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Lead with Compassion, then Manage for Competence

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Lead with Compassion

The message I have for those in HR and all managers who are now able to hire, is to interview with fewer shortcuts and with more compassion.

For instance, I understand how online applications save time and help in screening, but those who use them are losing sight of basic etiquette: There is a real person behind each application, and candidates are craving more Aloha in what has become a faceless process. It is appalling that the majority of those who apply online never receive any human response, not even a thank you for applying.

Then there’s all the hidden talent that slick digital screening keeps unknown: Employers are missing out too, because they aren’t looking hard enough. They make a rookie mistake, in assuming that the right info is appearing on their online application in the first place. Bad assumption: Even if you ask the right questions, there’s no guarantee that you get the right answers — even from the perfect candidate.

Leading with compassion in this process then, is about leading with empathy, with open-mindedness, and with smarts. Leading with compassion is having a positive expectancy about the innate good in all people: It’s there, waiting for you to tap into it, and place it well.

However compassion alone is never enough.

Strength and Delicacy Combined

Manage for Competence

Let’s review our basic definitions of leading and managing as verbs connected to energy. Energy is the manager’s greatest resource: It’s the fuel which powers your production capacity, and creates all other business assets.

  • 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.

Leading with compassion will recruit new energy. Your Aloha has made your company attractive to the best candidates.
Managing for competence will channel the energy of that new recruit you hire every day going forward.

Before an Alaka‘i Manager makes a job offer, they must think about how a candidate will fit in with the rest of their team. They want team players, sure, but they also want every single person in their workplace to be a star, exceptional at what they do.

The fact of the matter is this: Stars want to work with other stars. People want to believe that they are working with the best people in their field, and not with others who are second best.

In essence, Alaka‘i Managers will rightfully expect that their people re-apply for their jobs each and every day, applying for them by demonstrating their competence, their passion, their strengths, and their visionary thinking in the work they do. It is that expectation they give their support to as managers.

Managing with Aloha is not “going soft” with compassion alone. KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u (chapter 5): We want to excel each and every day:

“Excellence is never an accident: It is always intentional, and it always demands more than the norm. Be your best. Don’t settle for less, for there’s no honor and no reward in aiming lower than what you are capable of achieving. Once achieved, excellence has a way of permeating every aspect of what you do, and it affects everyone you touch in an organization, infecting those around you with zest and vitality.”
— KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u, the value of excellence, in Managing with Aloha

Compassionate hiring is smart, but it’s only the beginning.

Unfurling Hope

In the archives:

Your Managing with Aloha self-coaching:

I have categorized this post with 2 of our 9 Key Concepts: Can you answer why?

The 2 C’s of Technology and Early Adoption

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~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
The 2 C’s of Technology and Early Adoption

Glad someone knows all this...

A new reader who’d checked out a few of my ‘techie-type’ posts in the archives sent along an email saying,

“You seem to be an early adopter, but most of the managers I work with don’t embrace technology this much: How important is it that we keep up with the newest advances? Isn’t it smarter for leaders to work on their own ideas, and hire others who specialize in this technological stuff, having experts do it for them?”

Great questions.

Hire an expert, or learn it yourself?

I’ll answer the second question first, and then we’ll get back to the early adoption part of it:

Isn’t it smarter for leaders to work on their own ideas, and hire others who specialize in this technological stuff, having experts do it for them?

I’d say it depends on how much technology is part of the idea that leader is working on, and where their own strengths will best serve the project at hand. Thus the answer is an industry-by-industry call, and the technology menu of options gets bigger every day. Go with your strengths (i.e. where your stronger work activities will serve you best), and compensate for your weaknesses.

However do understand that the most successful leaders have big-picture awareness: They may not do it all (and usually can’t), but they are aware of what it takes, and most importantly, they are aware of what might be possible. I believe that bigger visions result from consequential learning [the Hawaiian values of ‘Ike loa and ‘Imi ola in action.]: The more you learn, the more you realize how much more is possible, and the bigger you dream.

Remember our Alaka‘i leadership definition: Leaders generate energy, and energy doesn’t come from lackluster visions which don’t get us excited about future possibility.

Generally I do agree that partnering with others is a fantastic collaborative and creative strategy ”“ especially when you hire those who are smarter than you, and who will raise your own game. Not only can you attain greater synergy, it’s usually much more fun. In most things both in and out of business, life is not a solo proposition; we human beings feed off each other’s brains.

