Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

The Biggest Sin in Business Today

A Preface for Talking Story:
Right upfront, this post is a bit longer than most (my rants turned into stories usually turn out that way.) However I think this is important, and I hope you will take the time to read this, and choose it as one of those posts you copy and share with your staff in your next huddle: This concerns them too. Get their help.

Planning ahead:
Today’s post presents a problem, and my follow-up post Thursday will present what I feel to be a big part of the solution we can collaborate on.

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We interrupt our normal programming of Tuesdays’ leadership topics to talk about Ho‘okipa: Aloha inspired customer service. But then again, everything is about leadership —or the tragic absence of it.

I need your help

I recently set a goal to write about exceptional customer service in our Hawai‘i nei, for we are the land of Aloha, right? I love spreading the good word about how our values play out every day the way they do. So I went in search of a new story I could share with you and also build a presentation around (my Ho‘okipa class schedule resumes in September), one which would inspire and motivate us anew as we Ho‘ohana together.

Unfortunately I failed. In fact, I ended up with a rant I had to sleep on and tone down. I hate when my writing slips into any negativity at all, however I also seek to write about what’s current and about the way things are; I have learned that it’s best to tell the truth, even when it is less than pleasant. So I need your help in creating a new truth I can write about.

Here’s the story the way it played out.

It’s not because of the recession

Last week was one of assorted errand-running for me; it happened to be one of those times I could batch the things I had to get done into workdays which were scheduled close to home. So I lined up those appointments which fall into the category I’ve come to call, “the business of life” —servicing my car, going to the dentist, picking up a printer I’d taken in to repair; those sorts of things. I was sure I would have lots of opportunities to work on my Ho‘okipa writing goal.

The businesses I happened to visit would all qualify as those who are more recession-proof than most; competitive pricing and discretionary patronage isn’t really part of the picture. Consider the dentist: Skipping your semi-annual appointment with the hygienist can really come back to haunt you. When you (the customer) seek out these basic-need, business of life companies, you just need them, period, and you’re counting on them performing well for you. Chances are you’ll need them again one day in the future, and so you have this vested interest in them; you truly are pulling for them, wanting them to succeed and do well, remaining in business for the long haul. You know they support you, and you are willing to support them.

Customers want to feel smart

A good part of this wanting them to do well, is that you ARE going to pay for their products and services because you do need them; due to different variables, you feel that your choices are limited. So you want to pat yourself on the back for being an intelligent, rational and choosy consumer, making a smart choice even if reality bites and you don’t really have that much of a choice at all.

Sometimes you’ll feel this way on O‘ahu, but when you live on a neighbor island “slim-pickings” can be quite the understatement, and you learn to live with scarcity and the so-called “price of paradise” at the extreme ends of the scale. When I took my run yesterday morning they were changing the price at my neighborhood gas station to $3.27 for regular unleaded – and the cars were patiently lined up, waiting their turn to obligingly swipe in their plastic charge cards for a full tank.

Sadly, the businesses I visited over the last week were a bitter disappointment. They made me feel like a dummy customer and a victim of their complacency – pure yuck.

I didn’t have much choice with certain things – for instance, where I live, my spare tire had to make a 45-mile drive for me to get a new one from the only place which had it in stock (which doesn’t necessarily mean the new tire would match my other ones; it doesn’t). I waited over an hour past the time they committed to having it done, two hours altogether for a 15-minute tire change, and then just as I gratefully approached my ‘finished’ car to leave, I noticed that the tire pressure was so off balance the car looked visibly crooked.

The mechanic didn’t disagree when I pointed it out to him and asked him to recalibrate the tire pressure for all four tires; he did so. However I felt so deflated and disappointed; how dare they make me feel like a fool for choosing them? How dare they make me feel grateful to finally leave them and their stifling hot waiting room, where no one bothered to let me know the job would take longer? How could I be so foolishly accepting of a new tire which cost me $131.73 (yep, one tire) and so much aggravation, a price tag I paid without a second thought or complaint? How dare they make me now feel that it wasn’t a good choice to have been there at all, and I was the one who was wrong, dumb enough not to chance driving another twenty miles on my spare tire to give my business to someone else?

Is there a pulse here?

This is just one example of what I think of as the biggest sin committed in business today: complete mediocrity. By the time the week was over I’d collected a few more unfortunate stories which gave me a very severe case of Ho‘okipa withdrawal. I was craving some exceptional service somewhere, or even uneventful service, but from lively and engaged people! My expectations were getting so low, that surely the warmth of Aloha alone would trump product and service quality, wouldn’t it?

I am sure that no one working at the businesses I visited wanted to do a bad job, or deliberately set out to get me (believe me, I know that being a nice customer works much better than being a complaining one).

No one intentionally lied to me, and no one was rude to me. They did something worse: Either they ignored me or took me for granted.

No one abused me or flagrantly ripped me off (I don’t think… please let my ignorance be bliss, and don’t tell me what you paid for the tire you last bought for what is one of the most common cars found on our roads today).

It seemed that no one had enough energy to intentionally be awful; they just kinda slumped their way into a downslide, and then they stayed there.

No one seemed to have a pulse. Everyone was just so blah and uninspired. So going through the motions unremarkable. In fact, they weren’t even passably good. They skipped steps and didn’t even notice that they did.

The biggest sin in business is mediocrity

Customers today expect more, even if you are the only game in town. If anything, we the customers who feel forced to patronize you for basic needs feel that you’ve been assured of our continuing business, and thus are able to do better – you’re the one with a palpable revenue stream right now! We can clearly see your veins; an example is the monthly bill we get for your ‘utility,’ but your pulse with not taking us for granted is getting alarmingly weak and hard to find.

