Talking Story

Starting new conversations in the workplace!

  • Rosa’s Books
  • ManagingWithAloha.com
  • RosaSay.com

Workplace Culture balances Change and Constants

August 28, 2011 by Rosa Say

I received a couple of emails following my last posting (Managers Create Culture), and taken altogether the gist of them was this:

“If I don’t have a comprehensive philosophy yet, like you have in Managing with Aloha, how do I start to define the workplace culture I want to foster as an Alaka‘i Manager? The variables can be so overwhelming, and I struggle to focus, and set my priorities.”

Hat’s off, shoe on, to Isaia

Do you know when those variables get overwhelming? When they aren’t actually yours. We managers have a way of inheriting and collecting periphery.

Here’s what I recommend instead. It’s still about articulating an all-you packaging of your values (which is Managing with Aloha at its core), but arriving at them in another way, one which concentrates on action connected to desired change and valued constants.

To paraphrase and add to a famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi:

Be the Change you wish to see in your world, while remaining devoted to your Constants.

We talk about change a lot, equating it with initiative, innovation and creativity, however we tend to forget those constants we have already invested in, constants which keep us grounded, confident, steady and sure.

So try this: Sit with a blank sheet of paper, and make a simple list of your purely instinctive, gut-check WANTS, writing them down under one of two sub-headings:

  1. MY CONSTANTS
    (your keepers: You have these, still want them, and will devotedly hold on to them)
  2. GOOD CHANGE
    (your goals: Assume you want these for good reason, so work on getting them!)

Your list should describe your future. Identify what you want it to be, so those wants can guide you forward. Be as specific as possible, for specific detail is more conducive to revealing action steps you can take.

Your values will provide the ‘why.’ When you can tap into it, ‘purely instinctive, gut-check’ wanting gives voice to your values — you’ll be able to read between the lines, and get clarity on what your values are all about, and not theoretically or historically, but right now, for today, and for ‘Imi ola— a creation of your best-possible future.

This might help you start your list… Fill in the blanks, remembering to then choose which column they go in, valued CONSTANTS, or desired CHANGE:
I want to work on ______, and not on _______.
I want to forge a partnership with _______, so we can work on __________.
I’d love to see the day that we _____________ all day long!
I want to keep learning about _____________, so we’ll be able to _________.

Bet you can take it from there!

The first step in articulating the workplace culture you want is usually to be more selfish — yes, selfish, as in self-aware. Focus is all about energy management: Self-manage (channel your energy) and self-lead (create fresh energy) before you presume to create workplace culture for anyone else. It evokes the oxygen mask theory: You can’t save anyone else when you can’t breathe either.

In clarifying your change and your constants, you define your stretch while holding on to your keepers. You also couple your form and function without interruption (i.e. your on-going productivity and business of life), for balancing Change and Constants is simply a way you sort through the clutter of life, and focus on what’s important to you.

For instance, here on Talking Story you often read postings where I seem to question, dabble, and experiment: I especially love 90-day projects as a gift-boxing of my still-tentative change. When I wrap up those projects, I weave them into my Ho‘ohana Story somehow, for my constants are about Aloha (defined here), Ho‘ohana (worthwhile work), and ‘Ike loa (intentional learning). Over time, my keepers in the MWA culture became the 19 values in my book, and the 9 Key Concepts. The early sentences on my List of Wants moved into statements like the 10 Beliefs and Core 21.

If you pull out your list every time you do a Weekly Review, you can revise it with constantly freshened relevance. When something no longer sounds like a Burning Yes, just cross it off the list and add what does.

Trust me: If you can make this simple process your new habit, your desired workplace culture will be steadily revealed to you. And remember…  You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!

Your Change + Your Constants = Your Culture:

  • Write it down: Gut-check list your wants as either Constants or Change.
  • Create your future: Allow that list to set your priorities, and be your values-based focus.
  • Make it happen: Review weekly to self-manage and self-lead, and
  • Feel good about it: You’ll get a good grip on your best energies.
  • Share it: The Workplace Culture you champion will be the great result.

So turn this affirmation into a poster you look at daily:

I’ll be Change, and I’ll be Constant. I’ll be the Culture of my Future.

Write it on a post-it and tape it on the mirror where you brush your teeth each morning, then Ho‘ohana — make it happen.

