gainful employment

What gainful employment ‘should’ do for you

April 21, 2011 by Rosa Say

I love good questions. Received this one yesterday:

“What is ‘gainful employment’ — how should we be defining it?”

Well, the word ‘should’ sends up red flags for me, and I prefer to answer with another question, not to dodge the issue, but to better frame it: How do you want to define it? What can our gainful employment be about?

Focus on what you truly want

‘Want’ reckons with a more personal and individual desire so we can narrow things down, and better focus on a more helpful answer, because ‘gainful employment’ is pretty big, with options possible in both the employment part of it (the differences between job, occupation, career, vocation is just a start) and in what ‘gainful’ means to us. What do we want to gain?

“This is the true joy in life ” being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ” being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy ” I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing on to future generations.”
— George Bernard Shaw

This “true joy in life” Shaw describes is inspiring to me, and I’m impatient — it’s something I want now, and not later. Thus, my answer is that I want to gain the feelings of well-being possible in Ho‘ohana work versus a job. I work on that first as my driver, simultaneously working to have it pay off (with income that will sustain my lifestyle: Prepping for Ho‘ohana with Financial Literacy).

But that’s my answer. It’s great for me, and hopefully Ho‘ohana can become great for you (it’s my core how-to theme here on Talking Story), but it’s not what everyone looks for at any given time, or feels they need. And it’s okay to look for other things — it’s your work, after all is said and done, and not mine. You know what it will take to help you feel good about the work you do.

So again, how do you want to define it? What is your relevance in defining what gainful must mean for you?

Have reasonable expectations

What you have to be aware of however, is that when you work for someone else, they pay you to work with, and for them, and the question becomes “How do we want to define it?” with the answer up to them more than up to you. When you accept a job with them, you agree. That’s just the way it is.

You still do have a choice of course. Choose the right job (yes, even in the current economy — don’t be a willing victim; a lesser job fit now should be temporary as you keep looking). It’s right enough for you, because you largely do agree with the definition of gainful employment your employer offers you in his or her company.

We usually talk about that choice as a choice of values you’ll subscribe to, because deeply held values drive the m.o. of a company; they can be a kind of guarantee of predictable behavior in the workplace.

But if that gets confusing for you — you aren’t sure what their values are, or they aren’t as apparent as they could be — the focus on what you want to gain can help you. Make your search for gainful employment personal. It will be the work you do.

If you can be specific (and honest with yourself) about what ‘gainful’ means to you, the employment options available are likely to become increasingly clear. You can then ask yourself, “Will this employment prospect deliver what I want to gain?” about each prospect coming your way.

When the right options become clearer for you (in this mirror of what you truly want), your choices get much easier along the journey.

Whatever your answers, work on what feels right for you personally. Trust in your gut feelings and intuition about it. Keep in mind the fact that gainful employment connects to your energy, like a battery pack, for your own energy is the most important resource you have (it helps you gain everything else).

Then, when you want to work within Ho‘ohana, I’ll be here to help.

~ ~ ~ MY MANA‘O (what I believe to be true) ~ ~ ~

In Hawai‘i, many kÅ«puna (elders) will say there is a reason our gut is at our physical center.

Our heads and hearts must come lower; one must get out of the clouds and the other out of the clutches of others.

Second, the elemental feeling we get from the land under our feet must rise up and be held in higher esteem, for there is divine power in the ‘āina (the earth), and it is our sense of place, and our home.

Third, we must care about others, but we must care about ourselves first, and enough to connect to our own source, our Aloha.

So it is only natural that our gut (na‘au) is the true seat of our wisdom (na‘auao), for it is where all these things come together to center us with good balance. Trusting in our intuition, is a form of listening as we should, to tap into that balance (which is pono).

This makes a lot of sense to me, because I experience it so much, and very gratefully so.

Be a Noble Consumer, and Pay

February 18, 2011 by Rosa Say

No more frugality.

