story

Musical Managemeant: Adele 101 for Managers

February 15, 2012 by Rosa Say

[Not a typo. Read about managemeant here: What’s the meant in Management?]

“I don’t think anybody who’s vaguely conscious has not heard Adele’s songs.”
— Anderson Cooper (Video Clip)

Well Mr. Cooper, that would be me!

I’m what my family calls musically challenged. I appreciate good music when I happen to hear it, and I love to dance, but my music interests aren’t really enough to articulate; they’re sort of a mild, disengaged background awareness at best. I don’t have any playlists in my iTunes library; just podcasts and audio books. I played the piano when I was younger, and I can still do so by reading sheet music, but I never had an ear for it; there didn’t seem to be any talent inside me to uncover and develop. What I’ve always loved and preferred, is soothing quiet, and the natural sounds of my Hawaiian outdoors. Luckily for me, I’ve had other talents which thrive in the quiet.

So as unbelievable as it may sound to some of you, I just learned about Adele Adkins’ story this past Sunday. And not from watching the Grammy Awards, but by catching a commercial about her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, and then Googling “Rolling in the Deep” on YouTube for the aha moment of recognition; “Oh yeah, okay, I think I’ve heard this somewhere before””

I caught up quickly, for much has been in the media about her winning that prestigious Grammy trifecta of record, song and album of the year, and of 2012’s Grammy night as her comeback arrival from vocal cord surgery. What I’m mostly hearing, is about her story, and how her music poured out of the heartbreak of a failed relationship, one she can now look back on and be happy that it wasn’t meant to be; she has a new love, and she says it’s a much, much better one for her.

And Adele is extremely likeable, relatable. As Anderson Cooper gushed;

“What makes Adele’s success so extraordinary is that she’s unlike most other contemporary female pop singers. She doesn’t have runway model looks, doesn’t dress provocatively, and has no gimmicks added to her music.”

It’s all about her story is something I keep hearing about her, over and over again, and that her songs are so intensely personal to her. It’s easy for her fans to make those songs personal to them too.

That’s always the ‘it factor’ isn’t it. Whether for music or for science, for most anything work-worthy and meaningful, it has to be intensely personal. I doubt that Adele Adkins would call her writing, her music, and her singing her ‘job.’ We don’t hear her music as much as we receive it, and make it our own.

This goes for management too. Especially for managemeant. Pretty simple, really. If you want to manage better, you’ve got to make it personal.

Do you know what truly defines an Alaka‘i Manager? Not knowing everything or most everything about Managing with Aloha, but standing for something in the workplace culture you want to Mālama, and be a fiercely courageous steward of. Value alignment and Ho‘ohana managemeant has got to be intensely personal for you.

Like Adele, standing for the good-health breakthroughs in your workplace culture will make you different, and very, very likeable. It will make you successful. You will be a manager like no other. You will be the boss everyone wants to work for.

Adele isn’t the only one with a self-management story, you have one too. Call it your own Adele-ity if you want to, but do identify your own calling. Be willing to shout it from the rooftops, and sing about it in your own way, and like Adele, know that no gimmicks are necessary. You’ve got your Aloha.

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.

Write your story of leadership

January 11, 2011 by Rosa Say

I’m thrilled to have a new blog in my feed reader, and I want to share it with you: Chris DeWeese has decided to share his leadership journey with Managing with Aloha and Getting Things Done —which long-time readers know I’ve read and invested time in as a productivity exploration.

Please click over, read his first post, and support him with your comments and a subscription.

I love that Chris starts with his own story, and his intention to keep writing his story as it continues to play out, for that’s what management and leadership becomes for all of us who choose them: A self-directed story of what we learn, and how we intentionally choose to use it in working with others. As Chris writes:

The one lesson I remember best and has always helped me as a leader was simple, “take care of your people and they will take care of you.”

