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The State of our Learning and the Demand for Curation

June 1, 2010 by Rosa Say

There’s this demand to be filled, and we aim to serve: Let’s fill it in the value-driven, living with our aloha way.

LEARNING is cropping up on my radar quite a bit lately. It’s one of those highly desirable values on the list of any Alaka‘i Manager, one we never completely ignore, yet how focused are we with our learning? Do we just wing it, or do we learn by design?

Are we being purposeful, or are we caught up in someone else’s should-ing expectations of us?

The State of our Learning: Scattered

I suspect these open questions are why learning themed articles and discussions are “cropping up” for me more often too. It’s as if the universe is asking me to pay attention and get more deliberate about it, for I do feel like I’m very scattered in my learning since our Aloha to Joyful Jubilant Learning, where our monthly themes had given me such a community-driven focus. Now it’s sort of like I’m walking up and down a buffet table with a tasting fork, and never filling a plate to sit down for a whole meal.

I don’t mean here on Talking Story, for I do think we have been very focused on the Take 5 Game-Changing we set our sights on for 2010. However I am feeling that we could use some help in the grand scheme of things, better sorting out everything happening around us. When I ask you to please have Talking Story be a course of study for you, I do feel I should help you do so.

Informational content is easy to come by in today’s world. We have a ton of choices, and so many of them completely free —case in point, this and your RSS reader full of other blogs, many offering free how-to ebooks which offer to teach you something. However that’s part of the problem we face, isn’t it. Knowledge is abundant, and you have to sort through it. Not everything is a keeper.

When you seek to lead and to manage well, you must be selective, and be sure that any designated keepers will be optimally useful. (As a refresher of our L/M definitions, we want our leading to be a source of energy, and not drain it. We want our managing to channel all available energies in the best possible way.)

We all must sort through a bunch of rubble to find the gems: There’s fast food and processed stuff on that buffet table with little to no nutritional value at all.

Take reading for example, which is but one kind of informational input (the written word). Count me as one who is a big fan of how self-publishing has become so easy for everyone deciding to try it, yet that old barrier to entry authors once had —a publisher/gatekeeper —did lessen our choices in a selective way (even if motivations were more about marketing)” only the proven chefs got a place for their dishes within the spread. Now the gatekeeping is up to you and your own discretion: You’re judge and jury (or food critic, if we stick to one metaphor at a time.)

No doubt about it: LEARNING is definitely one of those areas dear Alaka‘i Manager, in which you must do for yourself, and then do for your team if you are to serve them well.

Do what? Curate the available knowledge, and then design any learning which will happen.  Now that’s yummy.

The Demand for Curation — Ho‘ohana Utility

I think we were onto something at Joyful Jubilant Learning back when the site was an active constant for us: Themes do help us curate learning a bit… they serve as an initial filtering of our choices, because we will have to eventually make selections:

curate 2 |ˈkyoŏˌrāt|
verb [ trans. ] (usu. be curated)
select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition) : both exhibitions are curated by the museum’s director.
ORIGIN Middle English : from medieval Latin curatus, from Latin cura ‘care.’

So step one accomplished: We have brought our MWA value themes back to Talking Story this year, and they definitely have helped us filter. To recap:

Our Talking Story Themes in 2010:
If you are newly catching up with us here, our themes no longer align to precise calendar windows, and we nalu it (go with the flow). Knowing of past themes will also frame the archives for you:

  • Aloha was our theme from early February to mid-March: February’s Strengthening. We know it as Love. was our kick-off,  and…
  • Ho‘ohana our theme from mid-March up to now: The Alaka‘i Manager as Job Maker

We’ve done well! So much so, that  I’m thinking it’s about time we jump to a new theme, so let’s do it: If the universe thinks ‘Ike loa (our Hawaiian value of learning) is a great idea, I’m all for it. How about you?

Get selfish to start — I mean it. When I say you need to “do for yourself first” I’m very sincere. You’re a much better manager for others when you take care of your own needs first, for that’s the way that you fortify your aloha spirit:  You are investing in your own well-being. An empty buffet table feeds no one (couldn’t resist).