‘Free’ has been completely devalued: “Free” never is, so don’t ask

Join me instead, in my movement toward Noble Consumerism.

Value your community of preferred providers, if you want them in your ‘Imi ola (best possible life, a life you create by your chosen design). You need them to survive and flourish.

Pay for what you want more of. Think of it as the support you give.

Let’s change the language surrounding ‘profit’

“Wow, you’re very passionate about this, aren’t you.”

“I think of it as the optimistic resourcefulness of Ho‘ohana, and yeah, it feels terrific to get that passion back. Now tell me, how do we move this discussion into the arena of social entrepreneurship? Why can’t it be profitable too?”

We (me and a small group of managers) were talking about financial literacy within for-profit business models, specifically the OIB (Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business model) and I made a statement which surprised them at first. I’d said that I don’t consider non-profits to be admirable business models, and would never create one — not without radically reinventing them first.

I wasn’t picking on any non-profit in particular, and the causes they champion, however noble, weren’t relevant to our discussion. I take issue with their basic premise: By definition, a non-profit is ‘not for profit.’ The businesses that I prefer to champion, don’t consider ‘profit’ to be a dirty word: We strive for profit, for the financial currency it can be.

Without earnings, there is no energy of gainful employment, is there. There’s no further financing of mission and vision.

Money isn’t evil: It’s a means to an end. What you do with it, after you have earned it, is another way you assign worth and priority to whatever you personally value. Same goes for a business for profit. MWA, for example, values Ho‘ohana earnings, and Sense of Place investments instead of ‘charities.’

An example of the ‘financial literacy’ and economic sensibility in our MWA OIB for-profit business model, is that everyone is paid for their Ho‘ohana (as it translates into their deliverable into our business), and no volunteers are needed. We feel it’s duplicitous to pay non-profit executives, and compensate a board of directors in kind, while expecting others to work for free. We compensate everyone fairly, and expect to pay full price. We don’t ask others for donations, or for their “pro bono” services: “without charge for the public good” makes no sense to me. The way I see it, equitable payment for any goods and services provided is what actually defines ‘the public good.’

There’s this coaching we’ve always used in Managing with Aloha workplaces connected to the One Minute Manager concept of catching people doing something right:

Reward the behavior you want repeated.
Correct everything else, with Aloha.

Business models are yet another example of the wisdom in that coaching. Good business models are aligned with good values, and they add value to our communities.

It feels great to be back on track

I admit to you that I stumbled with this over the past few years too, dodging all the rubble of our Great Recession. Just ask my family: They had no choice but to newly adopt frugality with me. Yuck.

I allowed my clients to renegotiate my pricing, and as a result, I devalued my services. In my speaking, I granted honorariums, lulled by the guise of honor in that word, despite the sinking feeling it actually gave me, a chisel to my self worth, and to the credibility of the MWA movement. Double, triple Yuck.

At the time, it felt like something we were supposed to do, until the day my husband said something which hit me like a ton of bricks: “How do you figure, that if the whole world suffers, we have to suffer along with them?”

My daughter chipped in, “Yeah mom, what happened to showing everyone the better way?” It was the winter of 2009 and we were Christmas shopping. My son added his 2 cents, saying, “Yeah! Down with Ebenezer Scrooge!”

Such a smart family.

It got me thinking again, about why I’ve always loved working within the art and science of business. Business enterprise, and smart business models, have always represented freedom and creative possibility to me. We are able to corral our resources, whatever they may be, and Ho‘o — make things happen.

So no more back-sliding, even if we fall into another recession tomorrow. The talk-story I had the other day with those managers reminded me to write this up so I could print it out, and paste it on this inspiration wall I have, never to be forgotten again.

A Noble Consumer’s Manifesto

No more frugality. Downsizing is cool, but frugality represents a scarcity mentality.
Palena ‘ole reminds us of our abundance instead: We humans are creative, inventive and resourceful.
Life is meant to be enjoyed to our fullest Aloha capacity.