That said, I do believe that technology has become a very basic workplace competency expectation, and to not learn whatever might be considered the basics in your industry ”“ plus a bit more to give you a competitive edge ”“ handicaps you. It’s shortsighted and possibly foolish: Prospective employers will judge your learning capacity on a technical AND technological scale (see the difference here: Job Competencies for 2009: Let’s figure them out.)

Answer the bigger question: Why Bother?

If I may, I’d like to point you back to this posting in the archives: Can we still opt out of technology today? Take a quick look and come back: Within that article I stated that the primary “tech effect” on business today is two-fold:

  1. It’s about Competency, as mentioned above,
  2. and it’s about Communication.

It’s in this area of communication that I feel technology today is extremely exciting, particularly with social media and virtual community-building, because there are pronounced trickle effects. Maybe you’ve said “No” to Facebook, to Twitter, and to LinkedIn, and you don’t spend much time online at all; you wouldn’t dream of writing a blog. If you are reading this at all, or even the print version of The Honolulu Advertiser, I’ll bet you now know other people who have become adopters, and if they send you emails, the way they write them is now different. Whereas before they’d explain in detail, they now embed a link, or a photo, or a YouTube clip. They expect you to know about Google, and search for a definition whenever you encounter a word you don’t know instead of asking them to define it for you. Don’t feel they are being lazy: Take it as a compliment! They feel you are up to speed, and in-the-know.

From what I see, technology is getting us to talk to each other more, not less, and it’s encouraging us to welcome more people into the conversation. One of the most frequent challenges I have with managers, continually finding it within a wide spectrum of workplaces, is in getting them to network and benchmark their learning; I challenge them to reach out to others beyond their own workplace. Independent and silo work is still done where teams and interdepartmental networking would achieve far, far better results. When you are ready to lead, you must clear your insular industry hurdle as well.

The great Alaka‘i managers today push non-stop communication relentlessly; they have to if they are to achieve any competitive edge whatsoever. They also know that technology is a tool, an enabler: The truly consequential learning to be gained is to be found within other people.

So ask yourself that “Why Bother?” question for each of those 2 C’s:

Early adoption is not all it might seem

Back to the first question:

You seem to be an early adopter, but most of the managers I work with don’t embrace technology this much: How important is it that we keep up with the newest advances?

I’m not really an early adopter; I’m a right-time-for-me adopter.

For example, I have enough techie knowledge to publish my own websites, yet I’m a long-time PC user who still hasn’t made what many who do what I do would consider as the “obvious” switch to Apple’s Mac. Gadget-wise I’ve actually regressed a bit: Used to work with the Palm Pilot, but ditched it when I left the corporate world and still say “No” to the iPhone and Blackberry. My cell phone is for making and receiving phone calls, and that’s it. It has a camera, but I’ve never used it (even though I’m a big fan of Flickr), and despite all I do online, it’s not hooked up to the internet. I am well past 6,000 tweets on Twitter, but I only tweet from my laptop.

Early adoption has pros and cons, as does late adoption, and I am usually somewhere in the middle. I’m one who likes to give new advances time to get the kinks worked out. I’m not one to go to a new restaurant until they’ve been open for about six months or a year, and I feel pretty confident they’ll dazzle me with what they’ve learned since opening. I want a good meal, and a great experience!

However I love staying informed: Do I know about the newest toy on the market?
If they are on the radar of those I communicate with most, and if they matter within my Ho‘ohana, [my calling to worthwhile work] then yes, I certainly do. I find out enough relevant to my purposes.

Here’s the Alaka‘i-relevant way that I look at this: Leaders emerge in the right time of any best-selling blockbuster story, and it’s not always in the beginning.

Mahalo for the questions.

I know this was longer than usual, and I hope you stuck with me! I admit that I do love thinking about technology today and working with it, (LOVE knowing you are using those archive indexes!), and it’s so great when you ask me, “Why?” because I will gain my own reality check that way too.

“Why” is always a good question, and all Alaka‘i managers should be asking it ”“ a lot.

Let’s talk story.

So what might you be adopting these days? And what is your right-time-for-me reason: Why do you bother?

