Talking Story

Starting new conversations in the workplace!

Archives for November 2006

Our Talking Story Ho Ho Ho is coming!

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Are you a regular reader of Talking Story?

Do you recognize these Hawaiian words, the proper versions of my shorthand Ho Ho Ho slang?

Grab your calendar and mark these down, for you are invited to all three Ho‘olaulea (celebrations).

Our Hō‘ike‘ike ”“ will be Friday, December 15th.
It’s our Management/ Leadership Carnival

‘Ike is the Hawaiian word for knowledge, and traditionally, the word Hō‘ike‘ike has been used in Hawai‘i to describe a display of wonderful things one can learn about, such as in a museum or art show.

Here on Talking Story, it is the name for our Hawaiian blog carnival on management and leadership, gathered in honor of our North Star, Managing with Aloha. The writers, authors, and bloggers of our Ho‘ohana Community send in their contributions for the best online article they’ve written over the past year, and I have the honor of being their compiling editor.

Our Ho‘omaha ”“ will be Monday, December 18th.
It’s the Best of Talking Story

Ho‘omaha ends the year for Talking Story. During Ho‘omaha we at Say Leadership Coaching are on sabbatical; we invest in our personal well-being, practicing the value of Nānā i ke kumu, and we connect with our ‘Ohana, our families.

Ho‘omaha is a time I read voraciously and write like a madwoman, but my writing simmers, cooked up for the New Year to come. Our Ho‘omaha post is known as “the Best of Talking Story” for it lists the Top 24 articles of the past year. I track them by traffic counts, but Ho‘ohana Community votes trump the search engines (as they should!) If you have a favorite you feel should be included, be sure you let me know!

Our first Ho‘ohana for 2007 ”“ will be Monday, January 15th.
It’s our Welcome to the New Year

January is the only month my Ho‘ohana essay does not appear on the first working day of the month, for we honor your own rituals of the New Year whatever they may be, putting our faith in Kalā hiki ola, the value of hope and promise. In my first post returning from sabbatical, we revisit the Managing with Aloha movement and prepare to Imua, move forward with you.

In 2007, I plan to return with much that is new for Talking Story. The blog will have a new look, and a new independence. I’ve written a bit more about my plans on Joyful Jubilant Learning today; you can read about it at Writing, Blogging, Business, and Learning Through it All.


The Ho‘ohana Community is growing up and out, and Talking Story must grow too. The MWA Jumpstart and the Joyful Jubilant Learning Network were born in 2006; with JJLN in particular, that means that two of our previous Talking Story Forums have moved over as anchor events (A Love Affair with Books in March, and Joyful Jubilant Learning in September). We can only imagine what 2007 will bring, and I am confident it will be good!

So get ready! I’ve already been planning and plotting, scheming and dreaming, and I couldn’t keep this preview inside any longer. However there are still another 17 days ahead of us for Talking Story in 2006. Let’s savor them, shall we?

Postscript:

If you have a management or leadership article you’d like to contribute to the Hō‘ike‘ike carnival, write me a quick note and I will send you the particulars.

Previous Editions:

Perpetual Parenting; Hana hou (We need to keep at it)

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I am the oldest of five children. Two brothers followed my arrival within the next two years, and then there was an eight year stretch before my younger brother and sister were born. My mom and dad both worked long hours, and so for the two youngest ones, I was their caregiver unless I was in school. When they got older, they even called me “Mom” in fun, but only if our mom wasn’t listening, for we all knew it was accurate enough to make her wince. When my youngest brother learned how to drive, my dad told him I’d be the one to decide on “the rules that went with it” like when he could drive at night, and chauffeur other kids, because I knew of his capacity for good judgment better than my parents did. When my sister started dating, I was the one her boyfriends had to meet first.

Naturalsmile
Now with children of their own, my brother and sister have been very fond of telling my son and daughter how lucky they are, because all my first-round screw-ups in child-rearing happened years before they were born.

