Managing with Aloha Coaching

Providence Radar-Blips our ‘Community Ecosystem’

In the beginning of the month I mentioned “Providence” via a W.H. Murray quote. It’s a quote I like living with in the way that I will nalu it as things come my way. To ‘nalu it’ is to go with the flow as opposed to down a rabbit trail… subtle but distinctive difference.

I usually think of Providence as a kind of filtering versus a real cosmic occurrence, though the cosmic stuff can happen at times! Some call it serendipity; I think it’s the filtering of how your personal radar will pick up and notice certain things, whereas before the filter was in place you wouldn’t have.

Such was this story I read in Hana Hou!, the in-flight magazine of Hawaiian Airlines yesterday; it’s called Little Crop of Horrors, and written by Paul Wood (one of my favorite local journalist/authors) about pitcher plants… “In the wilds of Puna [which is a 2-3 hour drive from where I live] Sam Estes is breeding a carnivorous jungle.”

Paul describes another kind of ecosystem in the most ‘delicious’ way (pun intended, as you will read…) and I offer it just to have some fun with the metaphor, though it might be pretty thought-provoking matched to yesterday’s posting after a beer or two…

“Here’s what it’s like to be a fly in Puna who happens to land on one of Sam Estes’ pitcher plants: You come down onto a circular landing pad —the lid of the pitcher— and you notice a tasty nectar around the edges. Slurping up the nectar, you crawl around the edge of the lid to its underneath, which is juicy and dripping with the stuff. The nectar has a narcotic quality that gets you all loopy. Suddenly you are grooving to Fly and the Family Stone.”

“Then you lose your grip and fall. You land on the pitcher cup’s brim, struggling for footing in a curved valley between steep walls. Your last chance for survival is to get over the brim and get the hell out of there. You scramble. But the brim is coated with gooey wax that eludes your grip and you slip. You clutch onto the inside wall of the cup, but this is lined with a different kind of wax, one that breaks away as you stick to it. Helpless, you fall into the pit.”

“In human scale, this is like falling into a 500-foot-deep well. At the bottom is a lake of peptic enzymes. As you slowly drown, you notice other creatures that have learned to live down here —mosquito larvae, for example, and certain ants that dive into the water to catch those larvae as food for the colony. It’s a bug-eat-bug world down here, an entire ecosystem, and the pitcher plant itself, with its hundreds of individual pitchers strung along its twisting vine, is a kind of god.”
—Paul Wood, Little Crop of Horrors, Hana Hou! Magazine February/March 2008

If you are going, “Huh?” Yesterday’s posting was: Sense of Place on the Internet: A Brand New Community Ecosystem. You might have fun with the metaphor too :)

They are kinda pretty...

Hana Hou! is sold at newsstands and in bookstores, thus the online archives are purposely delayed an issue or two, but this story is already posted! They do an excellent job, and I highly recommend browsing their archives, or getting a subscription for the stunning photography they showcase.

These pitcher plant photos were found on Flickr by robstephaustralia, by terrorchid, and by jennybach.

Sunday Mālama: Know Can Do! ~ Part Two

We are trading up in our Know Can Do! study and learning plan!

The coaching technique is that we give ourselves spaced repetition with our learning, by periodically introducing seemingly new ideas which actually serve to repeat and reinforce what we have learned previously. Hopefully, the new injection reinvigorates our past learning and keeps it vibrant and relevant for us: We renew our energy for great action sequences.

For a quick review, scroll down and skim the Language of Intention box at the end of this article.

Preface: Two weeks ago I wrote Know Can Do! ~ Part One as a book review of Know Can Do! Put your Know-How into Action, a parable which teaches us "to close the knowing-doing gap, focusing on the inside as well as the outside," by Ken Blanchard, Paul J. Meyer, and Dick Ruhe. In it I asked; Can you DO all you KNOW about? Will you reliably draw on all the knowledge you may have gathered, and use it to perform magnificently when you need to? This is Part Two of my effort to turn the books we read, and the lessons we learn within them, into the keepers we are discovering are real gems, keepers which must become habitual action for us, propelling us to far greater prospects for meaningful success in our lives. The book-learning that I have combined in this particular study are Know Can Do!, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary CEO (reviewed on Talking Story), and Trade Up!

