money

Be a Noble Consumer, and Pay

February 18, 2011 by Rosa Say

No more frugality.

‘Free’ has been completely devalued: “Free” never is, so don’t ask

Join me instead, in my movement toward Noble Consumerism.

Value your community of preferred providers, if you want them in your ‘Imi ola (best possible life, a life you create by your chosen design). You need them to survive and flourish.

Pay for what you want more of. Think of it as the support you give.

Let’s change the language surrounding ‘profit’

“Wow, you’re very passionate about this, aren’t you.”

“I think of it as the optimistic resourcefulness of Ho‘ohana, and yeah, it feels terrific to get that passion back. Now tell me, how do we move this discussion into the arena of social entrepreneurship? Why can’t it be profitable too?”

We (me and a small group of managers) were talking about financial literacy within for-profit business models, specifically the OIB (Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business model) and I made a statement which surprised them at first. I’d said that I don’t consider non-profits to be admirable business models, and would never create one — not without radically reinventing them first.

I wasn’t picking on any non-profit in particular, and the causes they champion, however noble, weren’t relevant to our discussion. I take issue with their basic premise: By definition, a non-profit is ‘not for profit.’ The businesses that I prefer to champion, don’t consider ‘profit’ to be a dirty word: We strive for profit, for the financial currency it can be.

Without earnings, there is no energy of gainful employment, is there. There’s no further financing of mission and vision.

Money isn’t evil: It’s a means to an end. What you do with it, after you have earned it, is another way you assign worth and priority to whatever you personally value. Same goes for a business for profit. MWA, for example, values Ho‘ohana earnings, and Sense of Place investments instead of ‘charities.’

An example of the ‘financial literacy’ and economic sensibility in our MWA OIB for-profit business model, is that everyone is paid for their Ho‘ohana (as it translates into their deliverable into our business), and no volunteers are needed. We feel it’s duplicitous to pay non-profit executives, and compensate a board of directors in kind, while expecting others to work for free. We compensate everyone fairly, and expect to pay full price. We don’t ask others for donations, or for their “pro bono” services: “without charge for the public good” makes no sense to me. The way I see it, equitable payment for any goods and services provided is what actually defines ‘the public good.’

There’s this coaching we’ve always used in Managing with Aloha workplaces connected to the One Minute Manager concept of catching people doing something right:

Reward the behavior you want repeated.
Correct everything else, with Aloha.

Business models are yet another example of the wisdom in that coaching. Good business models are aligned with good values, and they add value to our communities.

It feels great to be back on track

I admit to you that I stumbled with this over the past few years too, dodging all the rubble of our Great Recession. Just ask my family: They had no choice but to newly adopt frugality with me. Yuck.

I allowed my clients to renegotiate my pricing, and as a result, I devalued my services. In my speaking, I granted honorariums, lulled by the guise of honor in that word, despite the sinking feeling it actually gave me, a chisel to my self worth, and to the credibility of the MWA movement. Double, triple Yuck.

At the time, it felt like something we were supposed to do, until the day my husband said something which hit me like a ton of bricks: “How do you figure, that if the whole world suffers, we have to suffer along with them?”

My daughter chipped in, “Yeah mom, what happened to showing everyone the better way?” It was the winter of 2009 and we were Christmas shopping. My son added his 2 cents, saying, “Yeah! Down with Ebenezer Scrooge!”

Such a smart family.

It got me thinking again, about why I’ve always loved working within the art and science of business. Business enterprise, and smart business models, have always represented freedom and creative possibility to me. We are able to corral our resources, whatever they may be, and Ho‘o — make things happen.

So no more back-sliding, even if we fall into another recession tomorrow. The talk-story I had the other day with those managers reminded me to write this up so I could print it out, and paste it on this inspiration wall I have, never to be forgotten again.

A Noble Consumer’s Manifesto

No more frugality. Downsizing is cool, but frugality represents a scarcity mentality.
Palena ‘ole reminds us of our abundance instead: We humans are creative, inventive and resourceful.
Life is meant to be enjoyed to our fullest Aloha capacity.