Pretty true for all the physical stuff that doesn’t change much through the years; by the time my son went through the crankiness of teething and my daughter had the measles, my worried pacing was over and my husband wondered how I could be so calm through it all. The colic didn’t phase me one bit; neither did some pretty nasty sports injuries.

However not so for a myriad of other things, most of which fall into the societal bucket of muckiness called ‘social mores.’

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Children follow our example

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When Parenting Works;

— Our November Ho‘ohana

Those of us who are parents are fully aware of the value of those teachers who share their lives with our children. They have an opportunity to touch our kids lives in ways that we want to, but know we cannot sometimes. Rebecca Thomas shares one such story with us for our Ho‘ohana this month. Mahalo Rebecca!
– Rosa

I feel like I’m coming a bit late to the party, but I’ve been rolling this around in my head, and very nearly gave up trying to figure out what I wanted to say. When I originally asked to contribute to this topic, I’d just discovered that I was working with students whose parents cared enough to send them to a tutoring center, but really didn’t care what happened beyond that. Sadly, the students reflected that attitude in their own self-confidence and work ethic.

I was angry. I’m not a parent. I have no plans to ever become one. But I am a teacher, and I’ve been one for a very long time. I understand that part of my job is to be the grown-up who cares, because my students may not have another one nearby. I had originally thought to write on that, but then something else happened.
 
A student caught in her father’s major life changes and the challenges of becoming a teenager suddenly started doing a lot better in her math class. We were all very, very proud of her. When I asked her what inspired the turn-around, she told me that she had started passing tests because she asked herself one question every time she got stuck: What would Rebecca ask?
 
As teachers and parents, we all hope that the children we’re helping to raise will come away a better reflection of who we are. We hope that they’ll follow our better examples and ignore our flaws. That’s exactly what happened with this student. She took my teaching strategy of asking questions and used it to help herself think through what she was doing. It allowed her to remember what she needed to do, to double check her work, and to finally raise her grades in math.
 
Children are incredible creatures. They learn by practicing what they see around them, and then they have the ability to build on what they see, be it for better or for worse. Luckily for us, most children figure out fairly quickly which behaviors should be emulated and which ones shouldn’t. When we’re lucky, they even actually choose to mimic the ones worth being picked up.

Rebecca Thomas

Receiving “Thank you” with Grace

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How do you handle your wrapped gifts? Do you tear into them with gleeful eagerness, or do you savor them, carefully peeling open the creased paper?


Tim Milburn has a terrific post on Joyful Jubilant Learning about how we receive, so perfectly timed for our ho‘ohana this month on mahalo, the value of thankfulness. Tim writes “It is Better to Give AND Receive.”

What I’m discovering, especially during this time of year, is how you open a gift isn’t nearly as important as how you receive a gift.

I know that this is the season of giving, but at some point along the way, someone will give something to us. At some point, we will receive — and how we receive is an opportunity to give in return.

Gratitude can be a tricky thing. Sometimes we don’t want to be on the receiving end of things. We like to be givers. But we forget that the joy of giving is often super-sized by the expressions of gratitude from those whom we give to. We love to see people receive our gifts with a sense of humble appreciation, like they were never expecting anything like this.

The words “thank you” are a gift in themselves too. However have you noticed how it is one of the hardest things we do, managing to simply and sincerely say, “You’re welcome” and leave it at that?

Why is it that instead, we tend to answer, “Oh, that’s okay” or, “It was no big deal,” or “Please, don’t mention it” and ruin the spirit of giving and receiving with our carelessly blurted out retorts?   That someone gave us something worth our appreciation is way more than just “okay.” It is indeed a very “big deal,” and it is absolutely worth mentioning!

Let’s practice, for I have a lot of reasons to say “thank you” to you.

Ready to receive?

Thank you for visiting Talking Story, and for reading what I have to say. I truly do appreciate that you do.