‘Free’ has been completely devalued, and I won’t be party to that trend of disrespect.
I will gladly pay all fair and equitable pricing, compensate people well, and thereby encourage them to create more of what adds greatest value to our world.

I refuse to devalue anyone’s creation (their product innovation).
I refuse to devalue anyone’s time and intellectual property (their service to me).
The financial support I give others, will be Ho‘ohana support for their exceptional work, and future learning.

I will proudly continue my Managing with Aloha ‘Ohana in Business movement.
I will champion Noble Consumerism, understanding it as support of our working communities.
I won’t be an irresponsible or wasteful consumer, and my money will go toward the better motivations of others, rewarding what has a good and positive effect on our world.
I will live modestly, within my means, and valuing the right things (what is Pono for me and my family).

Join me?

Archive Aloha of Related Posts:

Prepping for Ho‘ohana with Financial Literacy: Have you heard this before? “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”
Money isn’t evil: Being ‘broke’ is a mistake, not a failure
Values are the Bedrock of Hard Reality: “Soft and fuzzy” has taken a severe hit with our recent economic tumbles. You know what I mean; those workplace humanity concepts which fall beyond the bottom line.
Wealth is a Value: If asked, “What’s the value of more money to you?” would you and your staff answer in the same way, even if I asked you to keep your answers in the context of the business?
Drive well: Pay People Enough: The post-recessionary economy is driving compensation levels down, down, down, and business owners, we must pay people well, fully understanding how it will affect their motivation, and thus the job/work they do for you, and with you.

Star Advertiser, it’s all about the people

June 12, 2010 by Rosa Say

A few weeks back I wrote a short posting called “We buy, and work, with our hearts.” Those thoughts have often come back to mind in recent days as newspaper journalism turned a page within our island history.

It has been interesting to follow Hawai‘i community reactions to the new Star Advertiser, which just published its inaugural edition this past Monday, proclaiming “Welcome to the future” as its first editorial. When you study and teach value alignment as I do, certain current affairs pique interest because they so plainly illustrate what values are actually in play versus those we will say ring true. This has been one of those times.

For those who may not be aware of our current turn of events, Honolulu became a one-newspaper town this past week, when The Honolulu Advertiser said goodbye with a final edition to a 154-year history of daily morning dominance, and its long-suffering second (in total readership) became the Star Advertiser. There are other newspapers printed on the neighbor islands, but Honolulu is noteworthy as our capital city, dwarfing all others in population density. Neighbor islanders will read the Honolulu daily pretty religiously, whereas the vast majority of Honolulu residents have never picked up a neighbor island paper, or bothered to look for it online.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (that Honolulu “second” to the Advertiser) was founded in 1882 as the Evening Bulletin, publishing its first edition on February 1 of that year. The name would play out as a self-fulfilling prophecy, for Hawai‘i residents have mostly thought of the Advertiser as the daily morning paper, and the Bulletin as the evening edition; older news of the day, even when untrue and they’d broken a story first. The Bulletin was a paper you read when you had extra time to spare and it happened to be easily at hand, and it didn’t even dominate the evening: The six o’clock evening news on television did. If you didn’t get around to reading the Bulletin you didn’t feel the loss, a hard hurdle for any business to overcome, much less one hawking the news.

From an outsider’s and customer’s viewpoint, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin was all but throwing in the towel in recent years even though the floundering and radical cost-cutting at its rival was plainly apparent. Prior to the merger, the Advertiser published in the more dignified broadsheet format while the Star-Bulletin published in tabloid format. In some fast-food establishments the Star-Bulletin was given away for free, which is rarely a good sign. So in the emergence of the new Star Advertiser, you could say the underdog somehow prevailed. Might the true story be that the Bulletin was actually run better for long-term business survival? Even if true, it is not the story we bother to hear, or pay attention to.

“The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin have a long and tangled history together, but in the end, each paper was better for having the other as a sparring partner.”
— from the About Page now up at www.StarBulletin.com

Maybe so, and the oft-quoted reason many still hope our run as a one-newspaper town will be short-lived, but for now, we are focused on how that sparring is causing some pain.