I'm up to bat at Joyful Jubilant Learning today with my contribution to our annual book forum there, A Love Affair with Books. My choice to review for JJL is Trade Up! Five Steps for Redesigning Your Leadership and Life from the Inside Out by Rayona Sharpnack.

There is a bigger story to be told about it, one I thought I would continue to tell here, at MWAC, for it fits so perfectly with the retention-for-action lesson we have set our sights on learning recently (as in the Preface Box above): "People should learn Less More, and not More Less"—Know Can Do!

I start my JJL ALAWB review this way:

Just like people, books can come to us in a number of different ways. Sometimes, you get both books and people at the same time. Throw in a three-day immersion retreat type of conference with the author and about twenty other women, and that was my story with Trade Up! Five Steps for Redesigning Your Leadership and Life from the Inside Out by Rayona Sharpnack.

When I start my coaching work with new clients, I ask them about people they consider to be their mentors: Knowing who they are and why they are esteemed as a mentor will provide me with significant clues to the present-day state of my prospective client's thinking. Invariably, much conversation also ensues about the kind of relationship they thrive in with a coach or mentor.

In one of these conversations about a year ago Rayona Sharpnack's name came up...

...more, and the book review itself, at JJL.

Trade Up! to “Meet yourself in a new place.”

It would turn out that I would eventually meet Rayona Sharpnack, author of Trade Up!

Just last month I attended a three-day immersion workshop based on her coaching for "trading up" via "context shifting." Rayona did not pussy-foot around with giving me her expectations in a pre-session coaching call about a month beforehand: She told me that within her course, I would be challenged to "forge a new future for Hawai‘i and the world." Exactly 28 days later she wrote down her challenge again in her inscription when signing my book. It was day one of the workshop.

Most immersion/retreat type workshops tout this common goal: They intend to have you walk into their event as a certain kind of person, and then experience a transformational experience with them, one from which you will then walk away as a new person, and one of their newly converted evangelists. Rayona Sharpnack's Institute for Women's Leadership doesn't state this with blatant bravado and certainty, however they do willingly share endorsements mentioning the possibility. If the ranks of their Alumni groups, and the excitement of the twenty women taking the course with me are and were any indication, it appears their success rate may be pretty high.

This made me all the more intrigued: Excitement just after a workshop or seminar is not unusual, in fact, if the presenters are worth their salt at all, it is the norm. Immersion retreats can add to learning comprehension and retention probability because they shut out life's competing distractions. But what would happen weeks, and months later?

Second, is there a larger knowing-doing gap with Trade Up! if you don't have the benefit of the workshop? This also would seem rather normal (admittedly that is also the case with my own Managing with Aloha book versus workshop retention). How can the book alone be just as effective?

You can probably tell where I was going with my mental gymnastics: Seemed to me that Trade Up! would be a good candidate to weave into our Know Can Do! study as our spaced repetition* candidate number two.

So what is Trading Up?

I ask you to click over to Joyful Jubilant Learning for my book review of Trade Up!, for that's where you will find the run-down of those "5 Steps for Redesigning Your Leadership and Life from the Inside Out." (Right click and open in a new window to keep the articles side by side).

Here on MWAC we'll focus on the learning retention we can achieve with Trade Up! as another of our triggers.

Within Trade Up!, we asked to shift a present context we may have into a new one which will help us achieve a break-through project of some kind. Your takeaways therefore, can be:

Are you a high maintenance manager?

The easier it is for other people to work with you, the more you will all get done.
Pretty simple, really.

Ho‘ohanohano is a value study that begs perception checks of us. Great managers will ask themselves perception questions which help them assess if the reality they want is the reality they are actually getting by merit of their behavior.

For instance, the postings I have offered you so far this month could be looked at as essay-musings on these Ho‘ohanohano questions:

• First: Is it at all possible people think I’m a jerk? What can, and should I do about that?
  

