relationship

Culture-Building: First, understand what Management can be

March 6, 2012 by Rosa Say

When are you expected to work with your manager?

Where does individual ownership give way to partnership, and to the team dynamic?

Over and above the day-to-day focus within the work which is done, what are the visionary, mission-driven possibilities elevated in the near future?

How do mavericks grow in your company? How do your best ideas gain support, and then attain traction and velocity there?

These are the kinds of questions which every healthy workplace culture should have definitive answers for, answers which are aligned with the values that company stands for.

Management can then be managemeant.

Culture building needs a solid foundation that serves as fertile ground. We know values are critical. So are their champions.

Those champions should be your managers.

When organizations choose to adopt Managing with Aloha as part of their culture, they’ve done their homework; they usually know about the Core 21, the 19 Values listed on the blog sidebar, the 10 Beliefs, and the 9 Key Concepts. It’s a lot to take in at first, and it’s highly weaveable, but usually 1 Question trumps them all in the eager minds of those anxious to begin:

Where do we start?

My answer is always the same: Reconstruct the role of your managers.
(article, and coaching category) Understand the true cultural work your managers can perform for you when they are liberated and motivated to do so.

The evidence is clear: Managers create culture. Ignore them (i.e. devalue them), and they can destroy it. My core purpose in writing MWA was to help prevent that sad, damaging downslide from happening, because I know what a positive force great managemeant can be.

In most of the organizations I visit, there is quite a distance to bridge between managers and their staff; they’re operating in totally separate orbits and worse, they’re content to “leave well enough alone.”

Problem is, “well enough” for them isn’t delivering much well being to the workplace culture.

To Do: Today

Help your people understand what a partnership with an Alaka‘i Manager can be about. Help them see why that partnership is so useful, and how enjoyable it can be.

If you do nothing else, get your own perspective in check, and create a healthier relationship with your own manager; set a good example as you flourish in that new partnership.

Go back to the questions at the beginning of my posting: Answering them, and engineering the change which is necessary (with value-alignment) will get you much closer to the well being which will vastly improve the health of your culture.

Comfort Station, Hughes Company 1915, via Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, Maryland Historical Society

Postscript/Weaving: Role versus Practice

If you are a long-time Talking Story reader, you know that I am very insistent on having Alaka‘i Managers adopt and practice D5M, the Daily 5 Minutes, writing things like this:

“I need to be crystal clear about something:
If you’re not giving your staff the gift of the Daily Five Minutes ®
you’re not Managing with Aloha „¢”

~ So you want a MWA jumpstart. Do the Daily Five Minutes.

Adopting D5M gives Alaka‘i Managers a great tool for making everything else happen (‘everything’ being the full spirit-spilling, work-sensible philosophy of Managing with Aloha).

What the D5M does, is collect timely inputs (the talk story) from an ongoing partnership, so the two people involved will always agree on what they should be working on next, working on it Kākou, together.

Before that actually happens, D5M concentrates on the foundational stuff of getting a good partnership in place, so it can be a functioning partnership. There must be comfort between people first: Then, and only then, can they work together to achieve greater things.

This is why there must be Managing with Aloha champions within a culture; they are the braver, more vocal ones who foster better health, and push through any obstacles, just like Ricky does in her workplace culture as a teacher.

Bottom line here, is that I write Talking Story to help you make your way toward being one of those champions. Write me when you have questions; you’re not alone.

Q&A: Leading up, and Changing Culture

January 28, 2012 by Rosa Say

Received these questions from a friend of mine, a professor teaching a college course on the “Emotional Health in Organizations” and thought I’d share my answer with all of you who read Talking Story as well:

How does one effectively “lead up” in their organization, if it is still managed like the Industrial Revolution? How does one BEST change the culture from within? Is it REALLY possible”since the key leader always defines the culture of the organization????

Yes, it’s possible, if you are willing to do what it takes.

Life is short, and we all have more options in the best possible living of our lives, options we may not readily see at first glance. This is why great managers are needed, and why the coaching industry thrives: Everyone can use help with seeing all their options.

I don’t care how ‘flat’ a company is, management isn’t going away, and we don’t want it to!

One question at a time. Order is important, for Cause and Values are the keys.

First of all, keep your eye on your ultimate reward, and not just on the temporary obstacles. Be sure you see that reward clearly, by getting people out of your cross hairs.

