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Value Alignment for 2011

January 1, 2011 by Rosa Say

A question came up in one of your email responses to my wayfinding post yesterday;

“No monthly values for 2011 Rosa? Now that you’re blogging again, will your ‘Value Your Month to Value Your Life’ program return too?”

I’ll share my answer here on Talking Story too just in case others are wondering.

Yes and no”
Yes, I’ll be blogging here again. I’ve missed it a lot — and I’ve missed all of you! Writing is one of those ‘better habits’ in my wayfinding intentions, and blogging figures prominently in the writing I eagerly am choosing to do.

No, my ‘Value Your Month to Value Your Life’ program will not be resurrected in 2011, at least not in the same way as before — but don’t let that stop any of you! Adopt and adapt the program for your own work team: Getting started is easy. Here’s the Take 5:

There are 19 values covered in Managing with Aloha, including Ka lā hiki ola in the Epilogue. Choose the 12 you feel would benefit your work team most in the coming year, and assign them to the months you think they will align with best seasonally, or per the demands of your business. For narrower, but more extensive focus, choose just 4 — 1 per quarter.
Then very important, make your intentions known to your team. Get everyone involved in some way. Tell them why you want to “value the month” and ask them how they’d like to participate. Say yes to every idea which comes up and ask people to be that idea’s leader: As the Alaka‘i Manager you’re facilitating this, and you can’t do it all (nor should you” grow your team.) Teams I have coached in the past have found great success in assigning values as the steering for specific projects. (More on that tomorrow: now posted ~ Value Alignment for Projects)
Stick with it, and go the distance. Use that value to theme everything you can think of within that alignment period of time you’ve chosen. EVERYTHING. You’re going for value immersion. You’ll be surprised how much you can do. Here is a good article Joanna Young wrote for Joyful Jubilant Learning on Why I Write to a Theme.
Be sure to incorporate the value you choose into your language, for it’s powerful (Review Key Concept 5; Language of Intention). You’ll start to hear where you’re effective, and you’ll miss hearing where you aren’t, and need to engage more.
Reach out to me, or to others in our Ho‘ohana Community (link to our LinkedIn Group) anytime you have questions or need help, especially when you feel energies waning, for remember: Leading is about generating energy as your greatest resource, and Managing is about channeling it. (Review: 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces.)

Value alignment is the best ‘channeler’ I know of! Which, continuing on, brings me to another Yes”

Yes, I’ll be working on value alignment too! Try and stop me” As our 3rd Key Concept for Managing with Aloha I’m on automatic pilot with it in my life, and that’s a habit which has been a really, really great thing. Each year I challenge myself to evolve with it though, and so in 2011 my value alignment will set sail in the spirit of the wayfinding I wrote of yesterday. We’ll see where the journey takes us!

Two of my “best clues” (a reference to yesterday’s post, if you missed it) are Abundance and Context.

Abundance is connected to (aligned with!) Palena ‘ole — our MWA 9th Key Concept of Unlimited Capacity. One of the reasons I no longer choose only 12 values for my blog-writing is that they can be too limiting in my contexts here — opposite of how they will give a specific work team laser-like focus in the Take 5 above. Yesterday for example, we aligned wayfinding with three different values; Ka lā hiki ola, Ho‘ohanohano, and Alaka‘i. When I dig deeper, I can surely align wayfinding with every value in some way, and so can you; sometimes minimally, sometimes significantly, and then
Context moves me toward choice and action. Thinking about all of this can be mind-blowing, but you don’t want it drive you crazy either! So take aim and pull the trigger… Within all the Palena ‘ole/9th Key thinking you did, what will you take action on quickest and best? Why, and with who? You will become more decisive, and your value alignment will be directed toward the specific relationships or projects you have in mind. Practical and useful.

So consider the possibilities with value alignment, then choose your best habit this year, and take action.

How will value alignment work for you in 2011?

Go back to yesterday’s post if it helps: Do you already have clarity on specific goals, or is the wayfinding more attractive to you too? Your answer is the right answer.

More value alignment; I Aloha-tweaked my cigar box of index cards I use as a perpetual calendar as my New Years Eve day project yesterday :)
Visuals alone can add so much, and index cards rock.

Postscript: If you are reading this via RSS or email, take a moment to click in and review the right-side column of the blog. I have a bit of updating I still need to do there, but I’ll be sure to leave the links parked there for you to find the 9 Key Concepts easily each time you return. You’ll see the value index links there too.

