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How Alaka‘i Managers get work to Make Sense

April 15, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

How about an intention/energy audit today?

Preface-type notes before we go on:
If you’re a regular reader, or you’re working through my new ebook, you should be able to skate through this without taking a single link: This post is meant to be a review for you, for as learners know so well, Review and Repeat helps us retain our learning. The links will help those who are new readers: You should be able to just read through the narrative of this post too, but the links will give you the backstory if you’re interested in learning more.

double exposure 4 by Dan Strange on Flickr

The All-important Role of the Manager

Great managers are the stewards of thriving workplaces. The intention/energy audit is the best way I know of for managers to assess how they are doing with this:

From The Reconstructed Role of the Manager:

3. Mission: Managers get the work to make perfect sense.
—Connect the work to be done with the meaning why.
—Plan to succeed with a viable business model, so people always see realistic possibility.
—Encourage people to work on the enterprise with you, not just within it.

This Mission responsibility within the role of the manager is directly connected to your business model. [From Tuesday: Revamping your Business Model? Enjoy the Study.]

Let’s start by reviewing Energy, and why it matters

In our Take 5 Game-Changing for 2010, this was number 2:

M/L Practical: The 30/70 Mission of Managing with Aloha

The 30: Leading to create the critical resource: Energy
The 70: Managing to channel that resource into the core ‘product’ great managers produce: People who Ho‘ohana (people who thrive within their worthwhile work)

Hopefully, these managing versus leading definitions are now familiar to you, as is my insistence that managing and leading are verbs which ALL managers do; they need not have the title of ‘leader.’

[More about this strategy was contained in this posting: Reduce your Leadership to a Part-time Gig in 2010]

Alaka‘i connections…

Two days ago (“leadership Tuesday”), I asked you if your “30: Leading to create the critical resource: Energy” included upping your own leadership energies by revamping your business model with the study of other businesses, and not just your own: “Study Within and Study Outside.”

So being that this is Management Thursday on Say “Alaka‘i” let’s go to “The 70: Managing to channel that resource into the core ‘product’ great managers produce: People who Ho‘ohana.”

Ho‘ohana is also our current value theme, and we can make both connections.

How do your leading-as-verb actions in regard to your business model affect the Ho‘ohana of your people?

My goodness, it affects them in so many ways!

To review Intention, understand the power of Ho‘ohana!

People who Ho‘ohana attach deliberate intention and their personal values to the work they do. What your business model essentially does, is define that work for the organizational culture as a whole: If it could talk (and you CAN imagine it talking to you as a separate person), your business model would be saying one of two things to each person in the organization:

  • “yes! I want you doing the work of your Ho‘ohana with me!”
    or,
  • “we need to reassess our partnership, because your Ho‘ohana intention and my ‘Imi ola mission/vision are not matching up.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, on “Business Model”

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value — economic, social, or other forms of value. The process of business model design is part of business strategy. In theory and practice the term business model is used for a broad range of informal and formal descriptions to represent core aspects of a business, including purpose, offerings, strategies, infrastructure, organizational structures, trading practices, and operational processes and policies.

In other words, your business model defines all the work within your systems and processes. Hopefully, it does so in full support of Ho‘ohana, so that all the individually-defined Ho‘ohana intentions of your people blend in the most harmonious, collaborative way, and you achieve Lōkahi, the Hawaiian value of unity — Lōkahi is the epitome of teamwork.

The business model format you use probably won’t go into the nitty-gritty detail of job descriptions (which I’m not a fan of anyway” most job position descriptions give you a ceiling, and not a floor — use Ho‘ohana Statements instead.) However your business model should define your basic “how we get mission-driven work done” statement.

For instance, revamping mine within Say Leadership Coaching will continually define the different ways we choose to deliver coaching, and how we choose not to, for there are a lot of possibilities! We pass our decisions onto our new customers too, so they know what they can expect from us. [At SLC: How we work together.]

But let’s bring this back to your people and business partners; the ones you Ho‘ohana with in your workplace, and go back to this a few sentences back:

“Your business model defines all the work within your systems and processes. Hopefully, it does so in full support of Ho‘ohana, so that all the individually-defined Ho‘ohana intentions of your people blend in the most harmonious, collaborative way, and you achieve Lōkahi, the Hawaiian value of unity — Lōkahi is the epitome of teamwork.”

THAT is “The 70” that the great Alaka‘i Managers work on every single day in getting work to “make sense.”

Managers are the critical link between the business model which defines the business itself, and the people who will make that business model real, by getting it to WORK as it is intended to.