I didn’t wait two hours for that new tire because they had too little business, but because they had too much business and couldn’t keep up. And it wasn’t an unexpected jump in business – they’re always like that. The only customers who actually wait in their establishment are those like me who live the coastline drive away. When they got behind, they didn’t seem to care; when a customer sitting in your waiting room for hours doesn’t make you or your staff uncomfortable, something is very, very wrong.

I don’t blame any of this on the recession.
I blame it on a lack of energy, the absence of imagination, and the death of creativity and vitality that results from poor leadership and poor management.

Your employees and partners blame it on you too, even if they are the ones doing a rotten job or uninspired and mediocre work. You’re not around or engaged enough as their leader, managing and leading enough to improve things. You are settling for less than is possible, no matter how horrible the economy might get – attentive energy isn’t totally dependent on your bank account. There is always something to be improved and reinvigorated; there is always someone to be coached into achieving their full potential.

Your customers blame it on you too. As is the local way, they will generally be very forgiving of your employees – I was, and I’m a coach who has a very hard time keeping her mouth shut when I’ve got a living laboratory right before my eyes! Customers will blame anything hinting of monopoly behavior, an arrogant resting on laurels, or a recession cop-out attitude on you the owner, you the boss, you the manager. They will blame it on your poor leadership and management, and in my opinion, they’re right, for you’re better than that.

If you are committing the sin of mediocrity, allowing energy to drain out of your company, your business will die. Your customers may not have a choice now, but the day they do, it will be all over for you.

If you have customers right now, dazzle them

Please: Be Alaka‘i great. [From the archives: Can you define your Leadership Greatness?] Help your employees and every one of your business partners be great every single day, and with every single customer. Banish mediocrity by proactively choosing to lead and manage exceptionally well.

It is not that difficult knowing how to begin: Look at your business the way a customer does. Start where you can visibly see you need an infusion of fresh energy. We will talk more about this in my next posting on Thursday.

Turn your customers into raving fans who feel smugly smart for choosing you and giving you their money. When you do that, this negative, “oh woe is me” recessionary thinking will end for all of us. The raving fans you want talking about you (and writing about you) are those customers who feel savvy and in-the-know brilliant that they chose you: When someone recommends you to their family and their friends, the quality of their opinion is on the line, and they know it.

I am not giving up on my goal.

No way. If anything, I am more determined than ever to talk about Aloha-inspired Ho‘okipa customer service.

Has mediocrity been banished from your business? If you think your workplace has service levels which will dazzle me, please write and let me know about you.

And don’t waste your time telling me about your product features: Even a great product never reaches true excellence without a human service component attached to it.

On the other hand, if you are Aloha and Ho‘okipa exceptional, our Say “Alaka‘i” readers deserve to know about you, and I want to help them choose you and give you the patronage which will help you thrive.

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

Photo credit: Hawaiian Time Hours by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

• Aloha Training? Make it all personal
• And in Aloha our government officials shall lead us
• Be a Deskless Manager: Ho‘o!
• Set your price, charge it, and stand behind it
• Lead the Slow Charge
• Alaka‘i Managers Coach, and they Facilitate
• We’re supposed to be good at being ‘local’
• If you want to know, ask!

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~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
The Biggest Sin in Business Today

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Be a Deskless Manager: Ho‘o!

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i” April 2009 ~
Be a Deskless Manager: Ho‘o!

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My business has not quite reached that five-year mark, yet so much has changed since I was last in corporate life, one of many managers in a large organizational culture. I will often think about what I would do differently today if I still had any of my old managerial jobs. In short, a lot. I think – no, I am sure – I would do a lot differently.

Technology offers up a readily apparent reason, but the biggest one is my sequential and consequential learning. We learn, flex, and adapt.

However when I visit today’s workplaces, I am often quite surprised at how little things actually have changed for many managers, especially those who have worked in certain companies or industries for a long time. They’ve been cocooned, often in rather incestuously narrow and shallow ways. They’ve plugged away day in and day out while switched on automatic pilot, doing a whole host of things the way they have always done them. There hasn’t been any seismic shift big enough to shake them loose from their habits.

For me, the switch to self-employment was a significant catalyst, a crucible, and now, I’m finding that the current economic recession is shaping up to be another one. Our habits change dramatically in crucible moments: The shift which occurs all around us will cause us to shake ourselves out of a lot of different assumptions we’d been cocooning ourselves within. We try new things that we might never have tried before, and that’s a good thing. We learn, and we grow.

Yet when I see others who are stagnant, and who haven’t grown, I do wonder if we’ve gotten conditioned over the past few years in our reactivity: We’ve had big things happen in our lifetimes, and we’ve gotten steely in our resistance and resilience. We are less move-able.

I think this recession is big, but is it big enough? Is it as big in our consciousness as it should be, or as it could be? Are we allowing it to usher in the changes we should open our arms wider to? Are we allowing enough movement?

Is this recession seismic enough for you?

If you are an Alaka‘i manager or leader, the answer should be, “Yes, I am making sure that it is. I am moving.”

My favorite Hawaiian coaching word is a very short one: Ho‘o. We hear it more as a prefix to other Hawaiian words, as it turns nouns into verbs. By itself, ho‘o means to make something happen. Ho‘ohana: Work on purpose, and with intention. Ho‘ohanohano: Bring dignity and respect to your actions. Ho‘okipa: Give unconditional hospitality, and serve. Ho‘oponopono: Make things right, bring them to balance.

Well managers, I’m thinking we need to Ho‘o this recession: If you aren’t deliberately welcoming it as a shift which can pave the way to intentional change for you, why not?

Sure, this recessionary economy is painful in a lot of different ways, but are you optimizing it? Are you capitalizing on all the silver linings which are appearing? Are you discarding old habits now, because they are being revealed, and because you finally can do so?

Ho‘o! Move it! Make something happen that otherwise might not change!

Let’s see… what very practical example can I give you… oooh, I know!

Managers, get rid of your desk

In this day and age of the digitally savvy workplace, do you really need one?

And just imagine: What kind of domino effect would it create with your work, and your working style, if you no longer had a desk? How many conversations would you have with people instead of with paper?

If any of my old bosses read this, they will laugh out loud, for I used to be one of those managers who had quite the command center designed into my office. Space was always at a premium, and I learned how to do without an office (and an office door), but not without a desk or workstation of some kind: It was my landing pad, my perch, my return to ground zero. It was my sacred place for just me. And yet… not good.

It wasn’t good then (yes, I do hear those bosses laughing at me…) and it isn’t good now. The things we managers really need happening in the work we do will not happen at our desks. I know it, you know it. We managers are supposed to be with our teams, not with our desks.

So get rid of it. I haven’t had a desk since I left the Hualalai Resort in 2003, and in that time I’ve written a book, thousands of blog posts and freelance articles, I’ve created three different business entities and more than a dozen websites, and I’ve coached hundreds of managers in the same ways I encourage you to coach those who are on your team.

I will admit to you that I have tried to have a desk and an office, but my best work has gotten done when I didn’t, and so I gave up with my time-wasting tweaking trying to make them work. My ‘desk’ today is my laptop and my cell phone, with the convenience of any table which happens to be nearby and available. I don’t even have an iPhone or blackberry; I don’t care for gadgets and I don’t need them

“The ‘paperless office’? It’ll never happen in my lifetime.
The ‘deskless office’? Give me a year.”
—Robin Sharma, CEO of Sharma Leadership International

And I’ll bet you don’t need a desk either. A‘ole: Do without it.
I once had the same objections you might have right now. Going desk-less is one of those things you just have to try.

Brave enough to try it? You will be amazed at what happens. Ho‘ohana: Make better work happen because you are within your relationships instead of with a piece of furniture.

If the very suggestion is traumatic for you, you needn’t purge your desk right away and cart it out to the curb just yet. Try it for a couple of weeks as a pilot program: Just walk away from it and let it be without you too. Don’t walk back other than to retrieve whatever you might find you’ve left there and still need, but don’t sit there – not at all. Not even during your so-called non-working hours.

Be Alaka‘i. Lead in the effort, and get the other managers where you work to follow your initiative and good example. Do this together as a team.

Oh, this could be so much fun for you! Let me know how it goes, would you?

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share? Comment here, or via the tweet-conversation we have on Twitter @sayalakai.

Photo credits: “You Need to Buy Low and Sell High, Stanley!” and “I Believe You Have My Red Swingline Stapler” both by foundphotoslj on Flickr

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
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You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i” April 2009 ~
You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!

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Cryptic Graffiti by Rosa Say

We last spoke about when training sessions work and when they don’t. I ended “When Made to Stick Will” with three questions you could talk story about, either here with me and the rest of the Say “Alaka‘i” community, or in your own workplace. Two of those questions had the word ‘habit’ in them:

• What simple practices can help you make something stick in your habit-building?
• If your manager offered to give you some help in grooming a new habit within your organizational culture, would you know what to ask for?

I have attended dozens of workshops over the years, and when I narrow down their take-aways to those impact-full bits which have truly stayed with me, a now-yellowed handout is the first thing which pops into very clear focus in my mind’s eye. Yes, even more than all the handouts I give people for Managing with Aloha.

I make sure this lesson is a part of every single class I do which specifically targets improving workplace productivity. If the lesson resonates with my students —and it always does— and if they choose to proactively believe in its magic, they will make it work in their favor. Everything else we set our sights on achieving will become so much easier.

It’s a riddle I received when getting my certification as a 7 Habits trainer with the Stephen R. Covey Leadership Center back in 1995:

Who do you suppose this is?

“I am your constant companion.
I will push you forward to success or I will drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
80% of what you do, you might as well hand over to me and I will do it promptly and I will do it correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me what you’d like to have done, and after a couple of lessons, I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of all great people.

Alas, I am the servant of all failures as well.
All who are great, I have made great.
All who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine; but I do work with the precision of a machine and the intellect of a human.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I’ll lay the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you!”

“Who am I?”

Postscript: I would love to give credit where credit is due for this, but it was on a plain white sheet of paper to keep us guessing until the great reveal of the answer. I am not sure if it came from Covey (not then Franklin-Covey), The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, where I was employed at the time, or Julie, the very smart Covey coach who gave it to me.

The answer, as you can more easily guess from the framing of my posting today, is “I am your habits.”

Habits are powerful magic. Problem is that we tend to mostly think about bad ones – like smoking, and biting our fingernails, or twirling our hair – and not about the fact that there are exceptionally good ones too. Some are simple, but they make a profound difference in our lives, like biting your lip each time you are tempted to blurt out a negative statement, so you can catch yourself and say something more encouraging or nothing at all.

The best productivity tip I can give you, is to proactively create good habits that put you on automatic pilot in a good way, in an advantageous way. For instance…

• Take just two full minutes to stand at the side of your bed and stretch every morning before you head off toward the bathroom to brush your teeth – do it consciously for the next two weeks, and you will find you do it from now on. Stretching your muscles to wake up every limb in your body and gain more energy for the day will become the automatic pilot of how you wake up. You will be more alert.

• Simply put your blackberry or iPhone down on a surface in front of you every time someone speaks to you (your pocket or on your lap works too), and you will focus on them, listen better, and never be thought of as a rude crackberry addict again. More on this one here: Send that Blackberry to Solitary Confinement.