A Saturday Recap: 2011 ~ First 8 Days

January 8, 2011 by Rosa Say

8 recalls Makawalu for me: Did you happen to catch it within the Joyful Jubilant Learning project? I’ll add a post reprise at the ending of this one, for a moment’s leisurely reading during your weekend, but let’s start with a quick Beginning 2011 on Talking Story Recap, shall we?

Love when this happens, that collections of posts can flow from one question as it did, for I learn to re-frame, and refresh my own learning too ~ so mahalo nui, thank you!

Happy to see the sun

If you’ve been following along (or want to catch up with us), might this help with your Weekly Review?

I had actually started by declaring 2011 The Year of Better Habits, and then Value alignment [the all-important Key 3 on our Managing with Aloha learning grid] became topic of our beginning-to-the-year talk story: It was great to get grounded that way… you could say that it was our first “best clue.”

Day 1: Wayfinding to Use Your Best Clues

On-purpose, well-chosen habits are generous helpers. With the company of good habits I can trust in the quality of my inputs. Then good begets good; my habits help me determine the quality of my resulting outputs. They’ve become a great success structure.

Day 2: Value Alignment for 2011

…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…

Day 4: Value Alignment for Projects

A key advantage of both Value Immersion and Value Steering is that decisions get made much quicker, and with greater clarity because criteria parameters have selectively, purposely been narrowed… Perhaps most important, is the authorship shift…

Day 5: January Coaching: What are you really managing?

This is definitely a wayfinding exercise, because in starting with that first question you are confronting your existing habits and being truthful about them. I guess you could say that your answers to the second question are your goals, but in my experience it’s been much more effective for those I’ve coached to think of them as wants; they’re more basic that way, visceral even. Wants are Aloha-instinctive, and more emotion-charged compared to how pragmatic and strategic goal-setting is, and so energies ramp up quicker that way (I hate the SMART acronym. There, I’ve said it. I hate it because it’s boring.)

Day 6: Value Immersion, Value Steering” Why?

At the heart of the matter: Values drive behavior. We do stuff because we believe in it, and we resist or refuse when we don’t. You can’t, and won’t pass Go if you don’t buy in.

Day 7: Your values and your DNA

At their core (in their DNA within you), your values are good. They’ll serve you well when you choose to grow them…

Day 8: Is today :)

Thank you so much for sharing this first week of a fresh new year with me!

Now a reprise, as promised: This was originally published on Joyful Jubilant Learning in August of 2008, and I think it suits our present mood well too, in the spirit of wayfinding.

Hungry Koi

Counting Fish, Taro, and Thinking

The study of cultural values has been my keenest interest, and as we decided on our theme for August (Learning from 8) it struck me that I haven’t really paid too much attention to the fascinating language of our numbers. I’ve taken them for granted.

Simply by merit of growing up in Hawai‘i, I have always known that multiples of four and eight are highly regarded in our culture, but why? Up until now it wasn’t something I thought much about, I just accepted it. Leave it to JJL to pique my interest enough to suddenly ask out loud, “But why?”

I went digging in my own library of reference books, and this is what I discovered.

Kauna, Ka‘au, Lau” Counting Fish and Taro

“Numbers is the special language of mathematics and Hawaiians had developed a numbers system of their own long before the arrival of Captain Cook” Hawaiians had adopted a base unit of four in addition to a hybridized base ten numerical system” The Hawaiians’ base four units were called kauna, or four; ka‘au, or forty; lau, or four hundred; mano, or four thousand; kini, or forty thousand; and lehu, or four hundred thousand.

According to J.H. Kānepu‘u, a Hawaiian author of a letter to the editor of the Hawaiian newspaper Ke Au ‘Oko‘a, dated January 21, 1867, the number four was used for a very practical reason: a fisherman could hold four fish by their tails between the five fingers of each hand, or a farmer could hold four taro plants in the same way. Incidentally, fisherman and fishmongers in Hawai‘i today still count fish, particularly ‘ōpelu, according to the old method, in units of four, forty, and so on.”

—from KÅ« Kanaka, A Search for Hawaiian Values by George Hu‘eu Sanford Kanahele

I have seen fish counted this way, and it’s just been one of those things I figured as a fisherman’s habit. Handy, simple, practical” hands, fish and food together; very Hawaiian.

However then there is makawalu, for to the Hawaiian, the spirit factors into everything. Where four is baseline and binary, eight is expansive and exponential. Beyond two hands is beyond eight and predicates using one’s spirit, thus 8 opens imagination and possibility. We call it makawalu.