I also think it will be helpful to revisit learning versus teaching as we proceed (I’ll put it on the blog post list).

For now, answer just two questions today, and share them with me if you would (your feedback helps me be a better coach, as is my happy gig here):

  1. What focus would you like to achieve with your learning over the next few weeks as an Alaka‘i Manager?
  2. Why? Can you explain that tug you might be feeling, or the kind of MWA curation you feel will help you?

Learning Curation with the Alaka‘i Twist

I am asking that you get very personal and verb-actionable with me. We all know of the benefits to learning, and I don’t intend for this theme to be one where we repeat them and preach to the choir: Let’s actually get learning done in a much more satisfying and useful way: Let’s become LEARNING CURATORS.

Think about these sentences:

Effective leadership in communication continually creates “tribal curation.” Alaka‘i Kākou translates to the “language of we.”

When we Ho‘ohana we get great work done, and we feel great. We are accomplished within our tribe (i.e. within our Ho‘ohana Community)

We already have our content, and a lot of it (thankfully contained in a great model). So this will not be about producing more: It will be about achieving fabulous utility from our learning as a direct hit on our prevalent, all-the-time objectives: Leading to create human energy as our greatest resource, and managing to channel that energy with respect and aloha, and for optimal benefit, where everyone involved wins.

Review this post to refresh your memory with why answering your why is so important, and so helpful: What are you leading? (What you lead is your Passionate Why)

Wow. My brain is already going crazy thinking about this… I bet yours is too!

Photo Credits:
We’ve picked something up on radar! by Don Solo, and
Asian Specialties by Sanctu, both on Flickr

Read the story behind the book: Ready? Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks!
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The Alaka‘i Manager as Job Maker

March 15, 2010 by Rosa Say

My Aloha to all of you on this beautiful Malaki (March) day.

I’m ready for our next value theme on Talking Story: How about you?

I don’t want to bury the lead in the transitional paragraphs which follow, so here it is: The value we next explore in our 2010 context will be Ho‘ohana, the value of worthwhile work.

Here’s why:

We need Ho‘ohana help for the “job stimulus”

“To Ho‘ohana is to work with intent, and with purpose. Managers do this for themselves, and they do this for those they manage: When managers pair employees with meaningful and worthwhile work that is satisfying for them, they will find these employees work with true intentions in sync with the goals of the business. Be one of those managers.”
—Managing with Aloha, page 30

Say “job stimulus” and smiles disappear. You’re likely to hear a lot of groaning, or see people shake their heads despondently. We know we need jobs, and we’re sensing that public sector efforts with stimulating jobs isn’t quite cutting it.  The job stimulus we’re now financing as taxpayers (who are steadily sinking deeper in debt), feels like a flimsy bandage on a painful wound needing sutures.

We’ve got to go farther than “stimulating” jobs: We’ve got to create new ones, and better ones. We’ve got to reshape many others which now barely escape the chopping block with furlough day trimming. We know of jobs which may have all their days numbered soon, for they’re next in the downsizing queue if revenue streams don’t somehow start raining from heaven.

Jobs in 2010 must be Ho‘ohana jobs. Ho‘ohana jobs must be gainful employment.

This is NOT too big for us to tackle

Know that as an Alaka‘i Manager you have several advantages. If anyone is equipped to handle our job problem, it’s you. As the Managing with Aloha quote above reminds us, the Alaka‘i Manager isn’t just any “job maker” but a Ho‘ohana shaper too!

Here’s a quick review of what we’ve already done these past few weeks.

We’ve spent some time with the value of Aloha, and we’ll keep it close by, for we’d said, “Let’s make 2010 the Year of Aloha” knowing that “the only way you get Aloha, is by being obsessive about being the first one to give it.”
(Post reference: For 2010, with Aloha)

It felt great blending in Hō‘imi as our idea-mover, and The 3 Secrets of Being Positive as our Aloha strengthener to equip ourselves with a positive expectancy early in the year. We even fit in some work on our trusted systems, replacing “productivity” with “stress-free performance” in our deliberate, talk-it-to-walk-it Language of Intention [MWA Key 5].

