Decision-Making and Decision-Management seen through Ho‘omau

One of the things we’ve said about Ho‘omau is this:

“People are more apt to invest in and be committed to their own decisions than they are to following the marching orders of a leader—even a leader they respect and trust to make decisions for them.” —from Managing with Aloha, page 58 (If you are just joining us, Ho‘omau is the Hawaiian value of persistence and perseverance, and you will find a more complete definition within my Day One Essay for November: Ho‘omau: Reveal the Good, and Make it Last.)

Today

I’d like to connect our decisions with the value of Ho‘omau. While you are engaged in the work you do, you are primarily in the process of one of two things. You are either

• Working to make a good decision (as opposed to an impulsive or auto-pilot one), or

• Working to execute a decision (and also managing its consequences).

If we view this through the value filter of Ho‘omau, we are pursuing best-possible continuity of our good constants. However we want growth too, and thus we must embrace change. If we ask ourselves, “which change is best?” I believe that considering Alaka‘i (the value of leadership) can be of great help.

~ MWAC Value of the Month Connections ~ Some extra credit for later, for any of you who studied Nānā i ke kumu with me last month: (By ‘later’ I mean with a second reading of this essay today with the ‘extra credit’ intention of connecting it to your Ho‘ohana newly drafted this past October… this is the sequential and consequential learning of MWAC.) Look at those two bullet points above, and see if you can align them with the Nānā i ke kumu work we did on these two bullets within How Nānā i ke kumu Helps You Embrace Change and Growth. “…look at “both source and capacity to learn” in another way, as constants (source) and as change (capacity to learn). At any given time, and with any given effort, we are working on one or the other: Either we are Working to maintain our healthy constants, or Working to effect a change we desire. Further, it is in effecting a desired change that we experience our most elevated experiences with learning.”

Think of Decision Making as a Leadership Function

We too often consider decision making to be a chore, and worse, we allow so many of our decisions to succumb to the chopping block of political correctness, where soon the inherent integrity of our decisions have been watered down into hardly more than safe mediocrity. Pure yuck!

Leadership is braver than that, and if decisions are to be worth much at all they must be brave too. In other words, you, the decision maker, must be more courageous.

I know what you’re thinking… “yeah Rosa, sure. More easily said than done.”

Not necessarily. Not when you bring in the heavy artillery we call leadership. You see, I believe that leadership is a service discipline, one which creates positive energy via well-articulated and future-directed ideas: Leaders are the champions of great ideas.

Now consider this: A great idea is the precursor to a great decision.

The great idea is the pioneer who breaks new ground; the great decision is the settler who says a blessing over the land and then begins to plan some seeds where the soil is most fertile.

Now think of decision management as a management function, where all the settlers are now in execution mode; they’re farming. They are working on the optimal way to put the decision into play, and pull it off, where “it” is the great idea turned into the great decision to farm in that new place to begin with.

I also like the farming analogy because it constantly reminds me that we reap what we sow.

Think of Decision-based Work as a Management Function

It’s that second bullet point we started with.

Great management is akin to missionary work. And mission-directed work counts on great leadership because leading is visionary work. Vision is simply the well-articulated great idea turned into a clear, compelling, cool and sexy, wildly exciting picture of our best possible future. Those seeds will turn into bountiful rows of corn, plumped juicy yellow by our hard work (or tomatoes!) and harvested in plenty to both sustain us easily, and invite our neighbors to feast with us so we can all share in the spirit of thanksgiving together.

Leadership tells us that happy ending to the story as the consequence of a great idea (i.e. the right idea, and the best idea) turned into the great decision to do the work it takes to get it done.

Now I’m not at all minimizing the work of decision-management, for there is likely a considerable amount of effort involved in that bullet point of “Working to execute a decision (and also managing its consequences).” However isn’t it better to start with a great idea versus a so-so one which will drain your energies? Pump those energies up to the momentum of exciting runaway instead! Isn’t it better to be the brave leader and work on your own idea of what good to make last in your life? Why work on the idea someone else created when you have a great one too? What was the title of my Day One Essay again? Oh yeah... Ho‘omau: Reveal the Good, and Make it Last.

From last week’s essay, you also know this:

To suppose that persistence and perseverance describes “trying harder” isn’t the Kaona, and hidden meaning of Ho‘omau. You now know it is being smarter and more deliberate: Throw those extra veggies into the cargo hold of our ship! Ho‘omau is fully anchor smart and compass point intentional.

You can manage, and you can lead. Yes, you.

So let’s go back to that quote for a moment:

“People are more apt to invest in and be committed to their own decisions than they are to following the marching orders of a leader —even a leader they respect and trust to make decisions for them.”
—from Managing with Aloha, page 58

What that quote alludes to is this: In your everyday decisions about virtually everything, you can be both leader and manager, both decision-maker (the scout and pioneer) and decision-manager (the settler and farmer).

You start with the idea you have that you are most excited about, and you Ho‘omau; you persist and persevere, you push through any adversity (resisting things like political correctness and less-than-courageous mediocrity), and you make the change you have chosen come true for you.

When you get others on your team —say you get more land, decide to grow with a bigger farm, and need more help, you Ho‘omau more diligently as a farmer-manager: Managers are the champions of people who Ho‘ohana together.

You are growing more than just corn, and it all starts with brave decisions. Farms do not sustain us, grow us and give us feasts worthy of Thanksgiving celebrations when they settle for mediocrity.

Next Tuesday: Our Ho‘omau study continues with Not just ‘again.’ Ho‘omau better..

“As a manager, Ho‘omau challenges you to have a carefully crafted plan that makes good business sense. You cannot have a strategy that will both motivate and support your staff without sound business objectives to ground you. Working hard is not good enough, you have to work smart. You need a great plan with evolving dynamics of its own, responsive to the ever-changing needs of your business. It’s part of your responsibility as a leader.”
—from Managing with Aloha, page 61

We will Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa