Our Talking Story Recap for May

This month was Leialohalicious!

Our Ho‘ohana for this month was called May Day Gifts of Aloha, and by month’s end our wonderful Ho‘ohana Online Community had carried on our island tradition virtually, giving 21 more leis all over Blogsville. I had forgotten to count the very first one I received from Dwayne, I gave one to Bren as guest author for his Carnival, and Lisa surprised me with another yesterday, so we’re really up to 24 ” and counting I’m sure.

Let’s see”

We learned a new word this month, while participating in another online community: Have you heard of Chautauqua?

We had a very not-normal day, and we all discovered what a wonderful thing that could be.

Toward the middle of the month we got serious and did some in-depth work on strengths management and values, looking at the connections to Maslow’s Pyramid and his theories on our hierarchy of needs.

Then this came up:

“The reality of a strengths and values-based management practice like Managing with Aloha is that it requires you to focus on “higher-level thinking.” Doing that can be very frustrating when there is still too much lower-level “stuff” clogging up those thought channels you want to otherwise direct.”

That, along with some other things (which you’ll hear more about in June) moved me to finally give in and read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Hook, line, and sinker ”

Along the way we shared a story about employee dignity,
we dug in for more honesty with accidental commitments, and we took a peek into some reinvention work going on in Human Resources, all the more timely since Business Chic is Back!

I had a little rant about people needing to earn their keep, and answered a question about bullies at work and conflict resolution, and then we considered what it takes to be an executive.

Best of all this month we welcomed a new member to our Ho‘ohana Online Community: Dwayne Melancon of Genuine Curiosity. Dwayne has truly made his aloha known in our Ho‘ohana Community in a very short while, and he has such great things to share with us. If you have not seen it yet, his recent Tone at the top article is exceptional, and I really liked this one yesterday: Blogging the light fantastic. Mahalo nui for the learning you share with us Dwayne.

So which Talking Story posts were your favorites during the month of May? Let’s see if your choices matched up to everyone else’s: These were the top five posts this month in number of visits, however only the top two were written this month. The other three are oldies but goodies, still going strong.

Golden opportunities can look pretty dingy at times

This coaching story was about how managers should handle difficult conversations at work, and it seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people. Adrian helped send people this way for it too.

Hey boss, what do you want to know? – Part 1

This was a response I had written for an employee who emailed me about her opportunities to talk story with her boss; she’d asked what to talk about, and I gave her some suggestions.

The Daily Five Minutes.

I couldn’t be happier about this, for I have often said The Daily Five Minutes is the best tool I offer managers in Managing with Aloha. This post is the excerpt from my book. I really wish all blogging platforms had trackbacks, for the ones here are only a sampling of where we’ve been able to stimulate some conversation. 

Work World Myth #8: Managers should know how to do everything.

This April post keeps getting new visitors: even if you’ve seen it before you may want to check back for the new comment conversation there now.

An open letter to bloggers: Talking Story links.

I am so tempted to rewrite this one, at least the beginning of it. John, Dwayne, Jay and Robin kept the conversation going most recently.

As usual, tomorrow we’ll update the Best of Talking Story (this page, scroll down the left column) with how these fell into the top 5 year to date. Think they made the cut?

On June 1st we will have a new Ho‘ohana too; see you then!

Tags: Recaps. May Leis .