So I’m feeling confident enough to forge ahead with what I knew would be the toughie in our Take 5 strategy for 2010: Jobs.

I honestly have no idea where this will take us over the next few weeks, but I know that we, as Alaka‘i Managers in our own Ho‘ohana intention, have to tackle it. And you know what else? The more I think about it, the more I’m getting pretty excited about the challenge, for just think of what we can deliver!

Why us? Because we care, and because we want to lead the effort

We’re Alaka‘i Managers, and we deliver better health to workplace cultures. Jobs are our puzzle pieces; they’re the artful brush strokes in the picture we frame. Jobs are also the way we grow people, helping them make room in their lives to explore more of their Palena ‘ole capacity [MWA Key 9].

Manage x 70: Remember too, that Alaka‘i Managers also have a powerful ally in their Ha‘aha‘a humility: We see with our ears. We realize that we don’t have all the answers. We don’t need to, and besides, it’s often better when we don’t, for we allow for the collaboration of creative synergy. Our job is to find the best possible answers within the people we manage and lead. We explore, we prod, we question. We encourage, we support, we facilitate. We coach, we mentor, and we grow people into better jobs.

Lead x 30: In doing this, if you have a great idea, one you know will add to our collective energies, give voice to your idea —share it with us, knowing of all the fertile ground represented in the eager listening of our Ho‘ohana Community.

If I’m tracking days correctly, we’re jumping into our new theme 5 days before the official start of Spring. Yesterday, my daughter sent me photos of the cherry blossoms bursting into bloom near her Nevada home, and it felt like perfect timing, being able to share them with you too!

Spring as our Starting Block

We’re at our starting block: Today is Ho‘ohana theme day 1 for us here on Talking Story, and our overall goal is collaborative, creative conversation: How we can affect Ho‘ohana job creation for gainful employment?

We’ll talk about how we define “gainful employment” soon. For now, here’s what we’d said in our Take 5 Strategy for the year (it was number 3):

Jobs Reinvented and Delivered for Best Livelihood

Alaka‘i Managers must serve those who may never choose Ho‘ohana just as much as they must serve those who do.

It has become brutally clear that we need jobs created if we are to have a healthy economy (and in turn, a healthy humanity.) Alaka‘i Managers then, must expand their reach into two critical products of their managing/leading work:

  1. People who work to Ho‘ohana, eventually choosing some kind of entrepreneurship for an ‘Imi ola degree of self-employment/self-sustenance on their own terms, and
  2. People who work for the best livelihood of a forever-necessary or recession-proof job, or at minimum, a job which is lucrative enough to deliver long-term financial security

We need Alaka‘i Managers to be those game-changers who enable these choices as feasible for our current society. In their new game-changing role, managers must be the bridge connecting the workforce with business owners who normally have blinders on where this fact reigns supreme in existing business models: The most efficient and profitable businesses are those with as few employees as possible.

That assumption is not very conducive to job creation, and managers must be our New Economy Saviors: They must illuminate the possibilities where human beings at work are exponentially necessary, not just costly.

Excerpted from our 2010 strategy post: Take 5 in 2010: A Game-Changing Ho‘ohana

Our Constant: A values-based approach

In the United States, the $862 billion stimulus package is formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: That’s an immense amount of money representing the cost of our ineffectiveness!  I really think a big reason the job stimulus isn’t working as we’d hoped, is because we can’t just throw money after the problem: We’re ignoring that lesson-learned about throwing good money after bad. We’ve also learned that wealth is a value, and we’d best keep money, and business revenues, framed in that context.

Thus our approach here will be with the Healthy Workplace Compass which has served us well, and served us better, where we will:
—Be Mission-driven, knowing what we seek to achieve (‘Imi ola)
—Be Values-centered, knowing why it is important to us (Nānā i ke kumu)
—Be Customer-focused, knowing who we serve (Mālama)
—Strive for the “North Star” and guiding light of Ho‘ohana, knowing that is how we grow in our learning

I’m so looking forward to our conversations to come!

