Talking Story

Starting new conversations in the workplace!

Yeah, But I don’t have my own business

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Today you don’t. Tomorrow you might.
And today, it’s not just about business, or about your job. It’s about you and what you are all about.

April sent me an email today about a new gig she has, and she wrote, “My cell number, email, and webpage have all remained the same.   How’s that for keeping life easy!”

Some people, particularly those of you who are freelancers, and those with a web presence, may think, “Yeah, so?”

Well, it isn’t that obvious and logical to many others who associate their professional identity with the job affiliation they have. It is time to get with it, particularly if you are a Boomer still in auto-pilot.

I’m a good example. I didn’t have my own email address until I left the corporate world in 2003. To be accurate, I had one, getting it when I got internet access at home, but I never used it. I channeled everything through my job email instead, especially because I was one of the hot-shot execs the IT guy left alone about the personal stuff.

When I left Hualalai Resort I was able to keep my cell phone number because I converted the account billing to my name. (Back then, you couldn’t take the number with you when you change providers, that came later.) And thank goodness I did, for that was how many people were still able to reach me, even though I hadn’t burned any bridges and left my job on good terms. I sent my new email address to everyone in my address book when I made the change, but who among us is perfect in keeping our address books updated, hmm?

Today, and every day, think work – and think ho’ohana – instead of job.
When it is your ho’ohana, your work often stays with you even when your job changes.

Besides, no job should define and identify you, you should be defining that job.

Footnote:
Ho’ohana defined on www.managingwithaloha.com and here, within the articles in our Talking Story archives.

A good place to start, if you are hearing of Ho’ohana for the first time: Ho‘ohana: Love Your Work.

Postscript:
Yeah But begone!

Yeah_but_begone

Photo by Karen Apricot New Orleans

“Rosa, listen to yourself: Do you realize how much you can say ‘Yeah, but…’ in our conversations?”

That wake-up call was one of the best gifts a mentor gave me back when I was a manager for the Hyatt Corporation. It’s a hard habit to break, and awareness of it is the first step. Eighteen years later, I still catch myself saying those yeah buts – and writing them (those edits are even harder for me), however (and ‘however’ is only a pc degree better than ‘but’) I do catch myself more often than not.

In his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Coaching Guru Marshall Goldsmith writes about this as one of twenty habits which hold us back as our challenges in interpersonal behavior “often leadership behavior,” calling them “transactional flaws performed by one person against others.” Yeah, buts are number 5 on his list: Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. you’re wrong.”

These may also be of some interest:

  • The word is WORK.
    Work in its basic form can be viewed as something someone does that brings them dignity while making
    a contribution to the world in which they live.—Mark Dowds, co-founder of www.creationstep.com
  • From Corporate Life to Self-Employment.
    Knowing of my long history in corporate life, people will ask me if I’d ever go back to it should I be offered the
    corporate dream job again. The question will come up when I say that I came very close to having THE corporate dream job more than once in my career. I knew when I was in those situations, and I truly did enjoy them; I had learned a lot being Mz. Corporate Manager.While I have no regrets, the quick answer is no.
    I’ll never go back.
  • About your address book, you can connect with me on LinkedIn if you like!

The Entrepreneurial Mindset

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Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to the Hogan Entrepreneurs, a group of young men and women at Chaminade University. This semester, they had been assigned my book, Managing with Aloha, as part of their coursework. Who are the Hogan Entrepreneurs?

“The Hogan Entrepreneurial Program prepares highly motivated students for entrepreneurial careers in business, government, and non-profit organizations. This interdisciplinary preparation builds their capacity to innovate, their willingness to take risk, and their sensitivity to the social significance of their business activities.”

You can read more about the program here.

I love talking to young people who want to explore the world of business, because I believe youth and business are good for each other. This time my talk had been customized especially for them –I was ready to talk about how the MWA values align with the entrepreneurial mindset.

However after looking into the young faces waiting expectantly for me to begin, I decided to wing it. Perhaps I was being selfish, but I could not resist the opportunity to let them lead me to what they wanted to talk about, and I was glad I did. This was not to be my normal “presentation.” It became a solid two hours of Q&A because “inquiring minds want to know.”

However this was the curious thing: they had a lot of questions for me, but not on the one topic I expected to talk about: entrepreneurship. I finally brought it up myself, to then learn that barely a third of those in the room expected to one day go into business for themselves, and be the entrepreneur. So what were they doing in a class called the Hogan Entrepreneurs?

These bright young minds, preparing themselves to enter business, understand something most people already in the work world need to realize: Everyone today needs to approach their job with an “entrepreneurial mindset,” —even if they aren’t the one recognized in the business as the entrepreneur who had the big business idea and got the ball rolling.

Think about it. Even if you are working for someone else, you need to think like, and behave like, an entrepreneur to achieve the greatness you are capable of.

The young men and women in that classroom fully expect they will have to “pay some dues” before they are taken seriously. If you are the one lucky enough to see their potential and hire them, take them seriously now. You’ll enjoy witnessing their entrepreneurial mindset just as much as I did.