Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks
Live, Work, Manage and Lead with Aloha
by Rosa Say
An ebook on how to read, use, and apply
Managing with Aloha
Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business
Copyright 2010 Rosa Say, Smashwords Edition
I’m also the author of the Managing with Aloha text this ebook showcases,
founder of Say Leadership Coaching, and
the Aloha Workplace School and MWA University
Version 1.7, Updated 04.10.10
License Notes:
Thank you for downloading Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks.
You may share it with your friends, and I encourage you to tell other managers about it: This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided it remains in its complete original form.
I welcome your feedback and your suggestions on how we can improve future editions, for this ebook represents an ambitious self-coaching experiment with a program initially designed as one-on-one coaching for hire. I will continually update this free offering to incorporate edits and proven process improvements, so do check back to be sure you are reading the latest version as you proceed with the program.
Write to Rosa here (web link)
Section 1: An Introduction
There’s more to Aloha than you think!
About Managing with Aloha
Who is the Alaka‘i Manager?
Must you buy the textbook? Yes.
Meet Mark and his Manager
Section 2: What To Expect
Must you secure the buy-in of your boss?
Make room for MWA: Don’t Add, Replace
Starting is great. Finishing is even better
Lessen your task work with systems and processes
Have a positive expectancy
Section 3: To Best Learn MWA, Take 5
“Taking 5” and the power of 5
5 weeks in a 5-step progression: An Overview
How long will this really take?
Take 1: Read the book once through, and annotate it
Take 2: Draft your Ho‘ohana Statements
Take 3: Reconstruct and rejuvenate the Role of the Manager
Take 4: Cultivate the “Language of We” through The Daily 5 Minutes®
Take 5: Learn the 9 Key Concepts®
There’s more to Aloha than you think!
“Every single day, somewhere in the world, Aloha comes to life.
As it lives and breathes within us, it defines the epitome of sincere, gracious, and intuitively perfect customer service given from one person to another.”
— Managing with Aloha
Are you a manager or leader? If you are, your work matters, and it’s high time you fell in love with what you do. Truly great management is rare, and management is vitally important as the foundational partner to all leadership initiatives. People struggle in the workplace, and as a result, many promising leadership ideas never get off the ground.
If you are a manager committed to managing and leading with the integrity of your values, we need you. As you learn this fulfilling practice called Managing with Aloha we need your courage. As you will read, I am speaking of personal courage, for you CAN reinvent your role in the traditional organizations which now exist ―doing so to your mutual benefit. Managers win, their organizations win, and their people thrive in the healthier workplace which results.
About Managing with Aloha (MWA)
Managing with Aloha is about the values-based management and leadership practices which create healthy workplace cultures. There are timeless principles and universal wisdoms inherent in values-based managing and leading, and by their very nature, our values are good. What we must do is better employ them so we feel good about the work we do. We learn to speak with a “language of intention” within MWA, using the Hawaiian names for familiar values as a practical way to learn the Managing with Aloha philosophy as the sensibility for worthwhile work it is. Aloha is a value too, and it’s the rootstock where everything begins within us.
MWA covers 19 universal values, discussing them in workplace context. More values exist in our world, and they presently exist in your abilities and abundant human capacity. Therefore, the 19 values within Managing with Aloha do not present a complete listing, but you will find them comprehensive for the world of work. They were specifically chosen for their potential in the Art of Business because I believe that business practices are exceptionally enabling: When you learn the business of business, you also gain your highly relevant, real-world education in society’s business of life. As a wonderful bonus, you discover that the value alignment you’ve adopted as your life’s management strategy has enhanced the quality of your personal and professional relationships.
Who is the Alaka‘i Manager?
I hope you are! Alaka‘i is the Hawaiian value of leadership, and thus we refer to those who learn and practice the Managing with Aloha philosophy as Alaka‘i Managers. You have the potential to be an Alaka‘i Manager if you feel you have the calling to be a manager or leader, and you are ready to answer that calling.
Alaka‘i Managers manage and lead: Both disciplines are important, and I’ll teach you to treat these disciplines as verbs about energy, turning your MWA intentions into values-inspired actions which serve others and are rewarding for you.
Alaka‘i management and leadership are about getting things done with others and through partnerships, and as such, aspiring to leadership is not a goal or quality reserved for those with title, position or power. Conversely, when you have been one to demonstrate your management Aloha, people take notice you have it, and those promotions of title, position and power will find you.
I will guide you through reinventing your role as a manager as we progress through the self-coaching program presented in this ebook. What that means is that your reputation can then precede you: New partnerships and leadership positions may be offered to you, because people desire the role you bring with you as part of your Ho‘ohana. Your influence has grown, and the days of others assigning roles to you will be over.
Sound intriguing to you so far? Just wait until the value alignment of Aloha and Ho‘ohana become clearer to you, for it truly is! Intriguing and exciting.
Must you buy the book?
For our purpose with this ebook, yes. This is a guide on how to use the book for optimal benefit: Managing with Aloha is the textbook, and this is your reading and application guide, newly published for 2010 in this way so there’d be no additional cost to you.
MWA is for sale on Amazon.com’s Kindle, and will soon be offered here on Smashwords as my next ebook publishing project for other e-reading formats. However the digital version was done for different reasons, such as reference mobility and sharing excerpts with greater affordability. I do encourage you to invest the $25 or so (often less!) for a hardcover copy rather than deal with your own printing when you accept this challenge with becoming an Alaka‘i Manager: The book was designed with extra-wide margins, blank spaces and notes pages to become a manager’s ongoing resource and journaling companion. Join our hardcover club of zealous book annotators and story collectors: Non-fiction study can be an entirely new visual learning experience for you.
