Managing with Aloha Coaching

Ho‘ohana: Redefine the word “work” and make it yours.

Aloha my Ho‘ohana Community,

Our value for the month of September is one that is very dear to my heart. If I were asked to choose one and only one value that is representative of the entire Managing with Aloha mission it would be this one, second only to the value of Aloha itself. If there ever was a month I’m praying you stick with me all month through, reading every Tuesday Coaching Essay the day it is published, and working through our monthly journey together personally, no matter what the rest of your organization may be going through right now, it is this one.

Our value for the month of September is Ho‘ohana, the value of worthwhile work.

MY MANA‘O (what I believe to be true) ~ ~ ~ ALOHA is about you living with authenticity in a world populated with other people. We human beings were not meant to live alone, we thrive in each other’s company. Aloha celebrates everything that makes you YOU. HO‘OHANA is about you making your living in our world in the way that gives you daily direction and intention and leaves you with a feeling of personal fulfillment every day —not just when you have accomplished large goals.

Ho‘ohana is not about career, it is about best-possible livelihood.

When a person chooses to incorporate the values of Aloha and Ho‘ohana into their working lives, there is no more “going through the motions,” no more “paying my dues” or “earning my stripes,” and no more “biding my time.” There is only deliberate, intentional, purposeful work, where all your attentions are focused on that work, whatever it may be. All your attentions are somehow connected to your work —even if it is work which is currently temporary for you. You no longer call it work; you call it “my Ho‘ohana.”

Koho Wahi Ho‘ohana;
What is your chosen place in the Ho‘ohana Community?

I ask you to think about a few questions as you read my Day One Essay today.

First, what is the place you have chosen for yourself in the Ho‘ohana Community? (Wahi= place, Ho‘ohana= in this context, to work with the MWA Community, Koho= of your deliberate choosing). Did you subscribe intentionally, and with a plan of action, or have you been a fairly passive observer up to now?

My online coaching is free to you; are you taking advantage of it, or do you just skim my newsletters each month without following along to truly “value your month” and thus “value your life?”

If you have read this far, this is part of your chosen attentions; what is the personal connection for you? Do you just nalu it, (go with the flow) or do you respond, engage with me and question me, and engage with others in the community?

When was the last time you pulled Managing with Aloha off your bookshelf and opened it up? When was the last time you said to someone, “Hey, I’ve read Managing with Aloha; I’m in the Ho‘ohana Community with you too!” so you could speak our Value-aligned Language of Intention often and out loud as you talk story?

I spend a lot of time talking story with you, writing for you, visiting and coaching many of you as part of an organization; I refer to “workplace reconstruction” via the “sensibility of Managing with Aloha” often, with the objective of designing healthier workplace cultures. This month however, my online coaching is going to get personal. We will not study Ho‘ohana from the organizational standpoint, but from the personal one.

We are going to talk about your intentions, and I will share mine.

SIDEBAR ~ ~ ~ (You may want to come back to this later within your second reading of my Day One Essay, for I believe that this ATTENTION versus INTENTION distinction is directly related to the study of Ho‘ohana.) This year we have invested substantial time into a BREX learning initiative. BREX is our nickname for Brave Experiments [with] Digital Learning. Learning helps you explore and experiment, and ultimately I believe you can serve yourself well by asking yourself, is this both sequential and consequential for me? So in the exploring-while-learning process of arriving at an answer, we each have a two-fold decision to make about our personal use of the web: 1. ATTENTION. To who, what, where, and when do I give the most valuable gift I can give someone publishing online for me? 2. INTENTION. Why do I bother in the first place? What's in it for me? We will be discussing this in more detail with the rest of the Ho‘ohana Community at www.JoyfulJubilantLearning.com throughout the month of September.

Work is personal; so is this.

We will continue (we Ho‘omau) in the spirit of self-leadership we started last month, and go forward with the value of Ho‘ohana with this singular objective:

We will use September to redefine the word “work” and make it ours:
You will make it yours.

I’m going to do it too.

I tweak my Ho‘ohana statement on an on-going basis, however this month I am challenging myself with a major BHAG-quality (big hairy audacious goal) Ho‘ohana reinvention. To find out what it is you will have to stick with me at Managing with Aloha Coaching all month long (which amounts to today and five Tuesdays, starting tomorrow). Sweetest free deal on the web if you ask me (I am not going to be shy about this; it works).