‘Free’ has been completely devalued, and I won’t be party to that trend of disrespect.
I will gladly pay all fair and equitable pricing, compensate people well, and thereby encourage them to create more of what adds greatest value to our world.

I refuse to devalue anyone’s creation (their product innovation).
I refuse to devalue anyone’s time and intellectual property (their service to me).
The financial support I give others, will be Ho‘ohana support for their exceptional work, and future learning.

I will proudly continue my Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business movement.
I will champion Noble Consumerism, understanding it as support of our working communities.
I won’t be an irresponsible or wasteful consumer, and my money will go toward the better motivations of others, rewarding what has a good and positive effect on our world.
I will live modestly, within my means, and valuing the right things (what is Pono for me and my family).

Join me?

Archive Aloha of Related Posts:

Prepping for Ho‘ohana with Financial Literacy: Have you heard this before? “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”
Money isn’t evil: Being ‘broke’ is a mistake, not a failure
Values are the Bedrock of Hard Reality: “Soft and fuzzy” has taken a severe hit with our recent economic tumbles. You know what I mean; those workplace humanity concepts which fall beyond the bottom line.
Wealth is a Value: If asked, “What’s the value of more money to you?” would you and your staff answer in the same way, even if I asked you to keep your answers in the context of the business?
Drive well: Pay People Enough: The post-recessionary economy is driving compensation levels down, down, down, and business owners, we must pay people well, fully understanding how it will affect their motivation, and thus the job/work they do for you, and with you.

Drive well: Pay People Enough

June 5, 2010 by Rosa Say

Yes, I just jumped to a new theme this past week, so think of this post as a weekend breather, because I happened to find this video (below) via science fiction author Tobias Buckell, who posted a few thoughts on The nature of motivation.

I want to share it with you because I think it’s a good follow-up to this: The Energy of Gainful Employment. While we happily move ahead with a new theme, we are nowhere finished with our efforts in Job Creation or our Sense of Workplace call to action, are we. You go through this with your Weekly Review all the time:

You look back, taking stock of what just happened.
Then you look forward, having both directional views shape a more complete perspective,
…so you can do a good job proactively planning your week progressively, and with the pacing which feels best to you.
It’s the best way to reality-check your goals, while not losing sight of them,
…and to think about how you will team up with others in the week to come (A-Upcoming calendar appointments give you fortuitous opportunity. B-You schedule to fill open slots).

Number 3. and Number 5. MUST always include very healthy helpings of follow-up.

SIDEBAR:
Two fantastic Follow-up Tools if you are new round these parts, and missed them:

Be the Best Communicator

Improve your Reputation with 1 List

So here is what I propose: Grab the next 15 minutes or so to go back to those keepers in our recent studies here, and refresh them with what this video might trigger for you.

My take is up in the post title: This post-recessionary economy is driving compensation levels down, down, down, and business owners, we must pay people well, fully understanding how it will affect their motivation, and thus the job/work they do for you, and with you. You could also connect this to Wealth is a Value (January 2010).

I have read Dan Pink’s book, Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us, and I think this is the biggest keeper from it for most of the work world, (though I really should read the entire book again, and slowly).

“Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.”

Then, and only then (paraphrasing now) can we talk about everything else (like autonomy and mastery, or other incentives). For then, and only then, will people stop thinking about money and begin to think about the work.

It pops up on this very cool 10-minute video at about the 5-minute mark half-way through:
RSA Animate Drive by Daniel Pink

It makes so much sense, and always great to have it backed up by smart research (we’ll take his word for it, short of reading more in his book). In his post (referenced earlier) Buckell is absorbing the book’s message as a solo artist/creative:

I’ve been talking about [the book, Drive] to creative types a great deal, as we’ve all faced the very real dilemma around the fact that when creative works becomes directly linked to pay, a very real crisis happens. Learning to navigate that is crucial to making the switch to a full time creative type. I wish I’d read Drive years ago, it would have made the transition much smoother.