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

Photo credit: Glad someone knows all this! by Rosa Say.

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Can We Still Opt Out of Technology Today?

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~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i” April 2009 ~
Can We Still Opt Out of Technology Today?

AnAppleForLunch
An Apple for Lunch
by chrisschuepp on Flickr

Preface:
Welcome to Sunday Koa Kākou. Sunday is the day I answer questions you send to me (or I take the day off! Want different? Be a Squeaky Wheel). If you have a question connected to management and leadership, leave a comment here, or email me.

This is a comment which came in for this article:

Hiding from the Web is Foolish: 5 Steps to Smarter

“There really aren’t too many excuses for why someone doesn’t have an email address or a professional online presence in these days… I’ve been wondering though… for someone who is tech savvy, why is it that an immediate reaction to finding out about someone else’s less tech savviness is looked down upon? Is it the generation? ignorance? rudeness?”

I thought it was a good question, one we could bring to Koa Kākou today for a bit more exploration and discussion, for it’s a question we could probably apply to a lot of other situations where someone knows more about something than another person, not just technology as I am doing today.

“Is it the generation? ignorance? rudeness?”

The generation? ”“ personally, I don’t think so.

Ignorance? Rudeness? ”“ could be a part of it, but likely not the whole story.

There is certainly a judgment of some kind involved; let’s call it a levying of opinion about the situation at hand. However I think that opinion and the emotions connected to it depend a lot on varying circumstances” The person already ‘in the know’ may not be looking down on someone as much as they are surprised, disappointed in them, or just impatient.

They could even be alarmed, concerned at what a friend is missing out on, when in their view ignorance is NOT bliss. Our assumptions get challenged, (“But I thought you already knew this!”) and we can’t help but wonder how else our assumptions in relating to that person and interacting with them might be wrong: We get thrown off balance because that person is no longer as predictable to us; they are no longer a comfortably ‘known entity.’

The Tech Effect: Competency and Communication

In the case of tech and being web-savvy, I do feel it is a big assumption in business today that prospective candidates have a basic handle on technology. If they don’t, we wonder why.

Tech competencies can be taught fairly easily and quickly as on-the-job training, and that is not the concern: We wonder why the learning hasn’t already happened, and we wonder how else a candidate may be ‘learning challenged,’ or otherwise disinterested in innovation, something critical to the long-term prospects of every business.

Taking this even further, I coach business owners that once people are on staff, the managers and leaders of that business must step into the role of teacher and coach as new advances in technology promise to potentially affect both work performance and lifestyle comfort. Work affects life and life affects work. For instance, I’d bet that every business owner would LOVE it if every single one of their employees had a personal email address and gave their employers permission to use it to communicate with them.

Advances in technology have had a pervasive effect on our society, and while we can still opt out personally, for many of us opting out is not a viable option within the workplace. The ‘tech effect’ looms largest in these two critical areas:

1. Job Competency, i.e. best-possible productivity practices.

The number of software programs which now exist to automate, speed up or otherwise improve work performance is amazing. Do they always have that effect? No, and part of job competency has become the learner’s experience with weighing the pros and cons of specific technological application, figuring out whether the old way or new way is still best.

2. Communication.

Consider email and company intranets as just two of the many examples which exist today, or the way that Bluetooth receivers are so commonly issued with uniforms throughout the food service industry for the front-of-house staff to better communicate with the kitchen. Now think about all the external partnerships and customers of your workplace, and what it takes to meet their expectations whether or not a business is tech-savvy internally.

So here is my advice, and in light of my recent articles, this is not likely to surprise you.

Get on board the Tech Train and enjoy the ride!

Going back to this for a moment; “Is it the generation? ignorance? rudeness?”

Let’s say no!

— The generation?
No, and don’t allow that to be an excuse or justification, or your expectation of others. Technology consistently proves there are no age barriers, just different learning and adoption choices within every generation.

—Ignorance?

We live in a day and age where ignorance is hard for people to accept any more than other excuses or justifications are, and they do wonder and look deeper for other root causes. They question if there is really something else going on with you, just as I’d mentioned how a hiring manager can wonder about a learning challenge or attitude of disinterest. People tend to be more understanding about a learning curve with job competencies, but they are much less understanding about someone choosing not to communicate with them in ways that they prefer or feel are easier.

—Rudeness?