• Choose a morning or afternoon where a Weekly Review is done with your calendar as sacred, non-negotiable planning time, and you will never miss an important appointment or trace date again. You will begin to make time for all those nagging projects that never get scheduled, and you’ll begin to say “no” to the clutter and procrastination which has now become so visible week after week.

As we wind up this ‘taxing’ week of April, I encourage you to read over this Habit Riddle one more time. Take inventory of your habits, and choose to create some good ones which can replace the not-so-good ones.

Better yet, enroll someone else in your goals and ask them to coach you. Scroll back up to those two questions at the top and get a good friend or team member to partner up with you in answering them; you may find that you both want to work on the same thing.

Then, let’s talk story! Let me know how it goes, will you?

• Which of your own personal habits are the ones which ‘push you forward to success’ and which ones ‘drag you down to failure’?
• Which of your own personal habits are you ‘firm’ with, and which do you ‘go easy on’?

Any thoughts to share? Comment here, or via the tweet-conversation we have on Twitter @sayalakai.

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From the Talking Story Archives: We recently talked about another habit here, one connected to reading and learning which is sequential and consequential... remember?

• Has ALAWB09 got you into the RTTS Habit yet?

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.

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When Made to Stick Will

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i” April 2009 ~
When Made to Stick Will

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Gooey to the Nth Power
on Flickr by adwriter

Chip & Dan Heath wrote a best selling book called Made to Stick in which they wrote about “why some ideas survive and others die.”

Their book set forth the theory that a person with a great idea could get it to stick in others’ minds – with stickiness defined as transforming the way people think and act – if the idea had six key qualities:

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotion
6. Story

Here is a shorthand explanation of the Made to Stick checklist done by Brand Autopsy (thus from a marketer’s perspective) if you would like to know a bit more about each one of those six qualities: Sticking with Made to Stick

You can read a book excerpt at the authors’ website. They have a great blog too.

Good stuff, and Made to Stick is an enjoyable read, a book I highly recommend as great ‘language of intention’ learning in your Say “Alaka‘i” library. Yet here’s the thing:

You can have ideas which fit the bill in all six ways and they can still die, buried in the land of “it was fascinating, but it never really gained a foothold here. We didn’t use it.”

The book the Heath brothers wrote is about how you communicate a great idea in a very compelling way, but an ultra sticky idea communicated exceptionally well takes you only halfway there – if even that far. You still have to implement it in a manner which will get you to claim that idea as your own, making it completely practical and useful to you.

To go the distance with great ideas, it’s not about the idea or even about the person communicating it. It’s about the people who need or want to do the transforming.

Let’s use training as an example, training on some new process that will help you say, increase productivity in your business. The idea can be wildly exciting, and it can be simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and with a compelling story you can’t wait to build on. Better yet, it can be dirt cheap or completely free, and you can have all the resources you need to get it done immediately at your fingertips. You can already have the skill and the knowledge you need to implement it, and do it immediately. There are two more things you will need as mission critical to your successful adoption of the idea:

1. Individuals ready, able, and willing to groom a new habit for themselves which brings the idea into their lives every single day.
2. An organizational culture which creates the atmosphere of positive expectancy when change is introduced, and in which grooming that new habit is much easier than not grooming it. In fact, there are definite consequences when follow-up doesn’t happen.

If those two things are not in place, don’t bother with the training until they are.

When business owners hire me to give a workshop or deliver a keynote, the bold ones will ask, “What is it you do differently so that this is not another flavor of the month training for my people?”

My response is always the same, and often they don’t like it very much, but it’s one of those situations where the truth can hurt. I will respond saying, “It’s not about me, or about Managing with Aloha. I’m a pretty energetic speaker, and I can sell it in a way that might knock your socks off, but do you have the ‘purchasing power’ to buy it? Will your people immediately follow-up, and will you take final responsibility for helping them do so?”

The good news is that this has become one of my silver linings in our current recession. When people can still invest in training delivered by someone outside their firm for the advantages that will deliver, they are willing to work harder at being my partner and making change happen. They are more impatient for results, and they are no longer willing to sit back with arms folded, waiting for me to dazzle them, and expecting me to ‘fix’ their people.

This is a silver lining which is making my work much more enjoyable and rewarding. ‘Made to stick’ will stick when you go the distance as an Alaka‘i manager and leader. Stickiness is not about me or any other hired gun or mesmerizing guru. It’s about you and your organizational culture, and everyone else within it.

Let’s talk story:

• What simple practices can help you make something stick in your habit-building?
• What was the most recent training you attended? Did it stick with you or not, and do you know why?
• If your manager offered to give you some help in grooming a new habit within your organizational culture, would you know what to ask for?

Comment here, or via the tweet-conversation we have on Twitter @sayalakai.

More reading from the Say “Alaka‘i” archives: These links are all contained within Talking Story.

• Who says you can’t do that? (April 2nd)
• How do you Learn? Really, how? (March 26th)
• How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture (March 15th)
• Communication is our Killer App (March 5th)
• Desire Always Precedes Change… and the 10 Steps to an Organizational Culture of Change Agents (January 11th)

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For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
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Decision Making: How do you do it?

I am not asking this question as the preface to a definitive how-to blog posting, but to you individually and directly:

Are you aware of the process you go through when you make your most important decisions, the ones which leave you with absolutely no regrets, no looking back?

For instance, is it a very solitary process for you, concentrating most deliberately on what you think, and what you then realize you believe, or is it important to you to bounce your gut instincts off others too? Do you write yourself through it (I do... my morning pages is a BIG part of my process) or do you talk your way through it? Do you bother documenting it at all, or visually mind-mapping it?