When managers ask me variations of these questions, I’ll always ask them to step back far enough to see the big picture view with more clarity first — i.e. See the organization and not the people within it. Step back so you can reassess the values of the organization as Managing with Aloha teaches, and still know you commit to that organization’s cause (mission and vision): Can you fully make the decision to press on because you are sure that’s where you want to be?

Said another way, are you sure you work for the best organization for you, best deserving of your Ho‘ohana service? If so, let’s talk about “what it takes” to effectively “lead up” (more on that in a moment.)

Green Light: When your personal values are a match for the values of the organization, everything is easier (and more fun). Everything becomes more realistic — more probable.

Red Light: Conversely, the greater the mis-match in values, the harder work will become because win-win agreements are increasingly difficult to achieve, and

Yellow Light: Productivity and Progress require working agreements.

The people we work with — the “key leader” and many others — will always loom larger than the organization itself in our day-to-day work. However the truth of the matter, is that worthy organizations, deserving of our own worthwhile efforts to support them, are longer lasting and have more endurance, outliving the people who populate them, no matter their individual stamina or tenacity as a team. For example, Steve Job’s personal influence essentially ended with his death last year, while Apple’s lives on.

If you say, “yes, this is where I have a values match with our organizational cause, and I am determined to stay and work my way through this” let’s move forward and talk story about “leading up.” For then, and only then, we have what’s ‘best’ and what’s ‘really possible.’ We can have positive expectancy, for that’s what value alignment delivers (see Key 3).

The Golden Rule comes to work with us. Always has, always will.

No matter where you sit in an organizational hierarchy, both leading up (inspiring the creation of new energies), and managing up (channeling existing energies and all available resources toward mission and vision) really amount to one thing, and that’s doing your part to make work flow productively for everyone involved, so you can continue to do the best possible version of your own work.

In other words, after you turn the keys above (Value alignment, the Cause of organizational mission and vision), the next key you need brings other people back into the picture with Relationship-building (for teamwork, network partnerships, customer sales etc.) You work to be a great partner, so you have best-functioning partnerships, for life is not a solo proposition.

In our Managing with Aloha vocabulary:

By ‘Managing up’ you make crucial work easy for your boss, for you need to partner with each other. (Managing-as-verb channels existing energies, existing resources in the adjacent possible)

By ‘Leading up’ you inspire your boss and others with your work-relevant and/or cause-relevant ideas, and you ramp things up. (Leading-as-verb creates new energies, and new resources)

When you make work easy for others, they will reciprocate and make it easier for you as they’re able to. Often you’ll have to be the one to help them see how they can help you, for they aren’t living in your shoes, and so a good relationship between you is required, and always will be (thus The Daily 5 Minutes to help). There are centuries of past workplace experience which is testament to the Golden Rule and its ethic of reciprocity, including my own experience in a number of different companies. I’m confident that your work experience illustrates this too.

The Golden Rule works outside the organization as well, in all its connective networks.

“The Law of Reciprocity must be respected to build a sustainable business of any kind. This law postulates that in almost every case people reciprocate, especially when it comes to energy or generosity.”
—Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App and The Likeability Factor

So to be practical, and address your first step in “leading up,” return to your own workplace relationships and improve them in mutually beneficial ways. You don’t have to break rules and make new deals — in fact, you shouldn’t have to if you’re right about that organization being best for you. You just have to work within your present scope of influence in a way that serves others well.

It requires a win-win attitude. Start with what you can do well, and your scope of influence will grow by leaps and bounds. Best of all, it will grow in a way that’s Pono, and in alignment with your integrity, ethics, and personal values. That’s all integrity is, really, taking the actions which ‘tell the truth’ of your values.

Can anyone change a culture from within?

I say yes, IF you act as the Leader with Integrity as just described, for I believe that leadership isn’t a position or title. Leadership is a degree of effectiveness in spreading your ideas, and anyone in an organization can lead; the word is a verb.

Culture isn’t static either: I write Talking Story today in support of the tenets of Managing with Aloha, because I so fervently believe that managers create culture, and that Alaka‘i Managers have the best shot with creating healthy workplace cultures in our society today, because Aloha is always part of the agreements reached within their partnerships.

I would agree that to actually “change a culture,” at least in the shorter term, the leaders of an organization must embody the integrity of the values they claim the company holds dear. And by the way, values can, and do change over time” ask anyone at Apple what’s starting to happen now with Tim Cook.