Let’s hope not, and let’s all do our part with eliminating any rudeness or intolerance. Let’s offer to teach, help, and coach others, making it easier for them. Let’s talk about those joys of learning and the exciting and inspiring prospects of creativity and innovation. As Mother Teresa said so well in the context of eliminating poverty but very apt here too,

“If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep,
the whole world would be clean.”

To the point of this blog in particular, if you are an Alaka‘i manager or a leader, opting out of technology is not an option today. Alaka‘i managers and leaders are lifelong learners. They have to be. Their self-talk is always “Can do!”

So, we play full out: Let’s talk story. You now have three Alaka‘i ways to do so:

  1. Comment right here on the blog —I encourage you to introduce yourself so we can get to know you.
  2. Twitter with us @sayalakai —mahalo nui loa to those who have already jumped in there!
  3. Email me your questions for Sunday Koa Kākou —it’s no surprise to me that Sundays now capture some of the best postings here, for you make this happen.

More reading from the Say “Alaka‘i” archives:

For more articles similar to this one, subscribe to Talking Story, and join the discussions held by the Ho‘ohana Community of the Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business.
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We’re supposed to be good at being ‘local’

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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 January 15, 2009, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Hibiscus

We’re supposed to be good at being ‘local’

You know how some people get song lyrics stuck in their head? That happens to me with particularly pithy quotes, and when words get strung together in ways I hadn’t quite connected with them before. Sometimes those words and phrases can really stick, and I find I can’t shake them until I filter them through some kind of sorting out.

Lucky you; that’s what you get to do with me today. You are hereby warned that this post is one of me talking out loud, and I haven’t quite sorted this out completely. I’ve got no hidden agenda —really. However, I think this could stir one up, not sure” so I’m kinda hoping you’ll pitch in and help me think this through.

Ready?

I read a line at Seth Godin’s blog which stopped me in my tracks. He wrote, “Own your Zip code. The next frontier is local.” (I’ve done the good blogger thing and linked back to it, but I will tell you that his context is slightly different from where I’m taking it.)

When you hear that phrase, and stop for a moment to think about it, what does it say to you?

“Own your Zip code. The next frontier is local.”

Frontier. At first, that conjures up “wild, wild west” for me. Uncharted, unpredictable, but also possibility and discovery rich: People struck gold in the wild, wild west!

Local. Um, the frontier? In recent years we’ve conditioned ourselves to think the exact opposite, that the next frontier was global; ignore it at your peril. We’re living the new experiences of global connectivity, and we’re getting increasingly sassy at getting the hang of it.

We say it, and we believe it: “The world gets smaller every day.” Ask someone who blogs, or who is newly enamored of social media (Twitter for example, there in the right column), or who finds they are competing for a job with someone willing to relocate halfway around the globe within the week if need be.

Security in one’s own neighborhood doesn’t really apply much anymore; a lot of the true context within “ignorance is bliss” has moved into the ignorance is careless, perhaps stupid column. You might be blissfully unconnected, but no single person a neighborhood makes, and chances are there’s some online shopping, research, or uploading for content creation which is going on at a keyboard next door, rendering the less-connected you an older dinosaur with each click.

How do you thrive when the world’s gone global?

In his book The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman wrote about localized jobs, calling a certain category of working people our 21st century “untouchables,” and I hoped he was right, for if he was, this would be good news for any desire we have with “being local.” The following quote comes from chapter six of his book if you have it, and for quick context for those who are unfamiliar with it, by “flat world” Friedman means one which has now gone global whether we like it or not:

“The key to thriving, as an individual in a flat world, is figuring out how to make yourself an ‘untouchable.’ That’s right. When the world goes flat, the caste system gets turned upside down” ‘untouchables’ in my lexicon, are people whose jobs cannot be outsourced, digitized, or automated.


People who are really ‘localized’ and ‘anchored’ [fall into this category of] untouchable because their jobs must be done in a specific location, either because they involve some specific local knowledge or because they require face-to-face, personalized contact or interaction with a customer, client, patient, colleague or audience. All these people are untouchables because they are anchored: my barber, the waitress at lunch, the chefs in the kitchen, the plumber, nurses, my dentist, lounge singers, masseurs, retail sales clerks, repairmen, electricians, nannies, gardeners, cleaning ladies, and divorce lawyers [are anchored, and possibly can remain untouchable].”