Photo Credit: "How'd we get here, again?"
by Margolove on Flickr

This is where I am coming from
(with the decision making question)

I have been focused on starting my 2009 by making a series of key decisions for me (this was one of them), for I believe that despite how painful this is for many of us, the current recession we are in has a significantly important silver lining, that of an open-mindedness to reinvention that is unprecedented in my lifetime (or my truly conscious of it lifetime).

And if you know me at all, you know that I love the prospects of creative reinvention. Most of the thought leaders I know, are open-minded contrarians.

Thus I have been systematically looking at all my systems and processes (because I am also organizationally obsessive), and challenging myself with pulling the rug out from under any automatic pilot I might be on. In my case I started with a time audit (a practice that Dwayne has coached me well in over the years I have known him), one synced with a comprehensive monthly review (just longer in scope than a Weekly Review) and then I listed all the tools I use (primarily with my productivity practices and digital software to start) so I could go down the list, and ask myself these questions in regard to every single thing listed:

As you read them, get a for-instance in your mind, such as the email program you use, the blogging platform or RSS reader you use, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, whatever... just choose something.)

1. Am I still diligently purposeful with using this tool for my original intention, or not?
2. If yes, is this still the best possible tool or process for me (with that still-worthy intention), or am I now aware of a new one which is better, and should replace it? What are the pros and cons of sticking with this versus switching?
3. If no, am I completely clear on how my purpose has changed? Do I need to newly explore my intentions so that my attention (and thus both my time sink and resulting results) matches up optimally?

You will recall our learning that the intention and attention match-up is very, very powerful! Ho‘ohana: Redefine the word “work” and make it yours.

For me, the key in this process is coming to clarity - working "wide awake" and conscious of how I work and making sure my why? is still valid, versus sleep-walking or going through the motions.

There is also the simple realization that our purposes do change as time goes by, and that’s okay - in fact, it probably is good: we’re learning and progressing. So... we should be sure we are not stuck in the automatic pilot of an old process that does not give us optimal results.

How can decision making help us feel?

So as I do this, fully realizing why my current decision-making process is filling me with such new energy, I want to stop for a moment and encourage you to do the same thing: Understand when you soar with making your key decisions.

It is a knowing about yourself, and how you do what you do, that is very valuable. It is valuable to you, to be fully aware of how you make your best decisions, because then you can always be sure to repeat your process. It fills you with confidence, and it is highly likely that it boosts your energy levels - it certainly does for me.

It is very valuable to the rest of us too, our knowing that you make sound decisions. This is a way that you can very easily serve us as your community of fellow human beings.

If you talk about this at work, with your team, or with your boss or peers, you can help them identify their best decision-making process too. I am sure you can imagine the win-win that could be.

Look for the gut-level results to know if your decision making process is working for you, or if you have to tweak it. You want the bold stuff in this list of bullets, not the italics:

• When you have arrived at your decision, do you feel confident, or are you still left with questions?
• When you have arrived at your decision, is it easy to tell others about it clearly, or are you still unsure how you would articulate it?
• Did you start to take some concrete actions moving you forward while still within your decision-making, or did you arrive at a decision still not sure where to start?
• If you had been documenting your process, did your excitement about the decision cause you to abandon your documentation in favor of just doing it, or are you still documenting diligently to be sure you didn't miss something?
• Do you feel newly energized even if it is a tough decision to take action with, or did your decision-making process leave you feeling tired and drained?

I would wager that 2009 will in some way present you with a major decision of some kind. I am no psychic, and I have no idea what that decision may turn out to be about for you, but 2009 has just shaped up to be that kind of crucible-for-many year (remember this Jim Collins quote from the other day?).

When you embark on that kind of crucible decision-making, pay attention to what your process is, realizing that there are three different parts to it: Your thinking/choosing process of decision making (which this talk-story is about), the decision itself, the execution of that decision which is more accurately called decision management.

If you have a decision making process you feel works very well for you, share more about it with us in the comments would you? Let’s learn from each other, so we all get better at it.

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Update: If you are reading this via RSS or an email subscription alert (mahalo for subscribing!) I do encourage you to click through to the blog for some great comments which have been added!

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Footnote 1: A bit more about this:
I believe that despite how painful this is for many of us, the current recession we are in has a significantly important silver lining, that of an open-mindedness to reinvention that is unprecedented in my lifetime (or my truly conscious of it lifetime).
A related posting is~
Leaders Don’t Wait for Any Cycle

Footnote 2: If you write to think like I do:
A related posting, also with links within it to others~
You know you love writing when you don’t have to keep it

Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch

Today I am reprinting Sunday’s Say “Alaka‘i” blog post in total here, for some variation of this conversation is coming up quite a bit currently. While it is directed toward job-hunting for managers who now find themselves out of work, it may apply most of all to those who still have their jobs, but are feeling nervous, seeing “the writing on the wall” and wondering when your number may be up too.

This economic recession we are in, sends out this message: No job is safe. To keep it, you have to deliver just one kind of result, and that’s financing your own paycheck with profits. At the very least, every manager should be educating themselves thoroughly about the state of their company’s financial health: Are they on as solid a footing as you think they are? Many companies are surprising us right now.

Here is a snippet of another article at The Honolulu Advertiser today: 2008 saw end to many big brands:

NEW YORK — Shoppers won't be picking up ornate lamps from the Bombay Co. in the coming year. Or investing with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. No flying to Hawai'i on Aloha Airlines or buying ultra-cheap tickets on Skybus, either.

All those names vanished in the past year, victims of the economy, the financial meltdown or other factors. Experts say 2009 could mark the end of even more well-known brands as the now yearlong recession puts more struggling companies on life support.

"I think 2009 is going to be a bloodbath," said Scott Testa, a marketing professor at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. "I think it's going to be very, very ugly."