If leaders don’t embody the values which match up with company mission and vision they won’t last that long. There will be no blooming until another leader takes their place, or they are otherwise overruled by the greater influences within the culture, and one of those things will eventually happen. The next leader to take their place can come from anywhere within an organization. When we look outside the organization instead, there is usually widespread awareness that we have a void internally.

And again, that’s where I think Managing with Aloha comes into play: To help Alaka‘i Managers mentor those leaders of tomorrow, or grow to become those Leaders of Value Integrity themselves.

A Current Case Study:
On January 1st, Jim Sinegal, co-founder and long-time CEO of Costco, turned over the reins to new CEO Craig Jelinek (an internal promotion). Jim Sinegal has been called one of the world’s top retailers, but when asked what is proudest achievement is, this is what he said:

“I think the thing we’re most proud of is the fact that [co-founder] Jeff Brotman and I built a team that’s capable of running a business this size. There’s a management team in place that is very, very good and that has enabled us to sustain the business for a long time.”

Read more: The Empire Built on Values.
As of this writing, Costco has grown to be the 3rd-largest retailer in the U.S. and the 7th-largest retailer in the world, with more than 161,000 employees, 595 warehouses in 8 countries, and more than 64 million cardholders.

“Jim Sinegal has done an amazing job of keeping the company focused on their core values to create one of the strongest consumer franchises in the world.” — Ed Weller, senior research analyst at ThinkEquity in San Francisco, quoted in The Seattle Times

“Jim built Costco based upon the highest standards of ethics and integrity. He has always believed that if you hire good people and pay good wages and benefits, good things will happen. He also frequently reminds us that we must spend 90 percent of our jobs teaching our employees. Those principles define our corporate culture and make Costco a great place to work and shop.” — Ginnie Roeglin, Senior VP, E-Commerce and Publishing, and Publisher of The Costo Connection.

How Great Managers Hire: Fit, Role and Relationship

October 27, 2011 by Rosa Say

Dear Manager,
How do you recruit, interview, select and hire (RISH)?

You have a position to fill, and I assume you’ve done your prep work well: You have seized the opportunity at hand to re-evaluate the vacancy completely, whether adding to your team or replacing someone. You’ve played devil’s advocate, asking yourself why you need to hire, and why this particular job is mission/vision/cause-critical: The job is worthy (it’s important) and worthwhile (it’s desirable).

All of that defines the job at hand, but it doesn’t necessarily describe the job-holder. Not completely. When Alaka‘i Managers select someone and hire them, they’ll be hiring for fit, role and relationship.

Hire for the future, not for the past

In my early days of being a manager, I would conduct hiring interviews as most rookies do. I’d look over their job application or resume as the candidate sat in front of me, and I’d ask whatever clarifying questions came to mind, without understanding my first mistake — hiring from their point of reference instead of mine.

It wasn’t until a considerable amount of trial and error, selecting three poor gut-choices as my interview questions for every shot-in-the-dark fortuitous one, that I realized something that would forever change my approach: The fine details of a person’s past experience was not as important to me as the likelihood of what they would do going forward, having the benefit of retaining that experience.

What had they learned, and what would they now do with their most valuable lessons? What would they do with me, and with the job I offered them? How could I imagine the job getting further defined with their personality and character (their Aloha), their signature Ho‘ohanohano distinction, their ideas and probable growth (‘Imi ola)?

Within my interview process I had been filling in the blanks of a candidate’s past. What I eventually learned to do instead, was fill in the blanks of their most probable future, a future I would have a role in. [For more in that regard, read The Role of the Manager Reconstructed].

When the interview was over, there was really only one question I needed to have an answer for: If I hired this person, what was I getting myself into as their manager?

Try This - 1 by Lululemon Athletica on Flickr

Would this person be self-managed? Would they be a star, comfortable in their own skin, yet eager for more learning, and possible change? Was this person ready for leadership in whatever circumstance the world would place them in, or would I as their manager be required to work with them in their self-leadership arrival process — and if so, to what degree?

Could I feel their energy? Would we constantly be forging a partnership we were likely to both flourish in?

Most managers learn these lessons eventually, but RISH is one of those areas in which you really want to speed up the learning, for mistakes are costly. Trial and error is a lousy way to learn how to hire. So reflect on your own hiring process, and if you manage other hiring managers, have the talk story to help them prepare well, and make better hiring decisions:

What is FIT all about in this particular position? We’ll often cover teaming concerns when we first answer the FIT question, but what about values? Values will be the primary behavior drivers.