Makawalu” Counting our Thinking

Makawalu is the concept of abundance in thinking, giving in to all the possibilities of the physical and the spiritual world. Maka is the word for eyes, and walu is eight, thus makawalu literally means to look for eight ways or facets of thinking connected to and extended from wherever you may start.

If you begin to use a tool, think of eight ways you might be able to use it.

If you plot a garden, think of eight sections that will rotate your earth in season.

If you consider a friendship, think of eight ways you will be able to share it.

If you write a song, think of eight voices who will help you sing it.

And then for each of those eight ways, think of eight more. Within your spirit, all is entirely possible.

Makawalu stems from a belief that our intelligence is infinite: For each of the eight perspectives one might come up with, another eight will be possible (making 64), and on (to 512), and on (to 4,096), and on to infinite possibility. It is the expectation of abundance over scarcity— always.

Thus in Hawaiian, makawalu is also the word we use for numerous, many, much, in great quantities, and sometimes, it is “used with implication of chiefly mana [divine power].” —Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert in the Hawaiian Dictionary

So my fellow JJLers, here is my challenge to us all this month:

For every post to come go for Makawalu!

Seek to learn with eight eyes and your spirit.

Could we get beyond our own two hands, a collaborative community 4,096 and “on to infinite possibility?” I believe we can.

P.S. And the next time you go to a fish market, see how good you might be holding four fish between your five fingers! Not as easy as it sounds (cheeky Hawaiians).

Drive well: Pay People Enough

June 5, 2010 by Rosa Say

Yes, I just jumped to a new theme this past week, so think of this post as a weekend breather, because I happened to find this video (below) via science fiction author Tobias Buckell, who posted a few thoughts on  The nature of motivation.

I want to share it with you because I think it’s a good follow-up to this: The Energy of Gainful Employment.  While we happily move ahead with a new theme, we are nowhere finished with our efforts in Job Creation or our Sense of Workplace call to action, are we. You go through this with your Weekly Review all the time:

  1. You look back, taking stock of what just happened.
  2. Then you look forward, having both directional views shape a more complete perspective,
  3. …so you can do a good job proactively planning your week progressively, and with the pacing which feels best to you.
  4. It’s the best way to reality-check your goals, while not losing sight of them,
  5. …and to think about how you will team up with others in the week to come (A-Upcoming calendar appointments give you fortuitous opportunity. B-You schedule to fill open slots).

Number 3. and Number 5. MUST always include very healthy helpings of follow-up.

SIDEBAR:
Two fantastic Follow-up Tools if you are new round these parts, and missed them:

  1. Be the Best Communicator
  2. Improve your Reputation with 1 List

So here is what I propose: Grab the next 15 minutes or so to go back to those keepers in our recent studies here, and refresh them with what this video might trigger for you.

My take is up in the post title: This 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. You could also connect this to Wealth is a Value (January 2010).

I have read Dan Pink’s book, Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us, and I think this is the biggest keeper from it for most of the work world, (though I really should read the entire book again, and slowly).

“Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.”

Then, and only then (paraphrasing now) can we talk about everything else (like autonomy and mastery, or other incentives). For then, and only then, will people stop thinking about money and begin to think about the work.

It pops up on this very cool 10-minute video at about the 5-minute mark half-way through:
RSA Animate Drive by Daniel Pink

It makes so much sense, and always great to have it backed up by smart research (we’ll take his word for it, short of reading more in his book). In his post (referenced earlier) Buckell is absorbing the book’s message as a solo artist/creative:

I’ve been talking about [the book, Drive] to creative types a great deal, as we’ve all faced the very real dilemma around the fact that when creative works becomes directly linked to pay, a very real crisis happens. Learning to navigate that is crucial to making the switch to a full time creative type. I wish I’d read Drive years ago, it would have made the transition much smoother.

To sum up:

  1. If you’re the Job Creator for others, factor good pay into your business model — you have to in order to get them to be a good partner for you on the work itself. It’s a simple matter of being realistic about what our basic attentions must be devoted to.
  2. Same goes for when the only job you’re currently focused on is your own: Deal with the issue of your baseline compensation realistically, and get it off your own table!

Here is some good Archive Aloha which relates to this thinking about your own business model: What if your business got sick? My own follow-up to that journey was the writing of Business Thinking with Aloha, just published last month.