You will end up with a Ho‘ohana statement of your own, one you are willing to stand up for and articulate exceptionally well, feeling you are prepared to both defend it and inspire with it.

(Did that sound familiar? Self-Leadership in 1 Sentence.)

Chances are you have to work; that’s life. If you became an instant millionaire tomorrow you might go play for a while, but I’d bet you would eventually look for work again, perhaps making that big break and bankrolling your own company, whether big or small, just so you wouldn’t be totally bored. (Yes, all play and no work “makes Jack a dull boy.” Jill too.) You might even give away your time, volunteering to work for a good cause.

Your Ho‘ohana is your future

Few of us become instant millionaires, however we still yearn for the dreamy result. I have come to believe that self-entrepreneurship of some kind one day down the pike (or to be more accurate, self-financing), is the new inevitability of our generation: In today’s economy, scores of people are finding they have been good working citizens and contributors to society their entire lives with very little to now show for it. The retirement dream never came true. They played the game of life following all the rules: What went wrong?

In short, what went wrong is that you were a follower of someone else’s Ho‘ohana instead of authoring your own, something you will eventually have to do (and just as the leaders among you authored your self-leadership growth plan in August.)

The good news is this: It is never too late. Really.

Start that process of authoring your own Ho‘ohana with me this month, with me and with the rest of the Ho‘ohana Community. Remember that life is not a solo proposition, and you need not do this alone. Be vocal, get involved. There are no magic pills here; you have to engage actively if you are to get any results, however it is so simple to keep your energies up! This is what you do:

1) Keep connected and in rhythm with my Tuesday Essays here on Managing with Aloha Coaching. Subscribe here for the easiest way: Delivered to your inbox.

2) Don’t be content with passive reading; commit to our objective. Redefine the word “work” as “my Ho‘ohana.”

3) Engage by commenting here! Don’t just think about what I might write, and passively agree with me: Question me, challenge me. I thrive on feedback too: Tell me when you think I am tracking a good course, and speak out when you think I took my eyes off the road.

4) Ask a work-connected partner to go through the month with you. To start, here is a PDF of my chapter on Ho‘ohana which you can share with them. Talk story with each other to keep our Language of Intention out loud, and as today’s working stuff. Run your Ho‘ohana statement drafts by each other, and hold each other accountable for action.

5) If you find you need more help, get in touch with me. It will be a free call if you do the first 4 listed here; be forewarned I will get you to enter a coaching program with me if you haven’t done them yet!

And by the way, don’t for a minute think this is all work and no play. Defining work for your own life may be one of the most enjoyable things you ever do.

If you are a parent, think of September here on MWA Coaching as going back to school in the fall with your children. Set up a special spot in your home for their nightly homework, and sit with them and do yours. On the weekends, use it for reading and quiet, and as a cool-down place after enjoying weekend play outdoors. Study together: Get into a family learning habit that will serve you well for a long time to come, as you set a great example for them on how school habits translate to real-world stuff; Ho‘ohana is as real as it gets.

This month, I am not saying I am “hoping to hear from you.” I am expecting it. Celebrate your Labor Day with the best decision you can make. Koho wahi Ho‘ohana; choose your place in our community.

Tomorrow: “What if I am perfectly fine with having a 9-5 J.O.B. and that’s it? What if I don’t want my job to be work meant to ‘bring meaning, fulfillment, and fun’ to the life I lead?”

I think that is quite valid. Even if that is how you feel, Ho‘ohana can still be a value that is very useful to you. (9/2 update: the article is now posted.)

We Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Postscript:
Here is another way to look at that powerful match-up of ATTENTION AND INTENTION: Our Day One Essay over at Joyful Jubilant Learning: Citizen Publishing on the Web ~ What have we learned?

The Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership

We started the month of August with a posting called Alaka‘i, Chiefs and Indians. Tim Milburn, mentor extraordinaire for student leaders, (and for us post-college lifelong learners) thrilled me with this comment:

Rosa:

One of my favorite posts that you've ever written is the 12 RULES FOR SELF-LEADERSHIP. I keep it on my cell phone and pull it out to read on occasion. It is some timeless advice. I hope that you will include a link to that for your readers this month.

