trusted system

On Other Days: Creative Structure

January 15, 2012 by Rosa Say

If you’ve read Talking Story for any longer-than-recently length of time, you know that I’m a big fan of creative structure. I like to test new habits and shift my routines, to explore and experiment with variation, but I also do so with the hope that I’ll nalu it, and fall into a cool, unexpected, and pleasing rhythm of some new sort.

Structure is comforting, and I like structure. But nobody said it had to be stagnant, stodgy and boring. So I willingly devote whole weekends to designing trusted systems. I especially love values-based structure (no surprise there, huh), for it serves as a kind of good-habit filtering of all that life can throw at you.

However I like change too. That is, I like it the way most people will discover they actually like it: When they’ve been the ones to choose the change, being more proactive about it versus being swept away in the tide because someone else decided to “make waves” and rock the boat.

If you can become a person who chooses change, you begin to dabble, and play with it. You reveal creativity you hadn’t thought you had, but do! What others choose to do doesn’t bother you as much, because you’re too busy with your own thing. The boat might be rocking, but you’re standing in the best place — next to the life preservers — and you already have a plan.

Frank Merriwell's Discovery Yale Story — Vintage poster courtesy of The Happy Rower on Flickr

Time is finite. Content isn’t.

We all get 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. What we choose to fill those time frames with, represents an abundance of choice — sky’s the limit. The question I have for you is this: Do you make all the choices you get to make?

Note the distinction: Not choices you have to make, but choices you get to make.

One consequence of the conventional 40-hour work week, is that most of us have created our ‘weekday’ and ‘weekend’ paradigms, even if our schedules dictate when the weekend will actually be (mine will happen this coming Tuesday and Wednesday this particular week).

Well, what if you got more than that?

If you are successful at designing a 20-hour work week for yourself like we talked about last time, a supremely wonderful get-to moment the world is paying serious attention to now, this is what you’ll get:

Work days
Weekends
Other days

The creative structure of your ‘Other Days’ is completely up to you. How would you design them?

Making life different, and doing it on purpose.

For instance, my Work Days typically go like this:
Wake up, brush my teeth, wash my face, fit in my run or workout as possible. Shower, dress the part in store for the day, have a light breakfast. Go to work in the way I’d planned to ‘hit the ground running’ the night before, and by merit of my Weekly Review (told ya, I like structure: Deliberate Inputs).

In comparison, my Other Days go like this:
Wake up at 5am. Brush and floss my teeth, as I make faces at myself in the mirror and read whatever affirmations I stuck up there on post-its. Capture whatever they make me think about in the Voice Memos app on my phone. Get dressed in the most comfortable, clean clothes I have in reach; no match, no matter (to be truthful, I usually go for more color, and the purposely unprofessional). Start the fixings of a good breakfast, including firing up my Krups cappuccino maker and grinding some good Kona beans. Sit on our porch with my coffee, and find something to take at least one photo of as the sun comes up. Decide how to use the photo as I finish my breakfast. Read whatever is on my Kindle for at least an hour, and for as long as I want to. Write something, and see if I can illustrate it (I want to learn to draw in some distinctive-to-me way). Use the rest of the day being unencumbered, and however my spirit moves me.

In the values-speak of Managing with Aloha:
…Work Days are for Ho‘ohana, Kuleana and KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u
…Weekends are for ‘Ohana, Mālama and Mahalo
…Other Days are for ‘Imi ola, ‘Ike loa and Nānā i ke kumu

I never check my email on Other Days, and I force myself to ignore my computer’s Work Day bookmarks. If I open my laptop I’ll go straight to my G-Reader and follow links for the 5,6, or 7 degrees of separation my inspiring stable of blogging accomplices and instigators send me toward, and I merrily wander away the time, stopping occasionally to curate my Commonplace Book in Evernote. I seek to remember the good by dipping into the older archives of Ho‘ohana Aloha (my Tumblr) so I can Ho‘omau with it (stretch it out, and make it last). I read a lot on Other Days; deep reading, resisting all urges to scan or skim.