What will be the ROLE of the person you hire, and what then, will your ROLE be as their Alaka‘i Manager?

What is the RELATIONSHIP you are expecting to have between you, and how will it evolve in the time they are part of our workplace culture? Will you both be open to welcoming change when it must happen? Will this be a person you will constantly look forward to having conversations with, eagerly giving them your Daily Five Minutes?

Then before you make your final decision and get ready to extend a job offer, ask those same questions of the candidate, restating each to frame their expectations. Do they demonstrate a commitment to deliver on your shared expectations?

When all is said and done, it will be their job, not yours.

Aloha! Just joining us?

Talking Story is the blog home of those who are learning to be Alaka‘i Managers — those committed to managing and leading with Aloha. Read a preview of the book which inspired this movement, and visit our About Page.

Dear Manager, Who do you want to be?

October 24, 2011 by Rosa Say

What I often hear from managers is, “I feel pulled in so many different directions.”

What they mean to say, is that they are trying to please a variety of different people, and it never stops: They will get some short-term results, but they know they have simply bought some time, and soon the juggling act will start again, where they weigh the sensitivities with who to please next — Boss? Subordinate? Peer? Customer? Supplier? Spouse?

They feel caught in a vicious circle where stress and pressure might ebb and flow, but it never ends.

They need a long-term solution to the “pulling at me” dilemma.

The sad thing, is that they usually aren’t even asking me for help; they’re just making a statement to explain “the way things are” without expecting that it can be different.

I'm starting to crack by Nina Matthews Photography, on Flickr

Managing doesn’t have to be that way; there IS a solution.

It sounds counter-intuitive at first, but the answer is in getting more selfish. They need to answer the question, “Who do I want to be with these people?” and that usually requires new work with relationship building, one person at a time, until a healthier, and more productive relationship is in place. That relationship is the long-term solution to the tendency short-term issues have with repeating themselves in shades of never-ending variety.

Let’s look at the manager-subordinate relationship as an example.

Usually, that ‘with’ word is critical, because instead of defining “Who do I want to be WITH this person?” managers — and they are managers with the best intentions — actually work in a way that is about who they need to be FOR that person. In reality, they need to work with their subordinates, and not for them, eliminating as much pinch-hitting as possible so that people can stand on their own in the work they do.

For after all, they were hired to do their work, not you.

Remember 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.
— Lead with Compassion, then Manage for Competence

Managers who operate as salaried pinch-hitters aren’t managers; they’re extras. Most businesses today (and all good businesses, for that matter) don’t employ extras.

The most effective managers do not have co-dependent relationships with other people, not even with those on their team. Great managers coach people to be stars, working toward a goal of that star being individually indispensable in what they do, and in how well they do it. A great manager isn’t “one of the boys (or girls)” and doesn’t want to be: A great manager wants to be supporter and teacher, skills trainer and talent groomer, learning and/or influence resource, coach and mentor — NOT co-worker.

The key word is ROLE, and it’s individually relevant.

You may want to be a co-worker for a peer (and be specific about what that means in that relationship), but not for a subordinate who needs you to be their coach and mentor.

What is the role you play with each person who “pulls at” you? What is it now, and what should it be? — What should it develop toward, so you both grow in your relationship? Your daily work together should be the way your new and improved relationship plays out and progresses: In the instance of their next pulling, work within the steps necessary so that self-development begins to happen for each of you.

Managers are the people in an organization who channel available human energies in the best possible way. When managers work WITH someone, results should be exponentially greater — learning and people-development is somehow woven into it, and the manager isn’t just another pair of hands increasing or speeding up production: When a manager is involved in work with someone else, the process of that person’s work gets tweaked at the same time.

Work on this one person at a time, to do WITH them whenever you’re together, and not FOR them, and you will have your long-term solution of a newer and better relationship between you. The juggling will stop, because it gets replaced with consistent progress.

The prize of course, is that you will now be freed up to work on the role you are meant to work on within your calling: The Reconstructed, Rejuvenated, Newly Respected, and Never Underestimated Role of the Manager.

Find your Sweet Spot, and work there. Be that star, and then, you can move on to more exciting stuff, Your Edge :)