Here’s today’s Say “Alaka‘i” article: Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch. My intention is NOT to bring you down this morning, but to help you see what you CAN do, and should be.
~ Rosa

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Preface: Welcome to Sunday Koa Kākou. Sunday is the day I answer questions you send to me. If you have a question connected to management and leadership, leave a comment here, or email me. 

From the Say “Alaka‘i” mailbox:

I was laid off recently, and while it was upsetting, I can’t say I was surprised, for it was obvious that the company couldn’t afford to keep me and the others who were let go (all of us managers). I’ve been looking for another job for about three months now and it’s been tough: I’ve just found an hourly position that will help me get most of my bills paid, but I want to get back into management and I’m going to keep looking. Any advice? The rejection has been grueling.

That sage advice of fulfill the biggest need is still the best advice I can give you.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone with the ability to hire you and keep paying you: What are they looking for, and why should they hire you, unless they are sure you’ll deliver what they need?

Fulfill the Biggest Need

There are two things business owners are focused on right now, and they go together:

a) Boosting cash flow quickly
b) Making customers deliriously happy

Said another way, cash is King and a paying customer’s loyalty is Queen.

To be blunt, these two things were not the priority for most managers before our current economic recession. Most managers were focused on making everyone else happy (employees, peers, the boss, vendors, suppliers and other partnerships). They were preoccupied with organizational systems and processes, most of which need to be reinvented right now, not maintained. Why should any business owner maintain something that isn’t working?

Business is, and has always been, about money and about the value add for a customer that results in market share (i.e. brand penetration). Those are not bad things, however this recession has made that truism blatantly real and completely unavoidable for every single person in a company – you can’t departmentalize them anymore as the responsibility of the sales and marketing people, or those in customer service who “directly touch the customer.”

Job-hunting is a waste of your time and your brainpower

If a management or leadership role is what you are looking for, there really is no such thing as ‘job hunting’ now... it’s like trying to go fishing in a desert. If you want someone to hire you, (or recast or promote you) when almost no one is hiring, you have to be a) more creative and b) much more proactive. You cannot apply for, and realistically hope to fill jobs that are old news and simply not there: You have to be the one who creates a new role, a highly necessary and desirable one, and then pitches it to the employer in the best position to hire you, and give you the opportunity to test your creation and earn your keep.

Go back and read that last sentence again: You have to author a job description for yourself. It must be one that showcases your best talents with cash generation and customer satisfaction in a company. You must propose it to a prospective employer BEFORE they hire you and pay you a dime. It’s the new resume you take to an interview.

And keep this in mind: They probably aren’t even scheduling any interviews. You have to call for an appointment when you’ve scoped out and chosen the company you want to work for, by saying something like this,

“I have a proposal I’d like to discuss with you. My proposal has two deliverables: Increased cash flow, and happy customers. I am a big fan of your product and services, and I have been one of your customers: I’m very interested in helping you succeed. Do you have some time this week to meet with me?”

The only one actually ‘interviewing’ is you

What I am suggesting you do takes work on your part, but it is creative work that will burst open far better possibilities for you. So make the entire process worth your time and effort. Do your homework on a company's values, mission and vision. Interview the company which deserves to hear your proposal. Think of them as your best-case scenario buyer of your idea, and a purchaser of you as a package deal of ready-to-hit-the-ground-running talent, skills, and knowledge.

Every savvy business owner knows that there is one thing better than buying a patent: Hiring the inventor.

Good luck to you! Pull this off, and you’ll discover there’s another huge bonus: From here on in, you’ll be working on management the way it should be done in the first place.

A bit of related reading: If you missed it, I wrote about the best role for managers in another Sunday Koa Kākou response just two weeks ago: Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace.

Go to the sub-heading within that article titled “How will you know if your managers are up to the challenge?”

Keep in mind that this describes the role someone with a calling for management eventually wants to be filling, however in today’s recession, you must work on the ‘King and Queen’ we talked about above first.

Financial Literacy Has Never Been More Timely

Have a meeting coming up and need to fill a hole in the agenda?

Bored with the normal fluff around the water cooler or when escaping to the coffee place down the street?

Thinking about turning the television off tonight in favor of some meaty discussions around the dinner table?

Bring up financial literacy in all its timely, hitting-your-pocket relevance. From Wall Street to fuel prices, from tax relief plans by presidential candidates to your 401k risk assessment, and in thinking about how many readily available greenbacks to have in your mattress over the coming winter, broaching the subject is easy.

I’m hoping you’re talking about it and not just watching from the sidelines, because if there is one bright side to the mess of our U.S. economy right now it is this: There is a ton of learning to be had. To not take advantage of this grand classroom now called Life in the U.S.A. wherever you may live and be in business is a lost opportunity.

Just read this, following an Anderson Cooper tweet-feed in Twitter:

Commentary: Blame boards of directors for financial mess

‘Blame’ is one of those words which grates on me, and in fact, I responded on Twitter,

@andersoncooper "blame" such a futile word. Perhaps "learn from" or even, "seek to be better than" those who have erred so dangerously.

However I largely agree with these assertions by author Nell Minnow:

“Failure this broad and deep takes a village, and regulators, lawyers, compensation consultants, auditors, executives, shareholders, and the press all played a part. But the people who are most responsible for the massive meltdowns of these institutions are the boards of directors.”

“Their sole responsibility is to act as fiduciaries for the shareholders in managing risk. They not only failed to perform this task but indeed, in their approval of outrageous pay plans with perverse incentives, they all but guaranteed the current disaster.”

“I am a capitalist. I love it when executives earn boatloads of money. But it infuriates me when they get it without earning it.”

Tiananmen on Flickr by ciro@tokyo

Let’s take it further:

Why shouldn’t scores more people be taking some small degree of responsibility with this?