• Second: Do people feel I am committed? Can they tell what I am committed to? Do my direct reports feel I am committed to them?

• Third: Am I approachable? Do people feel I am there for them whenever they may find they need me most?

• Fourth: Beyond being approachable, am I magnetic? Do people feel they get a high return being in a great working relationship with me?

• Fifth: Do my direct reports feel they learn and grow with me? Under my tutelage, do we use all that we know in the best possible way, thereby creating an atmosphere of positive expectancy?

• Sixth: What kind of reputation do I have with follow-up? How can I improve?

Here is another Ho‘ohanohano question the great manager must consistently ask of him or herself:

Am I easy to work with, or would my staff call me a high maintenance manager?

Now I could give you a laundry list of the ways you could make it easier for people to work with you. However if I do so, I will be robbing you of a golden opportunity in relationship-building with the people you work with (read the fourth question above again, and think about the Law of Reciprocity). This is what you need to do:

Ask them. Be completely open-minded about their answers. Say thank you. Follow-up by creating some new habits. Check back with them about a month from now, and ask them how you are doing. These are The 5 Steps of Peer-to-Peer Coaching. They become a dynamic feedback loop when you schedule the conversation consistently (different subject matter is bound to come up) and take turns starting at number 1. in mutually beneficial relationships invoking the Law of Reciprocity.

Trust me: This is not a threatening exercise and doesn't have to be deeply soul-searching. For our subject at hand, number 1. is a simple conversation you can start this way;

Let’s make a Great Managers’ Conversation Agreement

It goes like this:

Let’s make a Great Managers’ Conversation Agreement:

Our GOAL: No more vague. I will finish all my conversations with clear agreements.

Our MANTRA: Skirting issues and playing it safe is for wimps. Great managers most definitely are NOT wimps.

I explain more over at Talking Story today, in Learn to Finish Conversations Well Redux.

...and this is how we consider agreements when we live, work, manage, and lead with aloha.

Image credit: Conversations Silhouettes found on Flickr by b_d_solis.

Get Pono Integrity for your Business Model

When people ask me how I like my work I answer, "I love it; I'm one of the luckiest people on the planet. It is the greatest thing that people pay me for who I am and what I do in sharing the MWA mission, where essentially, I pay my bills and finance my life with joy."

My Pono contentment explains a lot of why I can say that now, for while I have always figured out a way to enjoy the work I did, up until I had my own business I didn't have the complete freedom to create my business model as the most Pono way (i.e. the most right way) to achieve a Business Plan.

One of the business concepts I teach managers is the difference I see between a business PLAN and a business MODEL. We use Language of Intention: Thereafter, our vocabulary gets more specific, and we choose the right word when talking about them.

Consider the different stakeholders a company can have: Owners, trustees or stockholders, board members, angel investors, partners, employees, customers, vendors, contractors, and the community, and then consider what they are most interested in because of their relationship to that company.

• The Business PLAN usually ends up to be more about strategy and numbers, and is written for banks, owners, and board members - think Pro Forma and all the research and trend analysis that leads to the business plan of what a company will be about. In Say Leadership Coaching, we leave business planning to our clients and their particular industry expertise, though we strongly encourage giving staff the financial literacy they need to read the Business Plan and understand it.

• The Business MODEL is what your employees, your customers, and the community is usually much more interested in - the vision/ mission/ values part of how you make that Business Plan happen. The business model is about execution and delivery, and the choices you make along the way. There is still a lot of strategy and decision-making involved, and there is much more emotion: Your business model makes room for individual work passions, or it ends their possibility. Company morale, spirit, and reputation will make it or break it on the wisdom of the Business Model.

The Managing with Aloha work philosophy is a business model proven to work exceptionally well for every business plan I have encountered, because it can influence the business plan as well. As I wrote in my book five years ago, while at the Hualalai Resort I felt I had gotten as close as I could ever get to working for another employer where business plan and business model matched up. However the day did come where the business plan and business model no longer were completely aligned within my viewpoint, and understanding it was no longer to be (and that I would not be able to bring certain decisions into my circle of influence), I moved on. Pono had started to slip away for me.