And it’s pretty clear how it’s either all about channeling available energy “into the core ‘product’ great managers produce” or it’s not — there is no bigger drain on human energy than when a person feels they are working long and hard on something that is not of importance; it doesn’t connect to the mission and vision of the company in a clear, and clearly rewarding way.

double exposure by Dan Strange on Flickr

The “audit” part need not be complicated

In fact, the simpler the better, which is why I love this approach, one which invokes the Pareto principle and “law of the vital few” in that it answers the questions both employees and their managers are most interested in:

  • Does the business model of this company value my Ho‘ohana so this is a win-win for us?

If so, my intentions are matching up to where my company needs/wants my attentions to be if we’re both to be successful.

If not, either the business model is hit-and-miss, or I don’t belong here.

  • Are my available energies devoted to the work which is both important, and which makes sense at a very basic level?

If so, I feel good about this, even when the work is hard and takes some time. And when I feel good, I can continue to be my best, and give others my best.

If not, we’re both wasting our time, and something has got to change, for energy shouldn’t be wasted for either of us.

As Alaka‘i Managers you can put your signature on this audit, one you do with and for all your people: It’s most commonly referred to as “your management style.” You know what I call it: The verbs of managing and leading with Aloha.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

sayalakai_rosasayMy mana‘o [The Backstory of this posting]
Each Thursday I write a management posting for Say “Alaka‘i” at Hawai‘i’s newspaper The Honolulu Advertiser. If this is the first you have caught sight of my Say “Alaka‘i” tagline, you can learn more on this Talking Story page: About Say “Alaka‘i”. There are some differences in this Talking Story version, most notably that all links will keep you here on this blog.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Talking Story connections [Learning the 9 Keys of MWA]
If you have now Become an Alaka‘i Manager, you will notice several connections within this posting!

Learn a 5-Step Weekly Review, and Make it your Habit

August 6, 2009 by Rosa Say

Preface:
Learn a 5-Step Weekly Review has been newly updated for Talking Story as we enthusiastically greet our 6th year. We have consistently found that the Weekly Review is a must-include within the arsenal of good habits which serve to fortify our Ho‘ohana [MWA Key 2] no matter how we might individually define it.

The original version of this article was published on Joyful Jubilant Learning in October of 2007, and that version was a revision of another originally written for Talking Story two years earlier. How’s that for a time-tested yet still-current habit?

Take it from me: Your calendar is your best friend

We have spoken of our Strong Week Planning recently, and that got me wondering: How has your Weekly Review helped you lately?

I don’t know about you, but without my calendar there is very little I would remember. Surely calendars are the single best organizational tool EVER conceived of. If there were no such thing I would have had to invent some semblance of one myself by now, or I would appear to be a complete mess. I would be a mess (and not this embraceable one).

Perhaps JJLer Robyn McMaster of Brain-Based Biz can explain this to us: With all due respect to my brain, it is a great servant but poor master. Like some turbo-charged vacuum-servant it obediently and dutifully collects all I place before it to handle for me, whether logical or completely random, but it doesn’t necessarily retrieve my stored up tidbits and gems at that precise moment I may need to recall them again, and put them to best use.

Productivity guru David Allen of GTD fame talks about this with some great examples, and I’m sure you have your own; think of the last time you got back from the grocery store and had done the shopping cart stroll without a list, only to remember what you needed at the exact moment you’d returned home and had just parked your car. Then, as you deposit your shopping bags in the kitchen, your spouse or roommate says to you, “You went to the grocery store today? I thought we were going to take a drive to that great Farmer’s Market just outside of town this coming weekend.”

Thus, I worship my calendar, and with the easy-to-program recurring features now offered, digital and electronic is the way to go. My 5-Step Weekly Review is part of my Strong Week Plan [MWA Key 7] and it goes like this:

5-Step Weekly Review

Open your Calendar, and …

1. Audit last week. Make appointments with yourself in the coming weeks for whatever you didn’t complete that is important to you. Seek to complete your pending stuff sooner versus later ”“ stay in flow, and don’t procrastinate.

2. Preview the coming week. Clean up any fast entries you had penciled in, and others you may need to update. Be sure you have allotted sufficient time to debrief and finish things so they don’t end up on your pending list with Step 1 next week!

3. Check your to-do lists and project lists (whatever system you have for keeping them), and determine what you can check off in the coming week. Program action steps into your calendar by making realistic appointments with yourself.

4. Reality-check your goals and grab time blocks to work them into your calendar too. Baby steps add up to big leaps ” you are making room for those BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals)! However don’t go overboard; leave white space on your calendar because stuff happens ” life happens.