One of the FIRST things that I coach, teach, and mentor student leaders on is LEADING YOURSELF FIRST. This sets the tone for every other type of leadership that one is involved in. I look forward to your posts this month and join you in waving the banner for being the best leader of ME that I can be.

Mount Rushmore Monument by dean.franklin on Flickr.

Tim, your wish is my command!

It took me a bit of getting to (this is the final posting for August on the topic of self-leadership, see the others indexed here) because I wanted to reformat it a bit for you: I had three reasons.

1. To simply reprint a repeat of what you already have wouldn’t have been as much fun, don’t you think?
2. During August we have talked about the growing process of self-leadership, and I have saved the “Twelve Rules for Self-Leadership ~ Redux” for a reformulation within this vantage point of growth, and growing into the self-motivated leaders we can be with the Hawaiian value of Alaka‘i to guide us.
3. Third, and most important of all, I wanted to leave some open space. We can start with my twelve rules as kick-off type of suggestions, but I believe that a person’s growing process needs to be self-authored as well. We all know that when it comes right down to it, our motivation is an inside job, and we are more likely to commit to a plan (and to decisions) of our own design.

Therefore, this is what follows: I have brought back my Twelve Rules for Self-Leadership in a newly ordered line-up, one which corresponds to the short version definition we have been using for self-leadership in the Alaka‘i-valued way:

TO SELF-LEAD:
Think, learn, grow.
Arrive.
Articulate. Stand tall.

I have left the same numbers of the old list so you can refer to them if you like, but they serve no other purpose. The total in our self-leadership growth plan will be up to you; it may end up to be a list of 15, 18, 21 or something in between, for you need to decide what you will add:

~ What do you need to do to Think, learn, grow? into your strongest personal statement of self-leadership?

~ How do you want to Arrive and be recognized for consistently arriving that way?

~ What will it take for you to Articulate and Stand Tall consistently, and throughout your leadership life to come?

HOW-TO HINT: What are the values you want to work on?

Ready? We will be calling this The Your Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership.

The Self-Leadership of Alaka‘i: Your Connection to Worthwhile Work

Welcome to our Tuesday Coaching:
Our value of the month is Alaka‘i, the Hawaiian value of leadership, and the focus of our study is Self-Leadership.

• Day One Essay for August 2008: Alaka‘i, Chiefs and Indians

• Tuesday Essay #1 on Alaka‘i: Why Self-Leadership?

• Tuesday Essay #2 on Alaka‘i: Self-Leadership in 1 Sentence

• Today: The Self-Leadership of Alaka‘i and Your Connection to Worthwhile Work

From last Tuesday:

“Self-leadership is the growing process of arriving at your own choice, an arrival you will stand up for and articulate exceptionally well, feeling you are prepared to both defend it and inspire with it.”

TO SELF-LEAD:
Think, learn, grow.
Arrive.
Articulate. Stand tall.

What is this growing process of arriving at one’s own choice, and why is it so important to you?

It may be helpful to answer the second question first, for if it isn’t important to you, why bother? Let’s use something that is usually a staple on the manager’s To Do List to help examine the answer: HIRING.

How do you recruit, interview, and hire?

In my early days of being a manager, I would conduct hiring interviews as most rookies do. I’d look over their job application or resume as the candidate sat in front of me, and I’d ask whatever clarifying questions came to mind. It wasn’t until a considerable amount of trial and error, selecting three poor gut-choices for every shot-in-the-dark fortuitous one, that I realized something that would forever change my approach: The fine details of a person’s past experience was not as important to me as the likelihood of what they would DO with the benefit of having retained that experience going forward.

What had they learned, and what would they now do with their most valuable lessons? What would they do for me, and for the job I offered them?

Within my interview process I had been filling in the blanks of a candidate’s past. What I eventually learned to do instead, was fill in the blanks of their most probable future, a future I would have a role in. [For more in that regard, read The Role of the Manager Reconstructed].