However, having had that sweet taste of Pono integrity in business, I wanted to get it back, and my own company was born. At SLC, we refer to Ho'ohana, one's passion for worthwhile work as the North Star of the business model, and so I started with mine at the time:

~ page 32 ~ I love to teach, and in particular I love coaching managers. I love the science of business and the democracy of free enterprise, where ultimately the customer rules. I love reading, I love the written word and I love the study of how language can influence relationships between people. I love the new global possibilities of networking. I love the notion that we can choose our own destiny and create it. I get passionate about all these things, and by indulging my passions I gave life to Managing with Aloha.

In my own value system, ignorance is not bliss in business. I have a passion for learning about all of it. Once I do, the business plan and the business model have to match up - the business model has to be realistic, and it can't wring the blood, sweat and tears out of people because it is incomplete, unachievable, or just plan insensitive to the human element. I believe that business models create movers and shakers who can make better results happen; they can make better lives happen.

I love teaching managers how to construct great business models. It is in those workshops that I see the light of hope turn on for them, and that light is a Pono beacon of possibility getting born.

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If this discussion intrigued you, you may also want to review:

• Is Pono where Integrity goes?
• How good do you feel about working in business today?
• 4 Things Managers Can Do to Bring Managing with Aloha to their Company Culture.

New Resource Page: Why Choose Values?

I have created a new resource page on www.ManagingWithAloha.com, one you may find helpful if you would like some help in explaining to your team — or your boss! — why you have decided to bring Managing with Aloha to your workplace.

This page explains why I believe in value-based management, and why it makes so much sense to me:

Why Choose Values?

You can highlight it, select and print it, or send the link to them via email. Once this post slips into the archives, you can easily find the page again as the first link under my list of Hawaiian Values in the sidebar of the site (and you will see that the new page ends with a list of all 19 values with short definitions).

A tip for your conversation:
Remember that whomever you talk to will already be fully vested in their own values. I know you get this by now, but for those hearing about MWA for the very first time, assure them that you are using MWA Coaching to revisit the values you already have through a fresh lens, and that you aren't replacing others, or suggesting they be abandoned. In truth, you are respecting them with a newfound admiration and language of intention.

And as always, let me know if I can help. Don't be shy about suggesting any edits: I put this together for you!
~ Rosa

Is Pono where Integrity goes?

I received an email about my Day One Essay for Pono, and the HCer (Ho'ohana Community member) who wrote asked,

"Is Pono where integrity goes Rosa? I will talk story with my staff about Pono this month, for I think it's a great value to kick off our year with, and I am thinking that I'd like to describe it as the value of balance, rightness, and integrity, where those three things will result in contentment for us both individually, and as a team when we openly talk with each other about what it will take to get there."

Those are the kind of deductions that make for great mantras in a workplace! Love it! What a terrific value formula to drive desired behavior with:

Balance + Rightness + Integrity = Contentment

“Forget mission statements; they’re long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever remember them — much less implement them. Instead, take your meaning and make a mantra out of it. This will set your entire team on the right course.”
~ Guy Kawasaki in Art of the Start

To answer our HCer's question, yes, I agree that Pono can correctly be called the value of personal integrity. I think of integrity as telling ourselves the truth, and acting in the way that feels right according to that that truth. Here is an MWA excerpt that sums it up in my mana'o (my thoughts, beliefs, convictions).

This is found on page 20, in Chapter One on Aloha:

Our values drive our beliefs, and often they give our thoughts clarity. When we are true to our beliefs, the decisions and choices we make come to us naturally and easily, especially when we have a goal or objective in mind. It is easier to act on that which you believe. I am a strong advocate for the writing of mission statements, as you will discover when we reach the chapter on ‘Imi ola (to seek life). Our mission defines our goals, and our goals drive our actions. And actions taken, true to clear beliefs that have been borne from good values, give us our integrity. Acting with integrity makes things right for us; it feeds our hunger to be intelligent, ethical and morally just.