~ ~ ~ Want more for your weekend? ~ ~ ~

  1. After I saw this video and had programmed this post for you, it seemed these RSA Animations were beginning to go viral — I kept seeing a few different ones. They are done by Andrew Park of Cognitive Media if you are interested in visiting his site (Mahalo to Mike Rohde for his help in tracking down the info.) You can check out RSA here: 21st century enlightenment.
  2. If you would like to see another, I would recommend the one summed up at kottke.org which is “A fascinating 10-minute animated talk by Philip Zimbardo about the different ‘time zones’ or ‘time perspectives’ that people can have, and how they will affect people’s world views.” — It may give you added oomph to the process and/or context of doing your Weekly Review, as mentioned above. If you like those self-assessment type online questionnaires, find out which time zone you’re in by taking this survey.
  3. Back to the subject of job creation, here is a recent article by Robert Reich: Why the President’s Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs. Of note: He wrote this about a month before the BP oil rig explosion, and his current suggestion is that the President put BP into temporary receivership: Part 1, Podcast, and Part 2.

Discover the power of 5 Minutes: A book excerpt from Managing with AlohaD5MBetterMgr

What are you managing?

May 9, 2010 by Rosa Say

Simple question, yet so many different answers are possible!

Explode my life again, in chaos and agony, by Gui Trento on Flickr

Let’s be sure that the answer we’d admit to ourselves doesn’t stop at “the team at company XYZ” or isn’t “I’m not really sure.”

I don’t intend to be rude; we managers can get caught up in a lot of fire-dousing as opposed to significant work of our own. Are you catching yourself, and refocusing on your own Ho‘ohana whenever that happens?

Let’s look at this from two perspectives, first to answer the “simple question” and second, from the standpoint of managing as a verb (a hot-button theme with me for any who might be newly joining us).

1. What are you managing?

Hopefully, your first reaction is, “Don’t you mean ‘who’ am I managing?”

Alaka‘i Managers (those who manage with Aloha) focus on people over the process. Is the process important? Sure it is, however you-as-manager aren’t the one actually engaging with the process, or at least not as much as your people are. You want to work with them, not for them, and you want to be their coach and champion — so is that the process you are managing?

Use the 5 Whys to dig deeper, and get to your answer. For example:

What are you managing, and why?
— I’m managing the process by which we ___________.

Why that particular process?
— Because it’s the one which is currently our most costly and time-consuming (a possible, fairly common answer, but certainly not the only one).

Why is it costly, and how can you coach your people in improving it?
Why is it time-consuming, and how can you coach your people to be more efficient? (And by the way” how would you better utilize the time you’d free up?)

I stopped at a third why, but you get the idea. According to Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet, who created a blog inspired by five why questioning:

“Five Whys is the Japanese philosophy of repeatedly asking why to find not only the direct sources of your problems, but also the root of those sources. It’s about thinking long-term and looking both ahead and behind, not just in the present.”

2. What are you managing, if managing is a verb?

Verbs rock and roll: They keep stuff moving. As a verb like no other, managing keeps work moving in the best possible way. So is that what you’re doing?

Here’s an excerpt from Business Thinking with Aloha:

“Work rocks!” because verbs are doing the rockin’ and rollin’. Verbs get work done because they grab our attention, and pack action into intention. They can’t sit still, and they take us with them as they make things happen. Nouns can be pretty attractive, I’ll grant you that, but they just sit there. Verbs add dynamic movement and vitality. They add verve and vigor and they zoom. When stuff starts moving you better be paying attention, and when Ho‘ohana intention enters the picture you’d best hold on.

Now as great as verbs are already sounding here, there are certain verbs which are a cut above the rest, and two in particular which are absolutely extraordinary. Together they form a partnership which is very focused on working with human energy as its engine. Those two verbs are managing and leading.

To be a manager like no other, an Alaka‘i Manager Rock Star, “What am I managing?” is probably a question you want to revisit often.

— “What am I managing TODAY?” is a great question to sit with as you have your morning coffee or make your early commute: Turn your car radio off and talk to yourself (seriously.) Then ask yourself those 5 Whys again, from the standpoint of Why the first answer you came up with?, for there’s likely some reason your first answer is front of mind for you; get to the gist of it. Challenge Your Most Brilliant Self: Burn Your Boats.

— “What am I managing IN THE NEXT HOUR?” is a great question to grab your focus back when you’ve been super-helpful to everyone else, but realize you need to stop and take stock of your day before it gets away from you completely. Ask the question midday or right after lunch: Big bummer when we do this at the end of the day and start scrambling, or worse, we don’t get to it at all and slink home for the day feeling we didn’t really get much accomplished.