Other Days are for discovering how much of a weather-wise person you are (different from weather-lucky). I get outside as much as possible and take a lot of walks on my Other Days, and I call people just to talk story on the phone for a while, or I write letters and thank you notes. Sometimes I simply stay inside the entire day long, and savor the spots of refuge and rejuvenation of my home – absolutely heavenly when it rains! (Home is different on the weekends, for then I share it with family …I’m cleaning and catching up with chores.)

I’m an obsessive planner with my Work Days, necessary by merit of the travel and island-hopping I do, yet I am very diligent about fitting in my Daily 5 Minutes and having other conversations. On Other Days I plan nothing but creative pursuits I want to try (handwork, crafty things mostly), and just fall into the environmental structure I have described. My Other Days aren’t exactly hobby days though, for my goal is more variety. More random life-immersion. More other-ness.

I write a a lot, for that’s how I tend to think, and reason things out. As you might guess, most of what I publish on Talking Story got written on my Other Days, at least in draft form.

Here’s something I just read on my Kindle that was pretty reaffirming:

“What kind of environment creates good ideas? The simplest way to answer it is this: innovative environments are better at helping their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible (defined in this post’s footnote), because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts—mechanical or conceptual—and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts. Environments that block or limit those new combinations—by punishing experimentation, by obscuring certain branches of possibility, by making the current state so satisfying that no one bothers to explore the edges—will, on average, generate and circulate fewer innovations than environments that encourage exploration.”
— Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

These days, managers are pretty good at thinking about the environmental creativity fostered in the workplace. But what about in those places where everything else happens?

I propose that you can have Other Days right now, even if you start with just one day a week, and no matter what the rest of the world is doing in battling or keeping with their existing conventions.

Try it.
Your dentist will be very happy about the flossing thing.

Just in case you missed these:

Be unencumbered

October 12, 2011 by Rosa Say

This is the advice I find I’m giving to my own children these days, as two young adults forging their way in a world where a lot of the rules have changed, or are still in flux. It’s advice I’m newly taking for myself too.

This is a day and time where the actions within free will, and the nimble mobility of easy movement, are abilities we must keep positioned to serve us, unrestricted and unburdened.

Be unencumbered

For to “be encumbered is to be restricted or burdened (by someone or something) in such a way that free action or movement is difficult.” (from my MacBook dictionary)

The root word itself is heavy, which is good, for it gets you to pause, and better understand.

Try saying it out loud; “Unencumbered.” It’s weighty too, as opposed to saying something like, “lighten up” which has other connotations anyway, or “protect your freedoms” which is presumptive and doesn’t capture everything which can be a possible culprit. For instance, on my current list of encumbrance culprits are:

Stuff — because I want lightness instead, both physical and mental. I don’t want to bother with maintaining stuff I don’t use often enough to really matter
Debt — because I want freedom from liability, and hate paying interest that just makes things cost more
Jobs — because I prefer to think about work and Ho‘ohana. Work is necessary, and where the rewards are to be found, whereas ‘job’ is too small a container, often with other restrictions
Dogma — because the only label I’m okay with is Thinker. I have gotten very wary about polarity, and how ideology and even branding can cause us to erect walls. I want to be more open-minded instead, and push myself to explore more in the learning I pursue
Should-ing — I tend to separate this from dogma, in that should-ing usually hits us closer to home, coming from people we know more intimately, spending personal time with them. And they are another variable, one we will not dismiss, for they are important to us, and we want them to be proud of us [I defined should-ing in this post: A Good Ruthlessness x3.]
Negativity — because Lord knows there is enough of it in the world, and I don’t want to be another contributor. From a practical standpoint, negativity is also highly ineffective
Bad habits — there can be several encumbrances here [the world of auto-pilot], and the caution I always start with is in regard to physical health. When you get sick, everything else gets to be a moot point
Sloth — because it’s such an energy killer. Look up sloth in a Thesaurus for the list of yuckiness it can include. No life can afford any of that stuff. Sloth kills creativity too
Envy — because it doesn’t make much sense (it’s about someone else’s choices, not yours), yet is easy to fall prey to. To me, the opposite of envy is the virtue of Ma‘alahi, that peaceful persuasion of calming contentment — so much better!