It is my belief that a business model of any kind is healthiest when every single person who is a stakeholder in that business understands how that model works, and thus, when it doesn’t work. A business is healthier when red flags are at the ready in everyone’s pocket, and by the time they make it half-mast there is collaborative responsiveness as people work together to get those green flags up instead. Alternatives and solutions begin to take root everywhere as the seeds of new ideas and evolutionary innovation get sown. Business models —even ones that are working just fine, should not be fixed or stagnant; that’s called mediocrity, and resting on your laurels. Both are unacceptable.

In my career, I had learned the hard way that assuming the “guys in the office” or “people who get paid the big bucks” know what they are doing is a very dangerous assumption (Read more at Blind Faith is not part of Unconditional Aloha in an ‘Ohana in Business). They might, but why shouldn’t you know too, whatever your role in an organization?

Why shouldn’t you be more inquisitive, know how all the work that you and others do is connected, and how ultimately it keeps a business thriving in the most profitably healthy way?

There are far too many organizations where people don’t speak up often enough because they feel they cannot intelligently carry their part of the conversation. I HATE seeing that in play in workplace cultures, and it is my stance that managers are the ones responsible for brokering the conversations constantly. Great managers introduce the meaty topics of financial literacy consistently as practice, and they hand out those red flags the want at the ready in everyone’s pocket.

Business takes a whole village, and a highly conversational one. If you are not now having the conversations conducive to continually ramping up the level of financial literacy in your workplace, for goodness sake, start today.

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Take 5 with this Related Reading:

1. There’s Mellow Mālama Maintenance in Math (at MWA Coaching)
2. The Role of the Manager in Managing with Aloha: The case for a better way to work. (at MWA Coaching)
3. Book Review: The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive (here on Talking Story)
4. For the BEST 15 minutes in the workday, Huddle. Reinvent the concept of meeting.  (here on Talking Story)
5. Is Forever a good business strategy? (here on Talking Story)

Category page: Financial Literacy index.

Talk story with the Ho‘ohana Community:

1. Reflections on a Sinking Economy by Brad Shorr
2. How to Survive When Your Company's Ship Sinks  by Anita Bruzzese
3. Faith And The Bankrupt Leader by Chris Bailey

Too tired to have an opinion, too tired to care

…and so he will probably be too tired to vote.

Coaching Session

We were able to meet in person for his weekly coaching call, and chose the end of the day since a Friday afternoon worked best for us both this past week. Over the phone he had said, “You’ll give me a great excuse to get away and stay away, at least until the next morning.”

His coaching program with me is once every two weeks. One part MWA value-alignment workshop (designed for his team’s values), one part responsiveness coaching (RC) with whatever he feels he needs to work on (we use these 9 areas as his categories) alternating between the two each time we have a session. He writes the agenda for the RC session, and that’s what we were meeting for this time.

His list was short and we made quick work of it, ending with his action plan for the two weeks to come, and I said to him, “You have something else on your mind, don’t you.”

He looked at me like a kid just caught napping at his desk at school, and sheepishly said, “You know how it is right now Rosa, same old thing.”

I let that pass and chose to change the subject briefly, knowing that he would volunteer what was still bugging him when he felt ready. I asked, “Were you able to catch any of this week’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention? As someone who presents so often, it was like getting free sessions in a Speaking Mastery Class, delivered direct to my living room.”

His response was, “No, I missed it all. Honestly Rosa, I am too tired to work on having an informed opinion about it, and I’m just too tired to care. Not sure I’ll even bother voting come November.”

My heart sank, but I bit my tongue and let the quiet sit between us for a moment, and sure enough, he launched into what had really been on his mind. I’ll call him Ace as I explain.

An Ace in Hand

Ace is one of those who are the ‘fortunate’ to still have their jobs.

Since this past April, shortly after the news that Aloha Airlines was calling it quits, Ace has said goodbye to almost a fourth of his peers, managers and staff alike, as his company’s business plan was reengineered into survival mode and labor was trimmed. The ensuing months have not brought them improvements, just an ever-shrinking cash flow to make more adjustments for. [Victims of the Hawai‘i Downturn.]

Click here for larger image and commentary.

They were already running a tight ship, and so Ace went from playing a strategic hand of poker to thumbing through more than twice as many cards in what seems to be an endless game of war.

Ace’s hours have increased dramatically, and most of our coaching sessions in previous months to improve his productivity now seem like they never happened; he is bringing work home again. Essentially, Ace has gone from handling a manager’s job to filling in for the staff he lost, and doing any “management stuff” on his own time. There have been some allowances and shifts made in his company’s business plan, but they still fall far short of what is humanly reasonable on the labor front.

So Ace and I sat for another hour, throwing out that action plan we’d initially done and collaborating on a new one that would be more realistic for him.

Accepting apathy is NEVER a good solution

As far as I’m concerned, no one should be too tired to have an opinion, and too tired to care. Life is just too short for complacency or apathy and feelings of helplessness.

If you are in a situation like Ace, do NOT accept it. If you have to work extra hard anyway, work to change it.

I know it is more easily said than done, but damn it, you have to create your own destiny.

In this case ~ ~ ~ What Ace and I did was explore the depth of his circle of influence with the company business plan. As a manager, Ace needs to get back to playing offense, not defense, and get control of his hand back from the dealer. If you have to think ‘bigger than the job’ or ‘outside the box’ as one of the remaining ‘fortunate few,’ push the edges of that box upwards too, not just down. Voice your insider’s viewpoint. Work ON your company and not just trapped withIN it.

Flickr image: Aces by Auntie P.

On voting: Enjoyed reading this on CK's Blog today:
Left, right or center: Can we all agree how REMARKABLE this election truly is?

How Do Adults Grow?