It is human nature that we will often justify not doing certain things that we know, deep in our heart, mind, and soul, is the right thing to do. Our justifications - I'm too busy, this is not a good time, etc., serve as a kind of self-preservation instinct that we are still good people inside, there are just these extenuating circumstances out of our control.

For me, the truth-telling of personal integrity is a more diligent self-questioning: Are those circumstances really are out of my control or not? To be sure, this self-talk (and self-reckoning) is more difficult, but it is so necessary if you are to get to contentment! Acting with integrity can be difficult in the moment of those actions; it can be downright unpleasant. However in the long run — in that goodness within us we feed and nurture — we always emerge through that "light at the end of the tunnel."

To be content, your heart cannot ache, your mindfulness cannot be dismissed, your gut intuition cannot be dishonored, and your soul cannot be kept restless, all without what we usually refer to as "peace of mind."

Crystal Being Etched on Flickr by dlkinney:

Photo caption: This is a close-up of a crystal bowl receiving its markings. You can see how the markered lines are used to provide the worker with guidance as to the size and location of marks. The trick is to make the cuts deep, but not so deep as to reduce the structural integrity of the piece -- or cut all the way through. Like the glass blowers, the etching artists are paid for the number of pieces that pass quality inspection. A bowl like the one in his hand can take two to four hours to complete.

 

 

 

A very thoughtful and deliberate man, my dad used to tell us that you get peace of mind with just about anything you do from going the distance. Integrity is telling yourself the truth and "nothing but the truth" about what that distance is, and the role you need to play.

Then there is the action part, for as I like to say, wishing and hoping alone is not a very effective strategy. The part of the email that made me smile from ear to ear was the last phrase: "and as a team when we openly talk with each other about what it will take to get there."

Big mahalo for the email, and keep them coming HCers: Don't think I could have set myself up better than you did for an article about integrity!

Say No to Resolutions: Choose your Values instead.

In my January newsletter, I talked about Ho'ohana as one way "you can stop with unrealistic New Years Resolutions forever. That's right, forever." On Talking Story yesterday, I shared  another great strategy that Harry is using: Tell me your One & Only: 1 Request = 9 Benefits. Like Ho'ohana, this is another way, directly tied in to the value alignment strategy of Managing with Aloha:

Say no to those automatic-pilot January resolutions you've gotten trapped in before, and choose your 2008 values instead.

We all have values, a whole bunch of them. However the whole list of our individually-held values is not always in play.

• You choose your passion-critical ones individually with Ho'ohana.
• In the workplace, great managers help their teams choose their mission-critical values within strategic planning.

In my coaching, I have a list of 42 different values I use to narrow down a person's hot buttons (their passion-criticals), and to begin our conversations about how different ones will come into play for them in different situations. The January tradition we coach with is a tweak on that exercise. We narrow those same 42 down to four and only four values that will be our focus for the year to come. In practical, operational terms, they are quarter-intense (2nd Qtr, 3rd Qtr, 4th Qtr, hit the ground running with next year's 1st Qtr), but all four values are kept front and center to our attentions the entire year through. As the year proceeds, they help focus us on the essentials of our strategic initiatives (whether for the company's mission or for our training programs), and they flavor the intensity of our behavior in a very intentional way.

That is the core belief of Managing with Aloha: Values drive behavior. So get the behaviors you want by keeping the values you revere front and center at all times.

7. You will best get things done through others by incorporating the values you share with them, values that embrace collaboration, and values that also are fundamental good practices … and Aloha is the most universally held value of them all.