Postscript 2: I had the link for my free ebook on becoming an Alaka‘i Manager in the Take 5 above, but then I decided to drop it down here, for I don’t want you to feel you have to go through that whole 5-week program first and not start NOW with your value alignment. Go for it!

Let’s Leap over the Leadership Hurdle

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

Leading is an energy-creating “verb x30” which Alaka‘i Managers commit to:
How are you leading today?

‘Leadership’ is supposed to be a good thing, right?
So why is it such a formidable hurdle for us so often?

Or maybe a better question is, why must we wait for their permission, or their problem-solving, whomever “they” happen to be?

I’ve been thinking about how utterly dependent many of us can be on those in “leadership positions.” We wait for others to make decisions for us, or move to game-changing actions instead of seizing that action ourselves.

I am thinking about this dependence a lot lately, for unfortunately, there are a ton of examples to watch and I can’t not think about it.

For example, think about our Friday Furloughs here in Hawai‘i education. Why is it that so many schools (and parents) wait for the governor, the legislature, or the teacher’s union to solve the problem of getting our keiki back in school, instead of demanding more at-the-school changes by principals and at-each-location administrators? Seems to me our academic business models have been broken for a while now, begging some kind of reinvention… Why was a prolonged recession draining state and county coffers necessary for us to see it? Did school administrators actually think it was not their job to run as lean as possible all the time? In years past, did they channel any extra money in good times toward the competitive edges of learning, instead of fattening foundational basics (from which we now bleed)?

Lead is a verb we ALL can take action with

At the core of most “not my Kuleana [reponsibility]” issues associated with leadership, is the faulty thinking that only those in so-called “leadership positions” can make the big decisions or major changes which are necessary to make a real difference.

That is simply not true, and the rest of us cannot give away our power so submissively. It’s downright foolish to do so. Sticking with the Friday Furlough example, we are all discovering that waiting for our perceived leaders is very inefficient – if it works at all (and in this case, it isn’t working” our legislators and school administrators are not getting our children back in school, are they.)

If you are a perceived ‘Leader’ don’t be a martyr

In other words, get us to solve our own problems, and don’t do it for us, for you aren’t helping. You are not making us stronger or better, you are enabling our weaknesses.

Please, take our Alaka‘i definition of ‘leading’ to heart, and get the rest of us to share in it with you: Do your part with boosting us over this hurdle of not forging our own destiny by means of solving our own problems. Hold the right people accountable: It makes them stronger and better. Lead to help create the energy they can continually tap into and flourish with.

Sharing your leadership permission with others could be the best Christmas gift you give them.

What is true leading all about? From the archives:

3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces

Our Say “Alaka‘i” vocabulary is worth repeating:

LEADERSHIP is the workplace discipline of creating energy connected to a meaningful vision.
MANAGEMENT is the workplace discipline of channeling that mission-critical energy into optimal production and usefulness.

Great managers cannot channel good energies they are unaware of, or energy which doesn’t exist. And remember ”“ you can’t shift this responsibility to someone else within our discussions here: Alaka‘i managers are those who both manage and lead. We refer to management and leadership as disciplines, not as separate roles, titles, or positions on an org. chart. If a designated leader is not creating energy, then the buck stops with you. Make it your Alaka‘i Kuleana.

Photo credit: Cardinal Health picnic by Lisa Brewster on Flickr

My mana‘o [The Backstory of this posting]
Each Tuesday I write a leadership posting for Say “Alaka‘i” at Hawai‘i’s newspaper The Honolulu Advertiser. Here is the link to the original article there: Let’s Leap over the Leadership Hurdle.

Business and Busyness: A world of difference

December 9, 2008 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on December 9, 2008, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Business and Busyness: A world of difference

We all fall into auto-pilot at times. We defer to our comfort zones of routine and regularity because it is easier, because both the inputs required and the outcomes of doing so are predictable, because we prefer to stay under the radar for now, and because we are so utterly human: At times we just need to stop trying harder and cruise a bit, going through the motions of making “normal” happen.

Understandable. Okay even, as long as we are aware that we have those lapses of uninspired energy exertion (for auto-pilot still requires some energy spending) and we intentionally choose to have that kind of moment, or hour, or entire day. Beyond a day is sleep-walking and you need help waking up.

It may be battery recharge time with our engines running, but on idle. But it’s definitely NOT okay in any business where idling and auto-pilot becomes the rule versus the rare exception. Not good for the business, and not good for the spirit of the people behind the wheel. Our engines are made for high performance.