You get the idea. The list can go on and your list might be different. I usually stop with 9 of anything in working through my own listings of things (case in point: Our 9 key Concepts for MWA). 9 is quite enough, for each one of these can be expanded on, and the whole self-coaching of “Be unencumbered” is to keep each of them self-managed well enough so they aren’t unwieldy, and I can fold them into my trusted system with good results.

To be unencumbered, make it relevant to your life

Going back to my children, we mostly have these kinds of conversations these days: To set the stage a bit, they are done with college, and now support themselves. Yet they are still young, unmarried, and haven’t become parents. I want them to take full advantage of their youthful energies, for as the saying goes, the world is their oyster:

Be unencumbered of a mortgage, for owning a home isn’t what it used to be, and you have time; wait until the industry heals itself.

For that matter, be unencumbered by all ownership — question what maintenance every owned thing might come with, and see it as possible baggage. Better to use-with-immediacy, whether rented, borrowed, or bartered for, and then move on.

Be unencumbered of middlemen, and brokers of any kind. Do for yourself to start with, to learn completely and understand well: Define what “in your best interest” is for yourself, before you hire or otherwise allow anyone else to do something for you.

Be unencumbered of what anyone else believes, including me and your dad. Trust in your values, think for yourself, and make your own rules to live/work/play by. Then be prepared to eloquently explain the why of your choices (you know we’ll still be asking you about them, and won’t hold back our opinions, so be ready to take an educated stand).

Be unencumbered of convention, all of it, and especially in learning. The world around us is a little broken right now, but that’s opportunity for you in forging a better way. Learn from everything, and everyone around you, for the world itself must be your teacher right now if you’re to navigate it successfully.

We will be here to help, but not too much.

So “Be unencumbered” really helps as the catch-all of our Language of Intention as our family conversations continue. It becomes our insider-speak, and a shortcut about, then past why-we’re-talking-about-this, which helps us get into the meat of the matter quicker.

Then, make it relevant to your work

As you can imagine, “be unencumbered” is now part of my Managing with Aloha vocabulary too, in regard to the work of my businesses, for there are so many new conversations to be had, and had often. Vocabulary has always been tool-extraordinaire for us: The Best, Yet Most Underutilized Tool for Communication There Is.

This is a time to defy convention, and seize the opportunity to create better: Trump those Old Rules with Your Values.

As an Alaka‘i Manager, how can “Be unencumbered” help in your workplace huddles? What are the hot spots which come to mind for you, and can you discern what their encumbrances are?

Money, budgeting strategy, and financial literacy comes to mind relatively quickly (as with my last post, in regard to current affairs), but there are so many other encumbrances to consider.

What would be your first target?

Here is some help in the archives, one for each of the encumbrances on my list:

Stuff: Spring Cleaning at Work: Junk is not the Stuff of Legacy. How much junk is costing you money, and worse, cluttering up those spaces where good work, important and creative work, should be getting done instead?
Debt: What does ‘financial literacy’ mean to you? An oldie, from 2005: One of the first posts I published here on Talking Story, about The Managers’ Kuleana we revisited a few days ago.
Jobs: A Job of any Merit: Your 3 Options in Worthwhile Work. In case you missed it, this was the “we can do this!” post within a string of others this month.
Dogma: Imagine having a Thought Kit: The story behind Business Thinking with Aloha.
Should-ing: Have you caught the curve ball? A new initiative has come down from the top (corporate, your boss etc.): What do you do now?
Negativity: Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace: When the downer isn’t the job itself, but the workplace culture.
Bad habits: The 3 Sins of Management: About the bad habits of tacit approval, automatic pilot, and lies of omission.
Sloth: Distract, Interrupt, Intercept, Disrupt: A simple way to focus, and deal with distractions.
Envy: Downsizing gets cool: Today you have to pause a bit when you hear the word. Can we downsize to warm up to change?