~ from The Core 21 Beliefs of Managing with Aloha

I'll give you an example using my own company, Say Leadership Coaching and Ho'ohana Publishing. These are the four values we have chosen for 2008, with a little explanation for each. I'll start with a 5th which is my carry-over from 2007 to help you see how it has already affected what gets written here! (and the one we've chosen for our first quarter will not be a surprise to you):

1. October - December 2007:
   Ho'omau (persistence and perseverance), specifically with our Ma'alahi (less is more) intentions. Continue with the right things: Those that are conducive to our 'Imi ola, (best possible life) and to the essentials and creativity we want to nurture [defining essentials and creativity drivers was our 2007 focus at SLC/HP].
2. January - March 2008:
   Pono, for a newly designed Rightness and Balance as a solo entrepreneur. My we's will steadily become I's. As I had shared with my SLC newsletter subscribers this past summer, I am transitioning our 'Ohana in Business where every single person becomes a solo entrepreneur, and April 1 is the transition date where everyone is officially on their own. Pono will continue to be my year-long self-reckoning, where I can continually ask myself, "Is this action Pono for me, and is my new business model Pono for my customers and all other stakeholders?"
3. April - June 2008:
   Kākou naturally flows from this, for there ARE other stakeholders to every business, even a so-called "solo" one. I know I will need to work on all my communications (in person, by voice, digital, web presence etc.) in doing my transitions to outsourcing and partnerships which I may not presently have. (Joanna, these are the partnerships I was referring to.) Take note that I have already switched to those I's here, however we did come up with these together, so we can keep our paths aligned, being there for each other as we all go through the same thing, just with a different relationship.
4. July - September 2008:
   Alaka'i, will maintain my focus on leadership. This is something I know I need to do for the continued health and vitality of the Managing with Aloha movement, for our Ho'ohana Community (you are important to me!) and so I can hopefully complete my second book by year-end (The realist in me knows the book will still be my big stretch!)
5. October - December 2008:
   Nānā i ke kumu is authenticity and truth, and by this time I know I will have to look to my source in reflecting back on how I'm doing before I look forward to 2009.

At this point, other Hawaiian words you may recognize as MWA values get woven into my statements because they've been carried over as our language of intention (like 'Imi ola did). I will continue to have 12 values for MWAC - one for each month, but you can expect they will align in some way so I keep my focus squarely leveled on my ho'ohana intentions. For SLC/HP and my personal ho'ohana (I don't separate them), those are the 2008 mission-critical 4 for me: Pono, Kākou, Alaka'i and Nānā i ke kumu.

This is where values simply blow the lid off the boxy emptiness of New Years Resolutions: When you tap into your personal, innately held values, you can trust in them, therefore trusting in yourself and your unbelievable capacity. Your values reveal the all of you, and the all of your aloha spirit.

What will be your values in focus for 2008?

Be brave! Share just one or all four here with us, whether in Hawaiian, English, or another language - our values are universal. You might find that you entice me to write about your value in the coming months, or you might find a partner here in our Ho'ohana Community to buddy-up with in some collaborative peer to peer coaching. After all, that is aloha.
~ Rosa

Another Kākou Message: Interpreting GEMO

Have you decided what your next Kākou message will be yet?

David Zinger of our Ho‘ohana Community has written about a mantra that is one of his current favorites; he calls it GEMO:

GEMO gets things done. I have relied on the statement "good enough, move on" to avoid dithering and to set a very high level of accomplishment this month.

He further explains on Slacker Manager:

GEMO is an acronym for Good Enough, Move On. It helps avoid perfectionism, dithering, delays, and other productivity traps and snarls.

Here is how you practice it. You work at something, you begin to run out of steam or you know more needs to be done but there are other projects and things that need to be done so you say, GEMO. You move on and you know you can come back to it and improve it later.

This is a key phrase for me: “so you say, GEMO.” Saying it, and having all in earshot understand it, creates Language of Intention.

Kākou messages create conversation

Now here is the really good part. Just as David demonstrates for us, creating Kākou messages is fun: They bring an inspired lift to work. At their very least, they focus attention and the inquisitiveness of others who want to be in the know when a new phrase or acronym like GEMO starts cropping up. The really good part?

