Starting new conversations in the workplace!
Aloha,
This article has been updated, and now appears within my company portfolio.
You can read it here:
Managing Energies: Struggle & Ease
The articles and essays I currently publish can be found on www.ManagingWithAloha.com (RSS)
Thank you for your visit,
Rosa Say
Workplace culture coach, and author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business: Learn more here.
The message I have for those in HR and all managers who are now able to hire, is to interview with fewer shortcuts and with more compassion.
For instance, I understand how online applications save time and help in screening, but those who use them are losing sight of basic etiquette: There is a real person behind each application, and candidates are craving more Aloha in what has become a faceless process. It is appalling that the majority of those who apply online never receive any human response, not even a thank you for applying.
Then there’s all the hidden talent that slick digital screening keeps unknown: Employers are missing out too, because they aren’t looking hard enough. They make a rookie mistake, in assuming that the right info is appearing on their online application in the first place. Bad assumption: Even if you ask the right questions, there’s no guarantee that you get the right answers — even from the perfect candidate.
Leading with compassion in this process then, is about leading with empathy, with open-mindedness, and with smarts. Leading with compassion is having a positive expectancy about the innate good in all people: It’s there, waiting for you to tap into it, and place it well.
However compassion alone is never enough.
Let’s review our basic definitions of leading and managing as verbs connected to energy. Energy is the manager’s greatest resource: It’s the fuel which powers your production capacity, and creates all other business assets.
Leading with compassion will recruit new energy. Your Aloha has made your company attractive to the best candidates.
Managing for competence will channel the energy of that new recruit you hire every day going forward.
Before an Alaka‘i Manager makes a job offer, they must think about how a candidate will fit in with the rest of their team. They want team players, sure, but they also want every single person in their workplace to be a star, exceptional at what they do.
The fact of the matter is this: Stars want to work with other stars. People want to believe that they are working with the best people in their field, and not with others who are second best.
In essence, Alaka‘i Managers will rightfully expect that their people re-apply for their jobs each and every day, applying for them by demonstrating their competence, their passion, their strengths, and their visionary thinking in the work they do. It is that expectation they give their support to as managers.
Managing with Aloha is not “going soft” with compassion alone. KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u (chapter 5): We want to excel each and every day:
“Excellence is never an accident: It is always intentional, and it always demands more than the norm. Be your best. Don’t settle for less, for there’s no honor and no reward in aiming lower than what you are capable of achieving. Once achieved, excellence has a way of permeating every aspect of what you do, and it affects everyone you touch in an organization, infecting those around you with zest and vitality.”
— KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u, the value of excellence, in Managing with Aloha
Compassionate hiring is smart, but it’s only the beginning.
I have categorized this post with 2 of our 9 Key Concepts: Can you answer why?
Somewhat connected to my last posting, [ Must I work this bit alone? ] and to noticing, I’ve been tweaking the old brainwaves lately with more reading, for reading is a big part of what I think of as my “deliberate inputs.”
We need to feed our intellect with deliberate inputs similar to the way we eat to feed our bodies; we choose healthy foods that are nutritious, and foods that fortify us and fill us with energy.
These days, the old brain is hungry, craving some hopeful, positive ideas and solutions.
Good food starts with good ingredients:
Perhaps more today than ever before, my deliberate inputs are often chosen for their optimism, for negativity pulls me down into a gloom I prefer to stay far, far away from. Now this doesn’t mean I choose to dwell in a Pollyanna world, for I can read about bad news too. It’s the aftermath of the hearing or reading, and the follow-up in my own attitude which matters. We can learn from everything, whether the good, the bad, or the ugly — we have to choose our aftermath, and use our positive brainpower to shape it.
How you go forward will define your future, and the person you’ll be in that future.
For instance, within my deliberate inputs these days (for they constantly evolve) are:
As electioneering ramps up here in America, I get very concerned about what Bill Davidow has called “Life in the Age of Extremes.” There is much ‘other possibility’ within the extreme polarity of being Republican or Democrat in ideology. We must all be working on our own Deliberate Inputs to interject more hope into life.
