August 2004: On Learning ('Ike loa)

Our Current Month's Edition
Talking Story ... on Management
Talking Story ... on Leadership
'Ike Loa: this month's Learning Connections
August selections on our bookshelf
Learning Links we've recently found on the web
Learning Community

Our Current Month's Edition: On Learning ('Ike loa)

As July comes to a close and August shimmies in, what annual ritual do you think of? For me it's time to get ready for school, for the kids and for me. That's what August will always mean, even after my own children leave college behind them. I may have taken a complete summer break and done the couch potato thing, and still, August will rekindle this pilot light within me to start learning again; to seek some kind of new knowledge that will really get a good fire burning. I readily admit that my usual catalyst is all the back-to-school hoopla that retailers create-hey, why not give in to a good thing?

You see, first I go crazy at the school supply sales that kick into gear, only now they are "expense account bargains" and "proactive purchasing" in stocking up office supplies. Isn't it amazing what a brand new pen and slick portfolio will do for you? If post-its are on sale I'm really in heaven.

Second, my guaranteed fire-starter for learning: I grab a new book. No more magazines, beach reads or paperback summer romances: it's got to be a business hard-cover so I can write my aha!'s in the margins (with the new pen), one that will challenge me to think, and think hard. Sometimes it's even a book I've read before, for I'm always confident that I'll pick up on something I missed the first time around, or something I didn't miss but the timing was off, and it didn't leap out at me back then. But now? Now I'm primed and ready.

Third, I start looking for some venue in which I can physically be a student in a classroom again: this year I'm going to attend the 2004 Maui Writer's Conference on Labor Day weekend (go to www.mauiwriters.com if you're interested). I firmly believe that leaders and managers must be teachers and coaches, and to be most effective they must continually revisit the student experience for themselves. And you know what? Going to school because you want to, and not because you have to, is a whole lot of fun.

So in celebration of August, and this new website begging me for a bonfire, we are expanding Ho'ohana this month with fire-starters for your own learning. Summer's not completely over yet, so yes, you can grab a bag of marshmallows too ...

Back to Top

Talking Story ... on Management

"The manager's job is to make human strength effective and human weakness irrelevant."
-Peter F. Drucker, author, professor, and management consultant.

This has always been one of my favorite management quotes, and it sums up a core belief in the coaching we do at Say Leadership Coaching. In the next breath you will often hear us say that recruitment and selection is one of the most important things business people do-whether for employees, in networking partnerships, or in choosing suppliers and contractors. You select for the strengths you need to employ, being intellectually honest with yourself about the weaknesses you need to make irrelevant.

"Managers are supposed to create champions."
-what I say.

This was my aha! moment 64 pages into Free Prize Inside!, Seth Godin's magnificently irreverent new book. Here's what he says: "A champion is someone in an organization who makes something happen."

The way I see it, the champion can do so (make something happen that is), because they've got a great manager that celebrates their strengths by giving them the freedom to create, innovate, and churn out ideas, a manager who never gets in the way of what they do best: They've got a manager who gets their kicks by championing his or her champions.

Back to Top

Talking Story ... on Leadership

"The important part of being a leader is what goes on inside your own mind-what you do to yourself, not what you do to others."
-T. Boone Pickens, founder of Mesa Petroleum, largest oil and gas company in the US.

Leaders lead with their "big idea", with their vision. Where does this vision come from? What is the source of their big idea? As Pickens says, the source is inside their own minds. Often I think that great leaders are just more awake than the rest of us; they notice everything around them and take it all in. And then they listen to their own voice rise above the clutter: that non-audible voice inside their head miraculously is way louder than anything else they hear. You may hear a lot, but what is it that you key into and actually listen to?

Then there's an element you may initially think is pretty selfish; Once they hear it, leaders respond to their own voice first. It becomes a calling for them, a calling the rest of us recognize as their vision. The "selfishness" was actually fleeting in interest of a greater good, for in his great excitement the leader begins to inspire: he's going to sweep up the rest of us with him.

Back to Top

'Ike Loa: this month's Learning Connections

'Ike loa is the value of learning.
To know well. To seek knowledge and wisdom.
Seek knowledge, for new knowledge is the food for mind, heart and soul.
Learning inspires us, and with 'Ike loa we constantly give birth to new creative possibilities.

Back to Top

August selections on our bookshelf

Free Prize Inside! The Next BIG Marketing Idea, by Seth Godin, 2004, Penguin Books Ltd.
I've gotten hooked on Godin's books because I can almost hear him laughing at the world as I read them. Yet at the same time he's this great cheerleader encouraging us common folk to turn our world upside down and do things better-simply because we can. I love the faith he has in us at the very same time he pokes fun at us. And I want to believe he's right; it's liberating.

The Little Book of Business Wisdom, Rules of Success from more than 50 Business Legends, edited by Peter Krass, 2001, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The quotes I shared with you in Talking Story this month from Peter Drucker and T. Boone Pickens both came from this book. You'll find gems like the "Social Mission Statement" penned by the founders of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Chapters on each of the 50 business legends will take you less than five minutes to read; you can take them in like one-a-day vitamins that will energize you until your next dose-and then some. A great 50-day investment in yourself if there ever was one.

Back to Top

Learning Links we've recently found on the web

First, one on learning and teaching (grab some coffee first ... I'll bet taking this one link leads you to many others): Click Here. After I read this article on Scott Cook of Intuit, I printed it and made it the first few pages of the binder of stuff I carry around with me to read in down time: I knew I'd want to read it over and over again-and I have.

I am always on the hunt for good articles about customer service, and this one is a winner: Click Here. In our coaching we often separate management and leadership to help our clients focus on the incremental steps of getting the job done and done well. This article demonstrates how a leader communicated his vision and made it reality via great management.

Great leaders never rest on their laurels. Check this out: Click Here ... and you thought you knew all about Starbucks.

Back to Top

In Learning Community, you can be coach! This is the place to share great things you discover on the web about management and leadership with the entire Ho'ohana network. Send us an email with the link you've found, and tell us why you're recommending it. Hoohana@SayLeadershipCoaching.com

Back to Top

Sign Up here to become a monthly Ho'ohana subscriber.

Back to Top

Do you like this site? Send this page to a friend!

Visitors may use the information contained in this e-newsletter by placing the following credit line:
"This article is used with permission from Rosa Say's free monthly e-newsletter Ho'ohana available at www.sayleadershipcoaching.com"
This information cannot be used for resale in any manner.
Copyright © 2004, Ho'ohana Publishing.