To sum up:

If you’re the Job Creator for others, factor good pay into your business model — you have to in order to get them to be a good partner for you on the work itself. It’s a simple matter of being realistic about what our basic attentions must be devoted to.
Same goes for when the only job you’re currently focused on is your own: Deal with the issue of your baseline compensation realistically, and get it off your own table!

Here is some good Archive Aloha which relates to this thinking about your own business model: What if your business got sick? My own follow-up to that journey was the writing of Business Thinking with Aloha, just published last month.

~ ~ ~ Want more for your weekend? ~ ~ ~

After I saw this video and had programmed this post for you, it seemed these RSA Animations were beginning to go viral — I kept seeing a few different ones. They are done by Andrew Park of Cognitive Media if you are interested in visiting his site (Mahalo to Mike Rohde for his help in tracking down the info.) You can check out RSA here: 21st century enlightenment.
If you would like to see another, I would recommend the one summed up at kottke.org which is “A fascinating 10-minute animated talk by Philip Zimbardo about the different ‘time zones’ or ‘time perspectives’ that people can have, and how they will affect people’s world views.” — It may give you added oomph to the process and/or context of doing your Weekly Review, as mentioned above. If you like those self-assessment type online questionnaires, find out which time zone you’re in by taking this survey.
Back to the subject of job creation, here is a recent article by Robert Reich: Why the President’s Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs. Of note: He wrote this about a month before the BP oil rig explosion, and his current suggestion is that the President put BP into temporary receivership: Part 1, Podcast, and Part 2.

Discover the power of 5 Minutes: A book excerpt from Managing with Aloha

Will your kids be able to deal with their money?

November 5, 2004 by Rosa Say

These articles were very distressing to me in my morning newspaper reads:

Star Bulletin: Education Dilemma.
PBN: Economic literacy: students know as little as their parents.

“Does money hold its value well in times of inflation? No, but 36 percent of Hawaii students answered “yes,” and 22 percent said they didn’t know, according to a survey by the University of Hawaii Department of Economics.

As reported to the attendees of the 2004 Hawaii Economic and Financial Literacy Conference in Waikiki yesterday:

521 students (at 19 public high schools from all seven school districts across Hawaii) were given 20 multiple-choice financial questions. The average student got 11 of the 20 questions right. The group score was 54 percent.”

Yikes!

A few years ago I picked up Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad at an airport newsstand, and it made a huge impact on me. Kiyosaki is not a fan of the financial education given—or not given—in our schools. Reading his book, I thought about the two teenagers I had at home, and I vowed that I would begin their financial education myself.

We started with simple things: I got them each their own checking account with a cash card to use while shopping, and opened savings accounts in which any future cash gifts would go. I made the first modest deposit in each account: I would double it when they each finished reading Rich Dad Poor Dad for themselves. (Not sure how bribery rates in good parenting, but in this case it did the trick.) That Christmas, one of their gifts was their own brokerage account in the USAA First Start Program: through-out the year we’d make small monthly deposits to UTMA Mutual Funds on their behalf. We’d match their own voluntary contributions. Quarterly we’d talk about their statements, and in teaching them I had to get more intelligent about it myself.

This past year, we took a huge step with my daughter’s financial education: she went through the entire real estate purchase process with me for an O‘ahu condominium, looking up her own credit history we thankfully had established those years prior, evaluating the mortgage options we had available, and earning the right to put her name alongside mine on the deed. She has a monthly budget designed to pay herself (her equity) first, as she juggles college with a job and her living expenses.

I’m sharing my story with you to encourage you: the best and easiest way to prepare your kids is to let them in on your life. Create a family budget and explain it, stick to it and evaluate it on a regular basis. Refinancing? Starting a Christmas savings plan? Planning a 401k rollover when you change jobs? Talk about these things at the dinner table.

Don’t wait for the schools to do the job you can do best.