Being hopeful, can be a direct result of Ha‘aha‘a, the value of humility, and the way we’ve spoken of ‘finding decisions’ here at Talking Story: Can you see with your ears? How open-minded are you, and how willing are you to weigh the opinions of others? Much of it is about proactive listening, so you can choose to live with a greater confidence — it’s a confidence that you’ve uncovered and discovered the best answer, because you’ve gone looking for it. It’s cultivating an optimistic attitude which will align with your values, keeping positive expectancy in your life.
So much of this starts with being very choosy and deliberate about your own inputs.
I strongly encourage you to sit with this as a writing exercise of your own. I gave you a current listing of what I think of as my Deliberate Inputs: What are yours?
Listen well to be well, and start with good, healthy ingredients.
Rosa
Postscript: On the reading front, if you’d like to come with me, and follow the rabbit trails of my finds, remember to check in with Ho‘ohana Aloha, my Tumblr — that’s where I tend to clip them.
Bonus Links: Read what Dan Oestreich has to say On Finding Confidence. He also wrote about polarity recently, in Contribution to Society.
I received a couple of emails following my last posting (Managers Create Culture), and taken altogether the gist of them was this:
“If I don’t have a comprehensive philosophy yet, like you have in Managing with Aloha, how do I start to define the workplace culture I want to foster as an Alaka‘i Manager? The variables can be so overwhelming, and I struggle to focus, and set my priorities.”
Do you know when those variables get overwhelming? When they aren’t actually yours. We managers have a way of inheriting and collecting periphery.
Here’s what I recommend instead. It’s still about articulating an all-you packaging of your values (which is Managing with Aloha at its core), but arriving at them in another way, one which concentrates on action connected to desired change and valued constants.
To paraphrase and add to a famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi:
We talk about change a lot, equating it with initiative, innovation and creativity, however we tend to forget those constants we have already invested in, constants which keep us grounded, confident, steady and sure.
So try this: Sit with a blank sheet of paper, and make a simple list of your purely instinctive, gut-check WANTS, writing them down under one of two sub-headings:
Your list should describe your future. Identify what you want it to be, so those wants can guide you forward. Be as specific as possible, for specific detail is more conducive to revealing action steps you can take.
Your values will provide the ‘why.’ When you can tap into it, ‘purely instinctive, gut-check’ wanting gives voice to your values — you’ll be able to read between the lines, and get clarity on what your values are all about, and not theoretically or historically, but right now, for today, and for ‘Imi ola— a creation of your best-possible future.
This might help you start your list… Fill in the blanks, remembering to then choose which column they go in, valued CONSTANTS, or desired CHANGE:
I want to work on ______, and not on _______.
I want to forge a partnership with _______, so we can work on __________.
I’d love to see the day that we _____________ all day long!
I want to keep learning about _____________, so we’ll be able to _________.
Bet you can take it from there!
The first step in articulating the workplace culture you want is usually to be more selfish — yes, selfish, as in self-aware. Focus is all about energy management: Self-manage (channel your energy) and self-lead (create fresh energy) before you presume to create workplace culture for anyone else. It evokes the oxygen mask theory: You can’t save anyone else when you can’t breathe either.
In clarifying your change and your constants, you define your stretch while holding on to your keepers. You also couple your form and function without interruption (i.e. your on-going productivity and business of life), for balancing Change and Constants is simply a way you sort through the clutter of life, and focus on what’s important to you.
For instance, here on Talking Story you often read postings where I seem to question, dabble, and experiment: I especially love 90-day projects as a gift-boxing of my still-tentative change. When I wrap up those projects, I weave them into my Ho‘ohana Story somehow, for my constants are about Aloha (defined here), Ho‘ohana (worthwhile work), and ‘Ike loa (intentional learning). Over time, my keepers in the MWA culture became the 19 values in my book, and the 9 Key Concepts. The early sentences on my List of Wants moved into statements like the 10 Beliefs and Core 21.
If you pull out your list every time you do a Weekly Review, you can revise it with constantly freshened relevance. When something no longer sounds like a Burning Yes, just cross it off the list and add what does.
Trust me: If you can make this simple process your new habit, your desired workplace culture will be steadily revealed to you. And remember… You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!
Your Change + Your Constants = Your Culture:
So turn this affirmation into a poster you look at daily:
I’ll be Change, and I’ll be Constant. I’ll be the Culture of my Future.
Write it on a post-it and tape it on the mirror where you brush your teeth each morning, then Ho‘ohana — make it happen.