My first title for this was, My Responsibility for Leadership and the Mālama of the Ho‘ohana Community but it was too long. However it is what I want to talk about.
I just read a conversation on the Never Work Alone Google Group with much interest and self-reflection. In short, an honest and forthright member is asking if the group should be declared dead. The initial energy that had accompanied the group’s founding, has dwindled from whitewater rapids to the trickle in a dry streambed which results from an occasional cloudburst. Others in the group are weighing in with their thoughts.
I couldn’t help but compare what is happening there, and in another online group community I am involved with (the founding leader has just given the rest of us notice that he’ll be stepping away soon), with our own Ho‘ohana Community, giving myself a good reality check on our overall health as a vibrant community. Ironically appropriate in these last two days of having Mālama, the value most widely translated to mean “to take care of” as our value of the month.
People will say there is no coincidence, and you need to pay attention when forces seem to align themselves, and I have so often found this to be true. This morning, while on my morning run, when thoughts so often come to clarity for me, I was thinking about momentum and how we ho‘omau in organizations, more in regard to the ho‘omau definition of continuity deeper than pure persistence, and how we cause the good in our lives to last. I have two clients in particular who are absolutely on fire with their Managing with Aloha learning and internal management campaigns, and I near-obsessively think about how I can help them keep their momentum going. Both have chosen KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u as the overall theme of their strategic initiatives.
In one, we have gotten feedback that “we haven’t had this much involvement, energy, and hope for our future with this company in the last decade.”
In the other, that “it is amazing how our team now feels we can tackle just about any problem our labor challenges and this crazy market throws at us.”
Sounds good right? Well, I know my job is not over yet.