Any initial thoughts?
Where do you anticipate our conversation on Ho‘ohana Job Creation can take us?
What connection would you like to explore, feeling it will be helpful to the community, and highly relevant and useful to you?

Thank you for reading today, and please share the news of our theme challenge and Ho‘ohana undertaking. This is vitally important, and we can always make room for others, welcoming new voices to help us in the effort: Invite someone you work with to join our Ho‘ohana Community today.

We Ho‘ohana Kākou, together. Let’s talk story!

Rosa Say

Footnote:

If you’re a fairly new subscriber to Talking Story, here’s a bit more on what’s happening. I made some substantial shifts in my own Ho‘ohana for 2010, shifts which opened up room for us to have a strategic plan here on Talking Story this year: We call it our Take 5, and we “work on it” by way of our conversations, both on and off the blog.

My blogging is somewhat flexible in its content within the value themes I’m setting for us, as we’ll nalu it (go with the flow) but it’s not random, and I’m not publishing on a set schedule simply to publish, but when we’re ready to move on. Everything is connected in some way to what binds us as a Ho‘ohana Community, and that is our learning to be practitioners of Managing with Aloha, keeping it relevant and useful for today, with the book as a resource. Talking Story presents the self-study course I have promised to give you here: Are you a manager or a leader?

Get the Gift of Learning Throughout the Year

December 26, 2009 by Rosa Say

‘Ike loa ~ the Hawaiian value of learning

Seek knowledge, for new knowledge is the food for mind, heart and soul.
Learning inspires us, and with ‘Ike loa we constantly give birth to new, creative possibilities.
— From Managing with Aloha, Chapter 11

Great managers are lifelong learners. They discover they  have to be. In the process of that discovery, they want to be.

Number 36 x5 = 180

Each and every month, since January of 2007, I have reflected on my learning in a list of five lessons learned, participating in Rapid Fire Learning at Joyful Jubilant Learning. Takes me no more than 5 minutes, usually it’s less; a minute at most to write and reflect on each one. This month then, marks the 36th time I have done so.

I love looking back and seeing the progression of my learning, now 180 entries in all. Being part of the JJL community of learners makes it so easy, and so joyful, and often the learning themes there can be quite an influence.

For instance, these were the monthly themes at Joyful Jubilant Learning throughout 2009. They always start within two values: Joy (‘Oli) and Learning (‘Ike loa). They always end in collaboratively-spirited community discussions explored and savored, and with learning exponentially magnified.
jjl170x170mainbadge.2009

January — Learning Joyful Eating
February — Love is All You Need
March — Our annual Love Affair with Books
April — Learning from “where we’re at”
May — Learning from our Habits
June — Targets and the Learner’s Progress
July — Communicating As Learners Do
August — Summer Learning
September — Learning the Joy of 9
October — Learning from Birthdays, “Anyone can light a candle”
November — Within our Learner’s Toolbox: WRITING
December — Learners Return Home for the Holidays

The line-up to come in 2010 will be even better!

Give yourself one more Christmas gift before this holiday season of 2009 becomes but a memory. Won’t you join us there, and celebrate all the possibilities the value of ‘Ike loa can reveal for you?

Rapid Fire Learning | December 2009

Rapid Fire Learning is a good time to meet the community there, and immediately participate in our online conversations in a very easy way, one which establishes your credentials immediately. Simply, you are a learner, and you ‘say’ so by sharing your learning lokomaika‘i, in the spirit of generosity.

Great managers are lifelong learners. They get to be.

To get that jump, and to create the RFL learning retention habit with just 5 minutes of your time each month is quite the good deal. So what are you waiting for?

rfl_banner09

From the Talking Story archives: Our RFL Recall: Are you Remembering or Learning?

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RSS Current Articles at Managing with Aloha:

  • Lokomaika‘i, the value of generosity
  • In favor of Wage Equity as our Core Standard
  • The Thrill of Work
  • Evolve into a manager
  • Self-Coaching Exercises in the Self-Leadership of Alaka‘i
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  • Hō‘imi to Curate Your Life’s Experience

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