I’ve always privately thought of Managing with Aloha as ‘my Pono story’ and do explain that in my book’s prologue and ending. I don’t think of it as a memoir exactly, for my goal writing it was to urge managers to treat management and leadership as a calling, and my desire was to share the goodness of the Hawaiian values to help. However the story is there, and it can’t really be separated from the whole, for it’s a story about how I sought Pono (the value of rightness) working within an industry which wasn’t embraced or admired very much in Hawai‘i at the time. The sense of balance we can pull from the value of Pono is important because you can’t do good work when you don’t feel completely good doing it.

Good begets good, and all people can start from their inherent goodness. It’s one of my favorite coachings and I believe it with all of me: Mind (mana‘o), body (kino), soul and spirit (‘uhane).

When will you write your story? I know you have one, and as David Zinger likes to say,

“Your story is more important than mine because it is, after all, your story.”

As I commented for Chris, I believe that blogging one’s personal story publicly is a profound expression of lokomaika‘i ~ generosity. He certainly gave me a great gift in doing so with this first step! However I realize how much bravery it takes to be that open and vulnerable, and to ask strangers you haven’t met yet for their feedback. But you know what happens? They can become a strong support system for you, strengthening you in several ways. All of you who read Talking Story certainly do that for me.

We’ve talked about journaling often, as the way to write things down, and write to think. Incorporate journaling into your 2011 Year of Better Habits. Maybe you’re not ready to do so publicly like Chris is doing, and that’s okay. Do it for yourself. Capture your story so you can truly appreciate what a gem it is.

A bit more from Chris:

A few months ago I was selected to a leadership position and moved from being an individual contributor back to leading a group of people. Most people know that there is a big difference when you make this change. I went from thinking how I would complete my projects, to how I will take care of my employees and help them complete their projects. I guess if you look at it in a way I took on an exponential amount of work and responsibility, but I also gained the chance to influence my employees lives in a positive way and guide us in a direction of continued success.

Sure sounds like answering a calling to me.

I’m eager to read more, aren’t you?

What if your business got sick?

February 11, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Two mini stories today. One is about business plans (sorta) and one is about healthy people (sorta).

The 1st story, with a moral thrown in

I hired a coach who specialized in teaching better business planning a few years back, and I highly recommend it: All coaches should periodically be hiring coaches in related fields of expertise, or in anything new and of interest to them. Learning erupts like a fiery volcano spewing lava which will change the landscape forever. In fact, everyone has some area of expertise to be offered to another person: Think about the barter possibilities, and propose a trade. (Put it in your business model.)

My coach covered an awful lot with me; perhaps too much, for not everything made a lasting impression, and it might be time I took a refresher course. However there was one thing he suggested which at first seems quite disconnected from having a good business plan, especially if you get stuck in that box connected to the financials of it all. I would learn that on the contrary, it had everything to do with my business plan, and so much more. He said something like this:

“Rosa, let’s say we were playing charades, and you wanted me to guess the name of your business. In the first clue you gave me, would your business be a person, a thing, or a place?”

At the time, within the context of the rest of the coaching I needed, he wanted to jar me loose from the hang-up I had with “sense of place” (tomaytoes tomahtoes” “hang-up” to him was key concept to me, but I digress”), point being I wasn’t thinking big enough, nor globally enough, true to the ‘universal’ part of Managing with Aloha. And he was right about that.

The correct answer, was supposed to be “a person.”

He suspected, and he was a thousand percent right about this part, that I would treat my business remarkably different, and hence open my eyes to new and different possibilities with my business plan, if I thought of my business as a person depending on me for nourishment and sustenance.

My business is like a person I need to take care of, vibrantly alive, and needing food, water and air to survive” and so my business plan had to define and get real about keeping that “food, water, and air” readily available.

And that was simply foundational. Nourishment and sustenance is not the same as growth. My business would not grow (and growth comes in many different stripes) unless I invested in his/her growth, and in mine. My business the person was not me, but a different person. We were not the same; we just worked together.

This was quite a breakthrough in thinking for me. However I’ll let you sit with that on your own for now, for I said this would be a mini story. Let’s shoot to the moral of the story, and you can get there within your own business plan (keep reading the blog in future weeks and I’ll help. Stuff in the archives will help you too).