A How-to Postscript: Are you using the tags here on Talking Story, listed at the bottom of each post? That’s how I came up with this list for you. For instance, try energy and/or creativity for sloth (the link I chose above was to help you with distraction.)

So much lies beyond that chain link fence… Be unencumbered so you can reach it.

Encore: Learning my 9 Boxes

March 27, 2011 by Rosa Say

6th grade was a big year, come to think of it.

After sharing the story about my dad, and how he helped me appreciate my schooling more, I thought you might enjoy some true Sunday Mālama time meeting Mr. Lincoln.

A bit of encore backstory: This post is one I originally wrote for Joyful Jubilant Learning. We were “Learning the Joy of 9” at the time, in a playful month-long exploration of the 09-09-09 palindrome. These were our posting prompts:

What does 9 mean to you?
How can 9 trigger your learning, adding to your learning pleasure in a 9-fold way?
What exploration of 9 will you challenge yourself with in the month to come?

This was one writing assignment I didn’t have to think twice about. So here is Learning my 9 Boxes with a few updates for this new spot on Talking Story.

May there be a Mr. Lincoln in every student’s life.

Waikoloa School

Learning My 9 Boxes

Growing up I did well in school; I liked being there, and quickly discovered my joy in learning. It was obvious to me that what I liked was relatively easy (English, History, Social Studies) and what I didn’t like as much would surely prove more difficult (Science and Math) — just like Kirsten says! — New Learners for the New Economy So I tried real hard to find some favor in those things I didn’t like.

However all through my lower grades I could not come to grips with numbers. With every advancing grade it seemed to me that math got worse, in blatant, unreasonable defiance of that surely-sacred law that “practice makes perfect.”

Mr. Lincoln

Then by some divine intervention, Mr. Lincoln became our math teacher in the 6th grade, just in time for Algebra. It had to be a miracle of some kind, because I was in Catholic school, and all our other teachers were nuns. I would soon learn that was but one small reason Mr. Lincoln was miraculously different. Very different.

The nuns were specialists. Each grade had a homeroom teacher, but you’d have the same nun for each subject of the curriculum from kindergarten all the way up to the 8th grade, so unless she stopped teaching for some reason, you had to learn to like her too; the subject itself was but the half of it. Well, something happened to Sister Margaret Alice, who’d been our math teacher, during the summer after the 5th grade. Not sure what; when you’re only 10 or 11 years old you aren’t given many reasons for things happening, they just do, and you accept them knowing you don’t have much choice in the matter anyway. So when we walked into our math class at the beginning of my 6th grade school year, there was Mr. Lincoln, a regular man ”“ he wasn’t even a brother or priest! And he was our teacher!

From the very beginning we knew he’d be temporary, only there until they found another nun to replace Sister Margaret Alice, and sure enough, by the 7th grade Mr. Lincoln was gone. But we had our full 6th grade with him, and for me, that was enough: Mr. Lincoln was going to be the one to finally help me learn to love numbers ”“ in Algebra no less.

The Breakthrough

All these years later, Mr. Lincoln has become larger than life in my memories of him. He’s become a math god, commanding all the happy numbers of the universe. I’ve freely given him the credit in silent prayer with every corporate balance sheet or profit & loss statement I have had to reconcile, and every business plan or pro forma I’ve had to write. I’ve blessed his memory each time I’ve managed to get my income tax returns to be at zero (versus paying or getting a refund) because my withholding was right. Whenever I gave a training class in financial literacy to my employees having figured out the best way to present it to them, I’ve imagined Mr. Lincoln playing chess or poker in heaven with Dean Pennington (my high school class advisor, and the one who convinced me to take Business Law in college), again winning both game and debate on why good business strategy should not be overly complicated. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I would not be an entrepreneur and principal of three businesses today if Mr. Lincoln had not been my 6th grade math teacher.