— “What CAN I be managing in the coming WEEK?” is a great question to sit with as you do your Weekly Review, for it will help you be proactive and not reactive: Learn a 5-Step Weekly Review, and Make it your Habit. When you have a burning desire to get something done, and you have planned for it and scheduled it, it is SO much easier to just say “No.” to those little fires that come up. You delegate better, using all your resources and you curb any impulse you have to micromanage:

  1. How to Stop Micromanaging: Part One
  2. How to Stop Micromanaging: Part Two

So let’s try this again: What are you managing?

~ ~ ~
Connections

1. One more link which may help you with this:

“we managers can get caught up in a lot of fire-dousing as opposed to significant work of our own.”

Stay out of that trap of acceptable versus accomplished:
Feeling Good Isn’t the Same as Feeling Strong

2. Are you currently within a 9 Key Study? Learning Managing with Aloha: 9 Key Concepts. I am adding this posting to our Key 4 category, the Role of the Manager Reconstructed: What other connections fall within your personal value alignment?

In today’s workplaces, managers must own workplace engagement. The “reconstruction” we require in Managing with Aloha is so this expectation is reasonable, and so it is valued as critically important: Managers can then have the desire and ‘personal bandwidth’ for assuming a newly reinvented role, one which delivers better results both personally and professionally.

~ ~ ~

My mahalo to Fred H. Schlegel for inspiring this post today. These thoughts came to me after I had read one of his recent Frog Blog posts, What are you selling? and found that the managing question naturally popped into my head: It’s a great post ~ do take a look. Thanks Fred!

Read the story behind the book: Imagine having a Thought Kit
Get your copy from the Kindle Store, or on Smashwords.com

Next Page »

Search Talking Story your way

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
  • Managing Basics: The Good Receiver
  • What do executives do, anyway? They do values.
  • Managing Basics: On Finishing Well
  • Wellness—the kind that actually works

Search Talking Story by Category

Talking Story Article Archives

  • July 2016 (1)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (6)
  • February 2012 (6)
  • January 2012 (10)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (4)
  • October 2011 (17)
  • September 2011 (8)
  • August 2011 (6)
  • July 2011 (2)
  • June 2011 (2)
  • May 2011 (4)
  • April 2011 (12)
  • March 2011 (16)
  • February 2011 (16)
  • January 2011 (23)
  • December 2010 (4)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • September 2010 (4)
  • August 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (4)
  • June 2010 (13)
  • May 2010 (17)
  • April 2010 (18)
  • March 2010 (13)
  • February 2010 (18)
  • January 2010 (16)
  • December 2009 (12)
  • November 2009 (15)
  • October 2009 (20)
  • September 2009 (20)
  • August 2009 (17)
  • July 2009 (16)
  • June 2009 (13)
  • May 2009 (3)
  • April 2009 (19)
  • March 2009 (18)
  • February 2009 (21)
  • January 2009 (26)
  • December 2008 (31)
  • November 2008 (19)
  • October 2008 (8)
  • September 2008 (11)
  • August 2008 (11)
  • July 2008 (10)
  • June 2008 (16)
  • May 2008 (1)
  • March 2008 (17)
  • February 2008 (24)
  • January 2008 (13)
  • December 2007 (10)
  • November 2007 (6)
  • July 2007 (27)
  • June 2007 (23)
  • May 2007 (13)
  • April 2007 (19)
  • March 2007 (17)
  • February 2007 (14)
  • January 2007 (15)
  • December 2006 (14)
  • November 2006 (16)
  • October 2006 (13)
  • September 2006 (29)
  • August 2006 (14)
  • July 2006 (19)
  • June 2006 (19)
  • May 2006 (12)
  • April 2006 (11)
  • March 2006 (14)
  • February 2006 (14)
  • January 2006 (7)
  • December 2005 (15)
  • November 2005 (27)
  • October 2005 (22)
  • September 2005 (38)
  • August 2005 (31)
  • July 2005 (34)
  • June 2005 (32)
  • May 2005 (27)
  • April 2005 (28)
  • March 2005 (36)
  • February 2005 (33)
  • January 2005 (35)
  • December 2004 (13)
  • November 2004 (24)
  • October 2004 (22)
  • September 2004 (28)
  • August 2004 (8)

Copyright © 2021 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in