Great managers play interference

One of the ways that great managers contribute best to their organizations is through the art of interception and interference: They step in when people robotically fall into auto-pilot for prolonged periods of time, and they introduce sequence breaks which get differences to happen. They are like cold buckets of water thrown on sagging shoulders on a hot summer’s day, getting the most briskly refreshing results you can imagine. They get our engines to race, and we become grateful that they do.

Here is how you can check if your supervisors and managers are those great ones capable of knowing when they need to intercept and play interference in the context of your own business enterprise or industry discipline: Ask them to brainstorm a two-column list with you.

In Column 1: Good Business
List people-generated workplace activities which happen daily, weekly, or monthly that they consider the worthwhile work connected to your strategic objectives: These are activities which are mission-critical and essential, and which result in meaningful accomplishments.

In Column 2: Auto-pilot Busyness
List people-generated workplace activities which happen daily, weekly, or monthly that they consider to be the busyness of hustle and bustle habitual routine: These are activities which consume time and attention, may seem valid, but do not directly contribute to the mission at hand. They are activities which produce busyness, but not relevant accomplishment.

Great managers know the differences between when people are engaged with work productively, or simply keeping themselves busy with it as their engines essentially remain idle.

The difficulty that many managers face however, particularly new supervisors, is in separating their people’s personalities from the detail and banality of the workplace activities themselves. People get accused of being lazy, uninspired, or without initiative when they are actually stuck in auto-pilot and need some help shifting out of it; there is a deceptive lull to busyness that we can all fall prey to at times.

Great managers help their people succeed better, and help them enjoy the work it takes for that to happen. How so?

Name the next play

Part two of the exercise is the part which is exceptionally useful. Talk about how you shift Column 2 work into Column 1 work.

First, connect specific actions to those skills, tasks, and activities that will cause the shift to happen from auto-pilot busyness to good business within your workplace. Name them so they can specifically be referred to going forward, and because the naming process will require more clarity from you. Then, talk about HOW the supervisor and manager will make the sequence interruptions happen in the course of the day, week, or month.

Next, talk about WHEN it is best to do so in the activity sequence connected to a person’s handling of it, so that the best possible engagement with meaningful work can begin to happen. This is where people specifics will come back into the conversation, AFTER you have dealt with the workplace activities and performance expectations objectively and as universally as possible. People bring their own unique talents to the skills required, and this matching up of workplace-qualified skills with innate talent is where great managers understand their work becomes a situational art, one person at a time.

This is where mentorship versus uncomfortable task correction begins to happen, and partnerships result.

Is this your first time reading?
You may find it helpful to visit this posting in our Say “Alaka‘i” archives, combining the definitions there with our discussion in this one:
Management versus Leadership: Power up your vocabulary!

Leaders don’t do all the work

December 7, 2008 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on December 7, 2008, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Leaders don’t do all the work

And it’s a good thing they don’t.

The best leaders are exceptional at making room for other people: They give great managers exciting opportunity for optimizing the pool of talent available to them.

When we say we employ other people in business, what we actually are employing are their talents, their skills, and their knowledge with making some kind of production happen. We are creating opportunities for them to make contributions they will feel are important to the cause, worthwhile in the effort, and important to their sense of personal satisfaction. They will feel useful and appreciated.

In this week’s email;

A business owner asked for my thoughts with how he was planning on describing one of his ideas to the rest of his staff; he wanted some suggestions on an approach which would make them excited about what he planned to do. We scheduled a call because I had a few questions for him, needing some clarity on how to help him better, and in the course of our conversation he realized that he was making a decision which was very straightforward and quite final; he’d be explaining it to everyone and asking for their understanding and support, but it wasn’t an idea which included them very much. The actions to be taken were all his.

And that’s fine; at times that will be all that’s called for, and I admired his desire for complete transparency with his actions. However if leadership practice is what you are aiming for in particular, doing all the work involved with making a decision and executing it will be the exception versus the rule. What leaders do is create the possibility for actions taken by an entire team or larger group of people. They look for contributions, for participation, for partnership and for creative collaboration so that “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

So you have your great idea. Now figure out exactly what you want others to do. Ask yourself, “How will others enroll in this and take actions of their own along with me?” and “Why will they want to?” Resist any impulse you might have to give out all the answers, because you’ll often get some much better ones!

Postscript:
Sunday Koa Kākou is where I will answer your questions or we will continue our comment conversations from the past week. If this is the first you have visited, you can read more here: Your Aloha has created Sunday Koa Kākou.

If you have a question on management and leadership you would like to see featured, I would love to hear from you! Write to me with “For Sunday Koa Kākou” in your subject line and we will share it with the rest of our Say “Alaka‘i” community of readers.