I hoped Friedman was right, because I understood that if my kitchen sink was leaking I would need a plumber, and the only thing my computer would help me do in that moment of need was Google a plumber’s phone number in my zip code. However, I also understood that if I was so inclined to learn plumbing I could, and when time wasn’t of the essence, I could very likely Google the information needed to fix my sink myself —and my zip code was now irrelevant.

So what is my plumber’s best strategy? Getting me to understand and experience that buying his version of “local” will always be my best option. Always.

It’s advertising, yes, perhaps branding, but only in getting me to dial his number in the first place.

Then it’s service, for the experience I will have with him.

It’s product, for the value I place in him and his work.

When that plumber succeeds with me, it’s living and working ‘local’ that works in the best possible way for both of us, a true win-win.

In his book, Friedman offers three other options with being an untouchable. He says you can also be special (one of the examples he gives, is that there is only one Michael Jordan), you can be highly specialized (meaning you can’t be digitized, automated, duplicated or outsourced) or you can be adaptable (which he goes on to encourage in his book, but which also can result in a new middle class of mediocrity).

Being local, and being good at it, is sounding better and better, isn’t it.

How do you thrive when the world’s gone local?

Let’s go back to my plumber story for a moment. So far, we could be talking about what’s local to Dallas, Boise, or Paris, couldn’t we. Let’s bring the discussion directly to our home turf; to Honolulu, Lihue, Honoka‘a or Kihei.

To be frank, we in Hawai‘i can be a bit high maka maka about being local (that’s local slang for ‘uppity’ if you’re still training wheels Hawai‘i-local”). We wear local like a badge of honor, or some secret pass in an insider’s rite of passage. Being ‘local’ in Hawai‘i is part of that “Sense of Place competence” that we spoke of here two days ago. Quick and easy contemplating this within the neighborhood community sense, but how about on the job? And how about for the job at hand, and especially in this recession we’re in?

We’re supposed to be good at being local; we pride ourselves on it. But are we?

As I sat here to write this I was quite pleased with myself, for instead of being at Starbucks or The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, I made my own café latte at home with Teshima’s Estate Kona Coffee, grown in Honalo, near Kona, and the “Island Fresh” Mountain Apple Brand ® 2% milk which KTA Superstores packages for me from Hilo’s Excelsior Dairy, which came from some contented cow grazing in a Big Island pasture. KTA even pumps me up right on the side of their milk carton, for it reads:

Why you should drink “Big Island Fresh” Milk”

  • It is produced right here on the Island of Hawai‘i
  • It assures you are consuming a fresher product that doesn’t travel 3,000 miles from the mainland
  • You are supporting Hawai‘i’s economy. The money stays here, assuring a continuous supply of locally produced products.
  • It perpetuates Hawai‘i’s agriculture industry, keeping pastures green and preserving this land we call home.

Do I want all those things? You bet I do.

(By the way, I also recommend you read their web page: The story of KTA’s Mountain Apple Brand ®)

I’d say we’ve started some things, but what comes next?

We’ve made some strides with branding, and with our buying habits as local consumers, but these words still nag at me. They tell me that we can’t pat ourselves on the back yet; we’ve only scratched the surface. “Own your Zip code. The next frontier is local.”

We do not own our zip codes when it comes to being Hawai‘i-flavored, aloha-spirited, ride ‘em Paniolo local on our own home turf. We don’t yet build our island communities —or even our nighborhood communities, around optimizing the local flavor of the work we do. We have much more work to do on our values. It is one thing to say you’re special, or specialized, but it’s quite another to BE special.

Said again, it is one thing to say you’re local, but it’s quite another to BE local.

Oh my, Godin was right; local is a frontier, even for us here in Hawai‘i. Maybe especially for us in Hawai‘i, for we talk a lot about wanting to get back that self-sustaining island lifestyle which makes us feel better about our Sense of Place. So what do we do next? What can we do with business, and with jobs, since we’re already understanding we need to reinvent anyway?

Hey, I told you I don’t have the answers. But I am starting with shaping the questions, and trying to ask them. I do believe that discussions like these are the way we grow into the Alaka‘i-valued leadership we aspire to.

What do you think? Be brave and speak up, for I can’t hear what you’re thinking.