Now a single paper, the publishing team has wanted Hawai‘i residents to think of the new Star Advertiser as a merger between the two journalism institutions, and a stronger reinvention. Burl Burlingame recaps the business deal which occurred here: Honolulu Star-Advertiser – About Us, where he truthfully, and matter-of-factly starts with,

“The histories of Honolulu’s two primary newspapers do not run on separate tracks. Like a maile lei, the branches are woven together in a flowing tangle, with events happening over the years due simply to circumstance, coincidence and — often — bad blood and raw emotion.”

And there’s the rub: People are remembering the “bad blood and raw emotion” of the past while they simultaneously magnify any aloha-less actions within this merger of the present. Community focus has been on just about every action taken or not taken in the transition with a notable exception: Actions taken with the actual quality of the journalism.

The biggies have been jobs, workplace aloha and gainful employment:

“The deal [the sale of the Advertiser to the Star-Bulletin owner, and subsequent merger] will result in the loss of more than 400 jobs, making it one of the largest mass layoffs in Hawai‘i in recent years.”
— final edition of The Honolulu Advertiser

While the merger now stands at 54 more ex-Advertiser employees on payroll (265 as compared to the 209 Star-Bulletin staffers retained), that final edition of the Advertiser made a point of illustrating the layoff numbers: 315 were laid off from the Advertiser’s Goliath, and 91 from the Bulletin’s David. Local media coverage and much blogging has collaborated in the commiseration, and I’m not surprised.

Much as we logically understand that businesses have other survival needs to care for as their nonnegotiable basics, we hate that they have those instincts. We hate having our feelings about its people minimized, ignored, or relegated to reasons smacking of “we had no choice.” We never believe it, always feeling there must be a choice deferring to human decency. We want to love only those businesses we feel truly care for us on a basic human level, and we see ourselves in the faces of that business’s people. If you don’t care for your own people, how can you possibly care for us?

Quality journalism alone will not cut it for the Star Advertiser no matter how much we might yearn for it, especially since “quality journalism” is subject to so much opinion. We don’t much want to hear from the ‘business’ at all: We want the word-of-mouth assurances from our colleagues, neighbors, friends, and community watchdogs that the staffers are okay. When they’re okay we’ll be ready to be accepting customers, but not until then.

It has amazed me that the leadership teams involved in all three newspaper entities have largely ignored this when it is so obvious to everyone else. In their ‘journalism’ of this ‘news event’ they have all three written of the business deal facts with a more eager show of transparency, when they should have shared much more of what they have done to care for their people: We don’t care about the business deal, that’s your problem. On the other hand, your people, whether laid off or retained with survivor guilt, can become our problem too. We care about them a great deal more than we care about your reporting of the news.

As a result of not knowing more about any care taken with staffers, the public is left to conclude that each business simply has not done enough. We’ve listened to the more vocal complainers, and we’ve believed them, because they’ve been brave enough to share their emotions, whether right or wrong. Worse, business deal done and put to bed, we fear the Star Advertiser will simply wait out our memory of fresher pain. Ask go! Airlines how well that has worked for them, for they are still blamed for Aloha Airlines demise despite all we now know.

A business is usually faceless; it’s a ‘thing.’ As it gets to be a bigger thing, it becomes even less human, a monster we fear lurks in our bedroom closet. No matter what we know about any business entity and its strategic objectives or innovation, what we feel about that business is all about the people involved, and how we feel about them. That’s just the way it is, and will always be.

Star Advertiser, I wish you well, I sincerely do. Far as the news reporting goes, I have been impressed with your first few issues. However you must know that your monopoly isn’t going to help much in this day and age where technology makes ‘news’ pretty easy to come by. Any early support you are receiving is support for the people you still employ, for we, their neighbors, understand that they need you as an employer way more than we need you as a newspaper. I didn’t have a ringside seat, but as a blogger formerly writing Say “Alaka‘i” for the Honolulu Advertiser I wasn’t in the nosebleed section either, and it’s time for you to manage with way more aloha. Please call me if I can help.