When the interview was over, there was really only one question I needed to have an answer for: If I hired this person, what was I getting myself into? Was this person ready for self-leadership in whatever circumstance the world would place them in, or would I as their manager be required to work with them in their self-leadership arrival process —and if so, to what degree?

What about self-management?

Self-management was part of the consideration too, but to me those are the basics that have to do with values lived (a.k.a. walking their talk) and predictable, reputable day-to-day behavior. Adults are able to communicate well, and they honor their word or make a new agreement. Adults are trustworthy, and take full accountability for their responsibilities. Adults have a good work ethic, and those “old-fashioned” basic work-world values like dependability, timeliness, and professionalism. Adults demonstrate decorum, handle their self-care and practice self-discipline, they seek to be productive and earn their keep.

Frankly, I came to expect all of those things as the ‘Givens for Adults,’ at least those who worked for me and the organizations I chose to be involved with. Remember this? It is the epigraph to Managing with Aloha and hard-wired into my belief system:

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German writer, scientist and philosopher

Short term, people would demonstrate they were telling the truth about being a grown-up or not while within their probationary period. What I wanted to dig deeper for, were my long-term prospects, i.e. the self-leadership indicators of a person ready for decision-making (and decision-management) that was future directed; the really interesting (and fun) stuff of ideation and innovation. The stuff that adults continue to grow with, and thrive within.

Same ‘ol, same ‘ol repeated, even when pretty good and reliably effective, isn’t all that fun and exciting. It isn’t about thriving in a bold, exciting way. Do you want routine maintenance, or do you want firing on all cylinders propulsion?

Adults continue to grow when they are devoted to WORTHWHILE WORK

Please understand that I am in no way discounting the value of someone’s past experience. In fact, I think that considering it from the lens of self-leadership helps you sort it and elevate it to continued usefulness within this approach:

You can write down and document the experience, history, and lessons-learned you want to remember. Collectively, those things are called REFERENCE.

Worthwhile work is about present-day effort you devote to brand new ideas about creating a better future. In Managing with Aloha, it is what we call HO‘OHANA.

Worthwhile work is not about remembering; that is why people get annoyed with those who rest on their laurels, worship the status quo, and wax nostalgic about “the good old days.”

On the other hand, people get inspired and energized by those who seem to be idea machines: They are always “thinking of something” and offering brand new solutions to nagging old problems. They create compelling visions of a future that in some way (and in multiple ways both big and small) is far, far better than the present is. If there is anything everyone will agree about when describing a future they wish for, is that it is an improvement; it is BETTER.

People who give us BETTER are those we call leaders. They are leaders we will eagerly follow.

What do you think?

Have we answered the question of why the growing process of self-leadership may be important to you? If not, let’s talk about it this week.

I have focused on the role of the manager here, but it is good to understand it from the personal perspective: Why do you want to self-lead YOU? What is the personal connection you need to (and want to) reap from this? Is it about creating your own sources of self-generated energy? Is it about defining the criteria of those future ideas you want to have in creating your own BETTER?

Next Tuesday we’ll answer that second question we’ve been preparing for: What is this “growing process of arriving at one’s own choice” that I have defined as so critical to self-leadership? I have given you the short version...

TO SELF-LEAD:
Think, learn, grow.
Arrive.
Articulate. Stand tall.

...and we will flesh it out with more detail and concrete suggestions; we’ll call them The Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership.

Until then, let’s talk story; we Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.
Hoping to hear from you!

~Rosa

Self-Leadership in 1 Sentence

Aloha,

This post has been updated and moved to Talking Story:

Self-Leadership in One Sentence

See you there!

Tuesday Essay #1 on Alaka‘i: Why Self-Leadership?

I am sorry, the article you are looking for has been retired.
It did a great job for me, and for others at one time, and now it has happily stepped aside.

It has been retired so that fresher writing can take its place with dazzling you, or collaborating with you, and sharing in that great feeling of being able to help someone.

I invite you to visit the new and better stuff on TalkingStory.org.

Talk to me in the comment boxes you find there, and meet others in the Ho‘ohana Community.
If you still long for your original search, I will be happy to help you.

Day One Essay for August 2008: Alaka‘i, Chiefs and Indians

Aloha,

This post has been updated and moved to Talking Story:

Alaka‘i Leadership, Chiefs and Indians

See you there!