must own workplace engagement. The “reconstruction” I require of my clients in SLC is so this expectation is reasonable: Managers must have the desire and ‘personal bandwith’ for assuming a new role.
2. Language of Intention: Language, vocabulary, and conversation must be addressed next. The need for CLEAR and reliable communication is apparent. Drive communication of the right messages, and you drive momentum and worthwhile energies.
3. The ‘Ohana in Business (form and structure), simultaneous to MWA3P (understanding the MWA productivity driving the results expected of your business): Together, these cover all the bases with your newly designed and integrated organizational culture.
4. Strengths Management: All that has gone before has put a great foundation in place for your business to thrive within. Now we turn to bigger investments in each stakeholder involved, capitalizing on their strengths and getting any weaknesses to be irrelevant by overcoming them. (We dedicated an entire Learning Project to Strengths Management at Joyful Jubilant Learning.)
5. Sense of Place: Think “my neighborhood.” Sense of Place is about greater community and global connections. It is saying thank you, and engaging at a higher level with those places which have gotten you this far, and continue to nourish you daily in a multitude of tiny ways that collectively were absolutely HUGE factors in your success. It is giving back.
6. Palena ‘ole (Unlimited Capacity): This is your exponential growth stage, and about seeing your bigger and better leadership dreams come to fruition. Think “Legacy.”
There are overlaps in this process: I have written about all of this somewhere within the archives of the Managing with Aloha site, Talking Story, Lifehack.org (where I was a weekly columnist for two years), Joyful Jubilant Learning, and here on MWAC though structurally speaking, we have just been within the “Middle” of value-alignment – also known as our Value of the Month program. You will find an index for each of these MWA Key Concepts in the sidebar to the far right.
‘Ike loa is the Consequential Constant
The integration of MWA into an existing work culture does take some time, and thus that part of the MWA snippet I shared in our Day One Essay this month pertains to anyone who calls themselves a manager or a leader, or both:
“…someone who calls themselves a manager of people must be a learner, and they must dedicate themselves to non-stop, sequential and consequential learning.
Sequential in that it builds upon previous lessons learned, and it takes you through a process where you question instruction and do not always accept what you are taught at face value; you polish it like a gem in your mind until something about it rings true for you.
Consequential in that it is worthwhile stuff; it makes a difference for you, and you aren’t simply collecting lessons on some scorecard. There’s some personal take-away in it for you. Now that you know it, you’re going to use it.”
Here is this week’s Homework:
1. Remember that note-taking exercise I taught you last Tuesday? Get some spaced repetition with it, and make today’s essay personally relevant to you: Do the exercise again as you read today’s essay one more time – take your Ho‘ohana-aligned notes in those same 3 columns.
2. Make your decisions with Managing with Aloha: GET CLEAR.
a) Are you going to do it at all? Define your M.U.H connections to the effort; make your intentions clear.
b) Make a simple list of what you feel you need to learn about.
c) Get the book and start reading it if you have not yet done so.
d) Besides Aloha, Ho‘ohana and ‘Ike loa, decide which values will be your alignment-critical ones. You should be choosing no more than four or five of them at the very most.
e) Pull out a blank sheet of paper, and see if you can describe your M.U.H. for each of those values you chose in a single sentence.
I’ll see you back here next Tuesday. In learning more about ‘Ike loa we will Ho‘ohana together.
~ Rosa
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