Moral: LOTS of advantages to thinking about your business as a person, AND as a person who embraces a lot of other people too, not just you (Businesses affect people; you know that).

Think about that for another second before we move on: Your favorite businesses are probably very personable. They’re downright loveable. Infectious” though not in the way of my second story…

The 2nd story, prefaced with a question

Question: Well, three questions, but they go together as one:
My first story told, are you thinking of your workplace as a person, and not as an intangible entity or single place? Great.

Now, what if your business got really sick? How much would have to stop, or dramatically change?

Nourishing gourmet ‘food’ (or local grinds), pure mountain-filtered Hawai‘i ‘water’ and fragrant vog-free Pacific ‘air’ may not be enough if your business gets sick. It hasn’t been for mine.

This has been a reality check AND fresh idea generator for me over the last few weeks. I am newly looking at what else is involved in keeping my business the person completely healthy. Completely healthy as in never sick, where I am acknowledging (and cheering for) the super-human quality my business the person can have, even when I can’t.

Now, another thing I did learn in that business plan coaching, was that no business should rely too much on one person (even if you are a solopreneur): Your business model should seek to automate reliable, steady income in some way. Thankfully mine doesn’t rely totally on me working day in and day out (I did learn that part pretty well). But still, when I get sick, my business catches it from me, and gets sick too. There is a LOT which either stops or dramatically changes.

Long story mini-short, I happened to get pretty ill these last three weeks, and yesterday was my first day back in my office since mid-January, a half-day, and the first day I got my voice back enough to use the telephone. Not good when speaking, teaching and coaching is a BIG part of your income.

I have learned so much about me and the relationship I have with my business the person during these past three weeks where, other than writing in my lucid moments (I hope you found it lucid…), I could not work, even if I wanted to. Being forced to stop everything else, has caused me to reassess all kinds of things connected to my Ho‘ohana, my income potential, and my capacity for serving others.

And it shouldn’t be just “my.” It should always be me AND my business the person. Another person. Separate from me, separate from my team, separate from all our other stakeholders.

As I sat in my office again yesterday, looking around me and feeling like it was some old neighborhood I returned to, only to find new neighbors were next door encroaching, their dog trampling my flower beds, I resolved not to publish another blog post until I urged you to think about the metaphor, and write your own fictional story, imagining both the best and the worst.

What if your business (or your workplace) got sick? And not just take an extra day off sick, but really sick?

For example, you could write a chapter on immunity, and how fragile it is when sickness comes calling, and then oddly, how quickly another kind of immunity sets in, but not the kind you want, when those expensive over-the-counter drugs you’re taking no longer work for you halfway into the box.

Even seemingly rich businesses like Toyota can get terribly sick, to the point where they might be incapacitated, or they disappoint people in catastrophic ways.

137: this is where i spent xmas — Getting sick is not pretty. Not for you, not for your business.

The metaphor serves, for I don’t want you to really get sick (it sucks.) I’m betting you don’t need more details from me: You can remember the last time you got sick and what it was like (and I am getting much, much better now, thanks. Call me so I can speak for you again).

Besides your food, water, and air, what keeps your business and your workplace culture at its healthiest best? Take this even further: How can you keep your Ho‘ohana [your most passionate work] from ever getting sick, getting it to be super-human too?

As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Don’t learn that wisdom the hard way when you don’t have to: Talk story about the metaphor in your next huddle. You know you’ve caught something when you start to get that scratchy feeling in your throat” what are the earliest symptoms you’ll feel (and the other person, who is your business will feel) when your workplace catches cold? It would be very interesting to compare the answers you get from others on your team.

Give a swig of that castor oil or fizzy Airborne to your business the person. Get healthy together, and attend to it today: For 2010, with Aloha.

Photo Credit: 137: this is where i spent xmas by assbach on Flickr

Cross-posted: This also appears on Say “Alaka‘i” at The Honolulu Advertiser today.

Cultivating a Well-Behaved Mind

September 22, 2009 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Mindfulness. Such a beautiful word. Who doesn’t want to be more mindful?