5. Team up with others. With the planning of the week to come now steeped into your subconscious mind, think of those you can enroll in your goals, putting the power of we into play. I once heard someone say, “life is not a solo proposition” and I’ve discovered there is much wisdom in harnessing that belief. Thus my Weekly Review ends on Monday: I contact those I have thought about collaborating with, hoping to secure their agreement to work with me —and their ideas!

What to expect

The Weekly Review is a great habit that creates more great habits.

For instance, when we studied the strengths revolution within a Learn to Lead with Your Strengths learning project on Joyful Jubilant Learning, Marcus Buckingham’s Strong Week Plan became one of my ‘current projects’ included in Step 3 above. His coaching for keeping my strengths and weakness statements readily accessible for further strategic work has now become part of that step for me.

SIDEBAR:
If you are interested in this integration, I highly recommend Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance containing a self-paced coaching program that I have consistently found to be very achievable and effective for many of the managers I have since recommended it to.

People who are diligent with their Weekly Review get things done, and they help others stay on track too. You will begin to see that those people you initially sought out to work with you are now returning the favor. They introduce you to exciting new projects they have become involved with because they greatly value your partnership, and your track record with getting results in a well-planned, strategic fashion.

Something to think about:

Where does your planning impact the action steps of others?

GTD author David Allen says Friday afternoon is the best time for many of the executives he coaches to complete their Weekly Review, because they will then help everyone else they impact: As they delegate, they create a chain reaction for the Weekly Review of everyone else in their company.

As an executive coach I will encourage a big-picture view as well, and I will model it, understanding that my own Weekly Review conversations each Monday can proactively impact my clients before the following Friday if my coaching is to be best for them.

Connections:

Two days ago, I brought Paul Graham’s “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” into our Leadership Tuesday focus as a very important consideration with the teaming-up you do with others:   My encouragement to you was titled “Leading encourages Making. Embrace the Mess” and the question it posed was about the alignment between work schedule, and work flow. Please set aside some time to read of those connections if you have not done so already.

These days my calendar is getting the super deluxe project treatment within the Weekly Review I do, for I’ve become a Google Calendar web-based convert and I am experimenting with some of their new Lab features. At other times I will take the time to a Monthly Review which includes time audit habits I have picked up from HCer Dwayne Melancon. If I have highlighters in hand you can bet I have the 30-70 Leading-Managing Rule in mind (yep, I do it too!)

2010 Update on the 30-70 L/M Rule:
Reduce your Leadership to a Part-time Gig in 2010

Bonus Tip!

My Most Important Tip for you is probably this one: Set a time frame for your Weekly Review, and stick to it.

If you turn this into an epic production each week, you aren’t going to do it ”“ especially if you are carving out some time on the weekend. I do my Weekly Review on Saturday mornings while my family is asleep, and within two hours max with my coffee: I’m the only one who is a morning person and early riser, and so it is quiet time I am not taking away from them though I prefer doing this at home.

So let’s go back to the question I started with:

How has your Weekly Review helped you lately?

Guess what popped up on mine? A calendar trace I had noted about wanting to revise this article, for it is that important.

You’ve got to honor your calendar, and you’ve got to love the magic of your Weekly Review. I sure do.

Bonus Tip 2: For more thoughts on GTD, Dwayne Melancon of our JJL Advisory Board has a good index of his writing about it on his blog Genuine Curiosity. As I mentioned above, Dwayne also has great audit habits.

Bonus Tip 3: In updating this posting for Talking Story I could not bring over some of the terrific comments it stirred up over on Joyful Jubilant Learning, and if you have a bit more time you might want to click over there to read them. Robyn McMaster had this to say in responding to my not-so-subtle shout out for her expertise:

“Hi Rosa, yes, indeed a calendar is a great way to outsource your brain, so to speak. You have a central place to keep life organized. It’s how leaders create success. A recent Yale research study over a 10 year period shows that people who keep targets daily make ten times more money than other do. Now that’s really something to buzz in your brain!”

Photo Credits: These fabulous 2009 calendar images were done by Jan Muder and published on Flickr. You can see his entire photo set here. Admittedly you will need a much more functional calendar for what I suggest with the Weekly Review, but I could not resist sharing these beauties with you.

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RSS Current Articles at Managing with Aloha:

  • Do it—Experiment!
  • Hō‘imi to Curate Your Life’s Experience
  • Kaʻana i kāu aloha: Share your Aloha
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  • What do executives do, anyway? They do values.
  • Managing Basics: On Finishing Well
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