I have long felt that the answer is connected to learning; stop learning and you stop growing. Our bodies may slow down their growth rate as far as outside appearances go, but that doesn’t mean we slow down on the inside, particularly in regard to how our brains work.

Learning is connected to thinking; and unlike our physical aging, that is a kind of growth that we cannot readily see, unless what we look for are the effects of it. What has changed, and has it gotten better?

This has turned out to be a very strong sub-theme for us in our study of Alaka‘i, the Hawaiian value of leadership, our value for the month of August over on Managing with Aloha Coaching. To look upon my more recent posts here you might think I have been too absorbed with photography and Flickr, but truth is that I have been absorbed with the discussions of self-leadership that have resulted with my managers as triggered by Alaka‘i.

What I assert within my Tuesday Essays this month centers around this definition of Self-Leadership:

“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?

There is a certain calling within the value of Alaka‘i...

“Leadership is about getting things done with others and through others, and as such, aspiring to leadership is not a goal or quality reserved for those with title, position or power. Conversely, when you have been one to demonstrate your leadership, people take notice you have it, and those promotions of title, position and power will find you.”
~ from Managing with Aloha

I would encourage you to check in with MWAC this month if you have not yet done so. This is where we are:

• 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

A Day for 8: Life is Like a Game You Cannot Lose

So, for goodness sake, play the hand you’ve been dealt!

Preface: This posting started off as a contribution to Robert Hruzek’s writing challenge, What I Learned From…Metaphors for Life: Is Life Really a Bowl Full of Cherries?

I write about strengths management an awful lot; it is a key concept of the Managing with Aloha sensibility for worthwhile work, and a natural for Robert’s theme. Then a newspaper headline caught my eye, and my draft took a slight turn in another direction that is not totally in keeping with the fun and humor of the submissions that the very funny Robert Hruzek normally inspires! So Robert, if this is a stretch, you need not include it in your forum, and I will understand.

And dear readers, for another posting that is less of a Rosa Rant, check out Life is a Bowl of Lychee over at Joyful Jubilant Learning.

Strengths versus Weaknesses

Our strengths are those talents we have been born with.
Our weaknesses are those talents that we were NOT born with.

Working on our weaknesses can be a Kūlia i ka nu‘u thing [the value of excellence] where we strive to improve, learn, and get better. However working on our strengths, and honing those stellar talents which we already have, is where the majority of our efforts should be focused.

That’s what I mean by playing the hand you’ve been dealt: Chances are your weaknesses are someone’s else’s strengths; the dealer gave them those cards, and they’re now out of play as far as your hand is concerned.

Play the Hand you’ve been Dealt!

Play the hand you’ve been dealt is one of those metaphors I now take to mean;

Be you; the strong, innately talented, and thus inherently confident YOU.
Live contentedly, nay--- excitedly with the gift of your strengths.

Capitalize on them.
Thrill to them.
Create your legacy with them.
Build them as you build your character, your values, your joy in everyday living.
Do so, and you will find that life is a winning proposition.

There is no one else like you on the face of this earth.
Show us what that looks like, sounds like, and feels like when we are in your company.

It really saddened me to see this headline in the newspaper the other day:

An online copy of the story is here.

I don’t want to hear all the put-downs, even when there are seemingly valid reasons for them. 2nd string, 40th string; I don’t buy ‘em, and I will debate you on those ‘seemingly valid’ reasons until I take my last breath.

Yes, I am a Hawai‘i girl who is proud of Colt Brennan’s U.H. Warrior history, but I can be objective and have shared other sides of his performances too. Something like this, where the put-downs are done by the guy’s own coach, and in public versus in private, are absolutely inexcusable. If I were this team owner, this coach would no longer be allowed to speak to the media, and chances are he would not be my head coach any longer. He would not be coaching at all. I may not know all the ins and outs of football, but I do know the difference between successful coaching and a disrespectful squashing of the victories of the people you are supposed to be mentoring and coaching.

I do know how little it takes to break someone’s spirit, and how irresponsible and just plain ignorant, arrogant, and mean it is when someone does so. As a business owner and coach, I also know how a lack of understanding with the people who are your “greatest asset” is going to sink your entire ROI-seeking enterprise, and make no doubt about it, professional football is a business. If your people do not have the spirit to be winners, you won’t be one either.

Are you a manager? Are you a coach?

Play the Hand you’ve been Dealt! Your cards take the form of your people’s talents.

Here is your best Gr8 Management 8 for commemorating today as the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year of the century we are defining. Before you can “pass go” however, take inventory of your beliefs, for you MUST believe your people have what it takes to succeed (trust me, they do.)

1. Discover what strengths each of the people you manage possess (it is not that hard; ask them, then ask them to show you by sharing them with you.)

2. Place people where they are called on to employ those strengths and capitalize on them (Jim Collins calls this putting the right people in the right seat on the right bus – another great metaphor!)

3. Give people authority to completely own their responsibilities (kuleana). Without full authority, you end up without fully-owned decision-making.

4. Expect self-management (managers can’t do their magic when they are baby-sitting).

5. Expect self-leadership (in this definition of it, you’ll get a team player AND creative, innovative leaders who are chosen by their peers).

6. Never settle for mediocrity; champion excellence in every single thing you do, and every idea you speak of so people rise to the occasion.

7. Lead, mentor and coach. Harness energy and drive action. Do with, not for.

8. Foster sequential and consequential learning so people continue to grow (and you will too.)

Bring this toolbox of 8 to your management practice, and life and work will be like a joyful game you simply cannot lose.

Believe in the good in people, and do your part to help them succeed. Be their champion and celebrate their victories, large and small, with the unqualified joy they are so hoping to see you express.

You know what? You will enjoy your own life that way so much more too.