Yes, he was nice. Yes, he was kind. Yes, he was patient. Yes, he was very, very good at explaining the mysteries of Algebra. However my breakthrough came the day that he explained something extraordinary to us. He said that math and numbers are two different things which happen to work together well, and we could use numbers for more than just math. It sounds incredibly obvious, but back then this was like a pronouncement of permission thinking sent straight from heaven.

Mr. Lincoln said something like, “Put aside math for now; don’t even think about it. Let’s figure out how you can learn to like numbers.” It was like reinventing all of numerology all over again, and doing it any way you wanted to. Even as a lowly, do-as-you’re-told, be-seen-and-not-heard 6th grader.

Folding Paper

One of the first things we did in class was fold paper. Mr. Lincoln gave each of us a blank piece of paper and said he wanted us to fold it any way we wanted to: We could make columns, we could make boxes, we could make triangles or a pie —we could even rip a piece off if we wanted it square instead of rectangular.

He then explained that whatever we ended up with would be our template: When we counted up how many spaces our folds had created, we would know what our favorite number was —naturally, because our spirit said so. From then on, every time he gave us a homework assignment, we could apply it first to some patterning or iteration of our favorite number, deciding if we liked our pattern or not, and jogging a happier trail toward the answers he would eventually teach us to find.

Iteration:
“A process of achieving a desired result by repeating a sequence of steps and successively getting closer to that result.”

In other words, we could make our own math rules. Mr. Lincoln was either crazy (and the nuns didn’t know it) or he was brilliant. As you can guess, I think he was brilliant.

The 9 Boxes

As I sat in Mr. Lincoln’s class that day, I folded my paper in 3 equal columns and 3 equal rows, and got 9 boxes. It was the day that I instantly and magically stopped being intimidated by the number 9. I learned to embrace it, and get it to work for me. It’s a template I use even today.

And just as Mr. Lincoln said I could do, I use my 9 boxes for way more than just math. The first homework assignment he gave us was to think about the special things in our lives, and collect them on our templates within the spaces we created so they could be at home with us in math class too. I don’t recall what they were, but I do remember that my 9 boxes each had a single word in them (all in English, no Hawaiian). It remains a way I will teach managers to dream, and drill-down from their most compelling values words to articulating their vision.

As you can see from this picture, I use my 9 boxes every single week to do my Strong Week Planning: The arrows are normally not there, but are drawn in for you to see my process. When I do my Weekly Review I write my project management in each square and pattern my work flow.

The flow arrows were there on the 9 boxes I used to decide what order the 19 values of Managing with Aloha should appear in the chapter progression of my book: The arrows did the double duty of segmenting each box into two, with Aloha naturally starting in the middle as fertile ground and centering. Number 19 is my Epilogue, and as Ka lā hiki ola, the value of hope and promise, it is my “dawning of a new day” (the literal translation of the value) and on a brand new page of 9 boxes as the page title —the one which would become the 9 Key Concepts of my business model. Yep” The resulting grid morphed my book into a business.

I teach managers the fine points of the Daily 5 Minutes with 9 questions knowing their understanding will be complete once they fill in their own action plans for it in the template: They will move from having 9 questions to 9 incredible answers which value their employees and make them feel exceptionally confident as their manager and partner.

Iteration Drill Down

Best of all, 9 was simply my beginning.

I now LOVE 5. Do these ring any bells?

The Daily 5 Minutes ®. Definition and story, and full category. If you’re not giving your staff the gift of the Daily Five Minutes, you’re not Managing with Aloha „¢
5 Things Employees Need to Learn—From You. I am fond of saying that we learn from people, for I fervently believe that we do.
Performance Reviews: There’s a much better way. Turn your mandates into a positive and highly useful process in 5 steps.
Getting back our Practical Wisdom. “Change talking” in 5, and the power of our language of intention.
And focus-significant last year: Take 5 in 2010: A Game-Changing Ho‘ohana.