I also call your attention to a comment David’s article drew from Dean Fuhrman; Dean talks about how using this GEMO principle became the catalyst for much conversation within his work team about how they define excellence, and when it is even reasonable to expect it:

“GEMO is a good principle because it can cut through the futzing around with stuff that is unnecessary but there ought to be some discussion about what the performance standard (or expectations) should be ... The unarticulated, but generally understood principle underlying this whole discussion [had by his team] was this: we must do everything we do exceptionally well, very precisely lest we fall off our game and spiral down into the void.

Two things about this unarticulated principle: (1) everyone applies the standard in a different way because it is never really talked about openly and as a result the standard is applied person by person, even by the principle’s most ardent supporters and (2) it is impossible in today’s very fast moving world to achieve this standard even if it were well defined and understood … there is too much to be that precise about.”

Kākou messages are normally short, and they are catalysts, they are not entire speeches. The longer they take to say by one person, the more they become preaching and soap-boxing. A great Kākou message allows the leader to be quiet quickly, listening for those opportunities to be mined from when others start doing the talking.

Mahalo Ikaika, this was perfect for our value study this month!

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Just joining the conversation? The links I have offered above connect this post to these earlier articles of Kākou study: October 2007: Kākou. Communicating with the Language of We

• On Kākou messages, with a Starbucks example: We are bronco bull riders. We hang tough.

• On attention focus: Kākou is the value of Communication: We all want to be In The Know.

• On the skill of listening in conversations: Are you a Conversation Killer without realizing you are? Three Tips to help. This has proved to be the most popular article here on MWAC this month so far.

We are bronco bull riders. We hang tough.

Give me a forum for a speech these days, and without a doubt I will at some point talk about the importance of your “language of intention.” Our MWAC value studies these two past months have truly put me squarely in a Lōkahi and Kākou frame of mind, and these values naturally color my presentations. Today I was asked,

“What are Kākou messages? Gimme an example.”

Kākou messages are “We” messages. If you are the leader of a business, when do you want to say “we” and talk about your “we” to get an effective message across?

Do you want to say that “We are innovators, movers and shakers.”
Or that “We are compassionate care givers.”
Or that “We are the customer service people who will make things happen for you.”
Or perhaps that “We are a storm’s fury waiting to happen!”

When do you want to say “We” just for those you consider to be part of your ‘Ohana in Business, appealing to their camaraderie, their sense of team, their convictions? Better yet, when do you pray that they will say “We?”

“We value each other.”
“We don’t take shortcuts, and we get the job done.”
“We always go for extraordinary. Always.”
“We do what others only think about and dream about.”

We pride shines brilliantly. And most times, the less lofty and presumptuous the better. Most times grammar and sentence structure don’t matter. Words don’t have to be pretty nor phrases politically correct to mean the most to the people who need them to mean something to them.

For instance, people in our Ho‘ohana Community have been known to say they are spirit-spillers, or toot-sweetly-ers.

Here is a great example of a Kākou message about a business you have likely heard of. These are the very first two paragraphs of the foreword written for author Joseph A. Michelli in his book about The Starbucks Experience, 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary. It’s written by Jim Alling, President, Starbucks U.S. Business.

“We are litter-picker-uppers. We are green-apron-clad seekers of the book that you might have left on one of the tables in our coffeehouse. We are the folks who smile across the counter at you every morning as you ask for your double-tall-nonfat-mocha- with-a-little-vanilla-at-the-bottom- you-know-my-regular-drink. We’re Starbucks partners (commonly known to the world as employees).”

“I often start stories about our company and culture with a description of us as the litter-picker-upper type of people. We just naturally stoop down to pick up that gum wrapper or soda can on the sidewalk as we’re talking to you about how the kids are doing and what crazy weather we’re having. It’s not a magic formula for hiring or business success; it’s just who we are.”

Kākou messages are those “We” messages that tell us who you are, and who you are proud to be.

Do you wonder what your “we”-people would say?

Try this: Next time you have a staff meeting, read the above two paragraphs by Jim Alling to your own team of “we”-people. Then go around the room, and ask everyone to share their own “We” sentence, one at a time. What you all come up with may be pretty enlightening, and I’ll betcha anything it will also be pretty cool.