Ho‘ohana Community, what are you learning from this case study? What do you think your community feels about how you treat your staffers, and how does it affect your business?

The Energy of Gainful Employment

March 24, 2010 by Rosa Say

Leadership gets defined in all sorts of different ways: I’m sure authors and bloggers will never tire of writing about it. Neither will I.

What makes all that writing useful to you, the Alaka‘i Manager reading it, is discovering a definition you love, loving it enough to weave it into your own leadership practice. You’ll find a way to then attach your chosen definition to other ideas and concepts: It becomes your constancy amid change, functioning like an anchor which allows ships to move with rising tides while keeping that ship within a safe harbor’s docking.

From Ideas and Vision, to Energy

In the year or two after I’d published Managing with Aloha, we would mostly talk about leadership as connected to an idea or a vision. Leading then, was about giving that idea or vision more movement somehow, and helping it gain momentum and greater following. It was about bringing an idea to fruition.

In the last year or so, we’ve spoken of both leading and managing connected to a different definition, that of ENERGY. I think of this shift as another drilling down deeper —to what supports our pursuit of great ideas and meaningful visions. You can have a stellar idea, but it will sit waiting in your brain, tucked away in your journal or buried within your priority list if you haven’t the energy to give it —or the pressing need.

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.

“Workplace energy functions the same way batteries do for your favorite electronics: You can have the most high tech camera in the world, resplendent with amazing features, and it will do absolutely nothing if its battery is dead.”
—3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces

Same goes for people. We are resplendent with amazing features as well, and our capacity for exceptional achievement is so abundant. However we need a power source we can plug into; we need our energy. No surprise that we value a sense of urgency in each other, for when we’re all charged up it seems there’s very little we can’t do.

Therefore that’s how Alaka‘i Managers serve best: They help their people continually tap into their human energies.

Inspiration and Battery Packs

What we’ve learned in our current economic climate, is that gainful employment is our battery pack. It’s the tangible counterpart to our intangible (and more conventional) thoughts about human energy coming from inspiration.

It’s not often that the intangible is what we’ve grown accustomed to holding onto, yet oddly, we’ve done just that with inspiration. It’s a fuzzy concept we’re always hoping for, even when our rational minds tell us that “wishing and hoping is not a great strategy.”

Don’t get me wrong. In no way am I knocking inspiration; it’s something we will always seek and value greatly. However we think of inspiration as rare, elusive and fleeting. We don’t count on it —and we don’t bank on it. We bank on our gainful employment instead.

Gainful employment is our cake: It’s our nourishing energy.

Inspiration is our icing: It’s our motivational energy.

Simply defined, gainful employment is the work we do for income. And income drives our livelihood and our purchasing power. With a few exceptions, we are no longer creatures who live off the land; like it or not, we finance our lives.

Management, whether good or bad, affects jobs and gainful employment. The Managing with Aloha partnering of management and leadership directly affects both the quality and the availability of gainful employment for you, for me, and for our children. It’s important, because gainful employment delivers physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual well-being to those who have it. It finances the exploration of our ability and capacity. It strengthens families and builds flourishing communities, and when it’s missing, that lack of gainful employment can destroy them.

Gainful employment is personal, as personal as it gets.

Professional is desirable, but lofty. Personal is where it always matters most to us, doesn’t it.

Footnote: This posting was a promised follow-up to this:

We’re at our starting block: Today is Ho‘ohana theme day 1 for us here on Talking Story, and our overall goal is collaborative, creative conversation: How we can affect Ho‘ohana job creation for gainful employment?

We’ll talk about how we define “gainful employment” soon.

—The Alaka‘i Manager as Job Maker

Photo Credits: Exploring an idea by JJay, and Feeling positive by Snacktime2007, both on Flickr