As a writer I’m a fan of the number 3, and I use the Rule of Three in every keynote-length speech I give (Copyblogger explains it well: How to Use the “Rule of Three” to Create Engaging Content):

The number 1 makes me focus (though this one is a bit of cheat, for it expands to 3 columns): Improve your Reputation with 1 List.

But for me, learning by numbers all started with the number 9 —and with an incredible teacher named Mr. Lincoln.

Tell me what you love about 9. How you might impulsively use the 9 boxes if faced with a blank template of them? I would love to get more ideas, and have a ream of printer paper just waiting to be folded, so I can continue to learn —from you.

As Brad Shorr shared with the original JJL posting:

Rosa, I wonder where you would be in your career and life without Mr. Lincoln. It’s amazing when we trace back to the roots of what we have become. A while back I had a cartoon strip project (that may be coming back to life!) where we were telling a story in sets of three three-panel cartoons. I found the structure of 9 very conducive to storytelling: a set up, a twist, a result. It was the first time I ever took a mathematical approach to joke writing, and the client and I were both extremely happy with the result.

We can probably all relate to what Cody Robert shared: I love what he says about “math as a language.”

For me Rosa, it was quite the opposite in that I had no trouble learning math in school at all. But, the application is what became vexing. What use were all these rules and theories outside of simple scribbles on paper? In reality, it seemed, all someone had done was make up these systems and rules of “math”.

It wasn’t for many years later until I began understanding the quiet importance of all the math I had learned. How it is a most efficient means of describing what was previously indescribable in our world. It then does me no surprise to hear that you learned its application at such an early age! Math, as a language acts not only to describe what we see around us, but what we envision and plan. Thank you for sharing this sweet revelation with me yet again.

Saturday stillness at school

Archive Aloha

Numerology for Managers: Great video in this one on the Magic of 9.
Leadership Needs a Numbers Breakthrough: We have long given each other such awful, negative connotations to numbers in business. On the one hand, numbers are revered as supreme; they are the measurement metrics of our universal business language. They are pragmatic. (Hear the sighs of all your CFOs and CPAs?) However let it be known (or surmised) that you are at all “bottom-line driven” and you strike fear in the hearts of all your employees and their families. Shifting context can help.
The 30-70 Rule in Leading and Managing: A manager will both manage and lead. They will be most effective at achieving results which matter when 30% of their time is dedicated to leading, and 70% of their time is devoted to managing.

Performance Reviews: There’s a much better way

February 28, 2011 by Rosa Say

Sat to talk story with a few managers who are currently facing their annual deadline with completing performance appraisals.

If you’re in corporate life you probably know the drill:
Performance reviews are conducted annually in one-on-one manager/employee appraisal meetings (and mandated), and managers are required to use a format designed by an HR office or some consultant, so consistent performance ratings can be used throughout the company for supposed equity in compensation levels — a poor reason for a bad process.

Employees hate it, and managers hate it, and yet scores of companies continue to uphold the practice. Pure yuck.

As you might guess from my tone so far, we don’t use that system in any of my Managing with Aloha-modeled businesses (we don’t have Job Position Descriptions either; we co-write individual Ho‘ohana Statements).

Do we review performance? Of course! The difference is that we do it constantly, coaching and mentoring on the job as the best possible context for having those conversations: Working on our Ho‘ohana is an everyday thing (and compensation is handled in another way as well). Thanks to opportunities furnished by The Daily 5 Minutes and our value-mapping practices, business partners (i.e. employees) are often the ones to initiate conversations on their performance with managers.

However I know that many managers have no choice but to comply with mandates, and like those I just coached, they have to work within the system they have until they are able to change it. Well, you CAN make improvements, making them work for you right now. Embrace your Systems Thinker: As we have learned, people can fix broken processes. Processes cannot fix broken-in-spirit people.

Here is what I advise.

Keep the good, get rid of the bad

In short: Turn your mandates into a positive and highly useful process.

Start with the basics of what you are required to do,
Improve the quality of those basics when done by your hand, and then
Build new improvements from there.

Here’s how.