Yet what does that mean exactly?

I’m going to resist the urge to look it up. Fact is, I’m not that curious, for I don’t want to get distracted (which I’m thinking would be less than mindful). I am very content to get pretty literal with this one: Mindful has got to be ‘fullness of mind.’

We can feel blissful contentment when we reach mindfulness. However ‘fullness of mind’ is something you can only get to if your mind is behaving in the way it serves you best. It is the fullness of YOUR mind. We want the bliss of contentment and satisfaction with our thinking, and not a fullness to bursting that represents overwhelm.

So here’s the question of the day:
As a manager seeking more practice in self-leadership, how do you get your mind to behave?

I have three suggestions, but this is one of those thinking-out-loud postings for me, and I’d love to have you weigh in: You may want to look away for a few moments and try to answer the question for yourself before reading more… I’ll wait. How do you get your mind to behave? What instantly comes to mind for you?

Ready to compare notes with me?

1. Beat Procrastination: Eliminate Distraction

Turning an unconditional regard on my own habits, beating procrastination would probably top my list. I know that I have to stop forsaking long-term goals in favor of short-term desires, replacing self-indulgence with self-discipline. I mentioned the sneaky culprit earlier: Distraction. Where my attention goes, I go. So I suspect the more distraction I eliminate, the better I will get at overcoming procrastination. Logical sure, but easier said than done.

Outsmarting temptation is a biggie here. I know a manager who calls this “pulling a Ulysses.” Remember how Ulysses tied himself to the mast of his ship to resist the seduction of the Sirens’ song? He was limiting his ability to behave badly later. A common example these days: Don’t go shopping if you want to save money. Another: Stay offline with all social media tabs closed when you shouldn’t be socializing.

How do YOU beat procrastination?

2. Get More Impatient: Harness Discontent

I’ve mentioned impatience before, as a word the contrarian in me absolutely adores. Impatience reveals that valuable bias for a sense of urgency.

Most of us need more patience in our relationships with other people ”“ I’ll give you that. However I really think we need more impatience when it comes to the work that we individually do: Too much patience gets to be another way we procrastinate. We say we’re “still learning” or we’re “trying to be more open-minded,” when we’re really stalling, stuck in the mental gymnastics of not making a decision fast enough.

When I recognize that my mind begins to rant, I’m not as quick with stifling the discontent now. I ask myself why the rant (other people or me?) and then why not (why not be impatient?) Absolutely no coulda, shoulda, woulda allowed. Choose. Be decisive. Git ‘er done and move on.

Do you see the value of allowing more impatience into your thinking?

3. Turn Everything Into a Story

This is admittedly a new approach for me, one I am still testing. In my case this is also a way for me to channel that “still learning” affliction I know I do have into something productive and fascinating so I will be more self-motivated by some process.

This started with my study of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: I am fully aware that I’m a left-brainer by nature, and I am working on cultivating my right braininess. Pink says that the aptitude of Story is “context enriched by emotion. Story exists where high concept and high touch intersect.” To me, that means “Head, meet gut instinct: I want you two to get along.”

The woo-woo stuff aside (which is good, trust me. I recommend the book) I look at Story from the reality of all situations having a “once upon a time,” a grand adventure, and a “happily ever after.” The well-behaved mind will start something, execute it, and most important, finish it. (That was pretty left-brained logical, wasn’t it.) I also have that good impatience with stories: I want to get to the end, so it begs the grand finale and gets the glorious finish to happen sooner versus later (no thinly disguised procrastination).

Does that make sense to you?
Still learning this one, and all open-minded contrarians are welcomed to chime in!

So your turn now:

How do you think we managers can cultivate a well-behaved mind?

Let’s talk story; I’d love to hear from you.

My mana‘o [The Backstory of this posting]
Each Tuesday I write a leadership posting for Say “Alaka‘i” at The Honolulu Advertiser. The edition here on Talking Story is revised with internally directed links, and I can take a few more editorial liberties. What will not change? That we talk story!