1. Learn everything there is to know about your mandate. Good managers never wing it or fake it when it comes to putting anything in writing in regard to the performance of another human being. If you’re feeling somewhat powerless at this point in changing anything about the system as it now stands, imagine how your employees feel! They are counting on you: Hold yourself accountable for what is a profound responsibility.

Put your own manager or HR department to work for you, and get their coaching. Ask all your questions, and be crystal clear on the domino effect created by any appraisal form you complete: forms largely exist to expedite other processes.

2. Do your homework. If you’re working within a mandated system, you’re not alone. Chances are the employees in your charge have been reviewed before, and by others: Learn their history. I don’t necessarily recommend you use it (each situation is likely to have different variables requiring your judgment), but you should definitely be aware of it: you can’t build a new house (and culture of Aloha) without a solid foundation.

Second, put your feelers out for other managers who have a good reputation in your company (managing and leading with Aloha), and ask them to share any of their lessons learned with you: You may be pleasantly surprised in discovering great workarounds (legal ones) which already exist in your company culture.

3. Add some heart to add good energy. I cannot emphasize this enough: In “starting with the basics of what you are required to do” make the ‘official’ annual appraisal meeting a positive experience, helping without hurting. Do what you have to (more on this in the next section on timing) but be absolutely sure the annual appraisal itself ends on a high note: Positive and useful.

How can it be useful? Do have the appraisal focus on Ho‘ohana goal-setting, with action-specific goals that are achievable week to week (not year to year). Hō‘imi: Lay the groundwork for a near future flush with positive expectancy. Always remember that the energy of your people will fuel their capacity to perform magnificently going forward, and thus, it’s your greatest resource too: All other business assets flow from the performance energy of human beings. Your job as manager is to light those fires, not put them out.

4. Ace your timing. Until you can change the system itself, do whatever is required of you, by doing what you have to at the best possible time. If you have to deal with some negativity and have a conversation about poor performance, do so and do not avoid it. Be a good boss: Never shy from your opportunities to teach, facilitate, coach and mentor.

Corrective conversations do NOT have to occur during an annual appraisal: They should happen before then, and in their best context on the job. Alaka‘i managers will create a coaching m.o. where they deal with any messes first, and then use the annual appraisal as yet another time to celebrate a sweet victory with having done so. Give that victory to the employee whose performance you are coaching and mentoring as a win you can log during the ‘official’ review.

5. Keep conversation as the construct of each working relationship. Annual appraisals are a pain when you only do them annually. What I’m suggesting to you is that whatever is required becomes the culmination of better practices you’ve adopted day in, and day out. We talk about conversation so much here because it’s easy, enjoyable, and effective.

Work with Ho‘ohana initiatives to fuel performance energies in your workplace group huddles. Do the Daily 5 Minutes ® and you will have a wealth of one on one conversations:

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 „¢

Turn up the Volume, and Manage Loudly:
Don’t give up too soon. Enjoy the music of managing well.

This need not be overwhelming:
Don’t Just Add, Replace. Own the 100%
Scroll down to the footnote tags and see how much this relates to!

Bonus Idea: One of the practices we incorporate in the ‘Ohana in Business Model ® is the Annual Nānā i ke kumu Interview: We literally re-interview all our business partners (including our vendors and suppliers) to strengthen our relationships with the knowledge of any life shifts which have occurred over the past year. It’s a time we revisit innate talents, strength activities, and sense of place well-being as we purposely catch up with each other. Why do so many managers only do this when they first hire people?

Will this be enough for you?

Finally, please do question your own influence: Stretch and grow it, and do not underestimate what you are capable of. What can you do to effect change in the larger system? How can you be a change agent where you work so a bad system goes away forever?

I think of what I’ve just outlined for you in this post as managing well: As I love to say, managing and leading are verbs. Will you be satisfied with this, or will you now lead? One problem with leadership, is simply that we don’t have enough of it.

As I mentioned before, the obstacle faced is usually your company’s compensation structure if that’s what ratings are tied to: Break the ties which bind by offering to help them create a much better solution.ï»¿