Throughout this ebook I will also be sharing page numbers with you: They refer to the print version of Managing with Aloha presently only in hardcover and to the English printing (MWA is also offered in Japanese: Web link to Amazon.com/Japan.)
Buy the Book (Link to Managing with Aloha in print on Amazon.com)
The books which we have read and find we still reach for are about stories both within their covers and out, and I wrote MWA to be that kind of book for you. It isn’t a history book about values, but a making-history book intended to be useful to us today. Let me share an email I received the February after Managing with Aloha first hit bookstore shelves:
Dear Rosa,
I gave your book to my boss for Christmas as a last ditch attempt at keeping my job. I like the company, and I love what I do, but we weren’t communicating very well. Actually, it was pretty bad, and since it didn’t seem like he’d ever leave, I figured I’d be the one who would have to start looking around for something else. Well guess what happened? He read it over the holidays, and thanks me, saying, “If you’re willing to start over between us, then I am too. Will you help me with this?” Blew me away. It’ll take some time, but we’re working on it, and just knowing that we’ve both read your book has helped a lot. My boss keeps an extra copy on the corner of his desk now so everyone can take a look at it, and just seeing it there really helps me whenever I go in to see him now because we’ve got to talk. Thanks for writing it for us, for I’m feeling a whole lot better about working here, especially because I don’t think I’ll have to leave anymore.
Mahalo nui loa,
Mark
Still thinking about it? I’d suggest you read the next section on “What to expect” from this ebook. The next few pages have more information for you on what becoming an Alaka‘i Manager is all about.
Less than 300 pages in print (and 78,600 words from Foreword to Epilogue as an ebook) Managing with Aloha is fairly easy reading. It is now used in college MBA programs, community college and undergraduate courses, and by the Kamehameha Schools high-school business academy (9th through 12th grades).
Managers frequently tell me they find the stories shared within MWA resonate, and are very relevant to their day-to-day management challenges regardless of industry, for the common denominator is this: I coach managers to work with their people, and on their management style and approach. I coach you to work on your relationships and develop partnerships through value alignment.
“It will often require a charismatic leader to create excitement, and lead the way with new and innovative thinking. However it will require a great manager of people to actually inspire employees to get the job done. In choppy seas, the leader may be sitting in front of the canoe with the keenest eye for land, but the manager is the one who is steering. The manager is focused on his paddlers: He is the one who will enable them to bring that canoe to shore.”
— Managing with Aloha, page 10
My goal with this ebook is to keep MWA relevant and useful while furnishing you with a practical guide to getting started in your own workplace. Now that you have read the book and learned what MWA is all about, your work begins in applying it — in making it real for you.
“First one learns: We become aware of better possibility and explore it. For the learning to stick, be fulfilling and become meaningful, one must apply their learning to evolve to personal belief — it becomes their mana‘o, the deep and certain belief that drives one’s instinctual actions. This is what Managing with Aloha represents for me, and this is what I hope to share with you.”
— Managing with Aloha, page 12
Now if you have the book, and read that passage above within it, you’ll see that I have added to it slightly: It contains an extra clarifying phrase. This is an advantage this ebook provides us with. Managing with Aloha was first published in the fall of 2004. We’ve learned much more these six years later as we’ve practiced it, and together we’ll continue to learn even more.
Must you secure the buy-in of your boss?
This ebook is written to get you started with the philosophy on your own, whether or not your organization buys in at first. I wholeheartedly agree that having complete buy-in from the top down makes organizational working life way easier and much more harmonious, but most of us don’t have the complete benefit of that workplace environment — at least not yet, for a great manager and leader is the one to deliver it! You can get started with MWA as a highly effective grassroots approach.
Why and how so? Managing and leading with Aloha begins with you and your Alaka‘i example for others. You affect much more than you might realize, for each manager creates his or her own team culture and your team’s success can act as a good contagion. Let’s peek into MWA again:
“Understand that you can influence quite a bit, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant you may feel your one small department is in the big parent company. I first heard this —really heard and understood this —when said by Marcus Buckingham, co-author of First Break All the Rules, What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently. He spoke at a conference I attended in May 2002. This is what he said: ‘Companies don’t have one culture. They have as many as they have supervisors or managers. You want to build a strong culture? Hold every manager accountable for the culture that he or she builds.’ When I looked back on my own history, I found it to be so true.”
“When I was a restaurant manager, reporting to one food and beverage director in a hotel with three other restaurants besides mine, my restaurant did indeed have its own personality —its own culture, and its own ‘Ohana. And that personality or culture came from the direction within the restaurant that came from me, my assistant managers and our shared values. Whether we were aware of it or not, the distinction of the restaurant, successful or unsuccessful, came from us much more than our theme, the food we served or the prices we charged. And you, my dear manager, have the same capacity to share: You are much more influential than you realize.”
— Managing with Aloha, page 102
Remember: The heart and soul of MWA is about connecting your personal values to the work you do. That’s something you can do on your own first, and then bring to everyone in your company culture later if you choose to (and you may be asked to!) And not to worry, we won’t be subversive or manipulative, both of which are very non-Aloha: I will be encouraging you to have conversations with your boss, and with your management peers.
There’s another important reason to start with you: Do not presume to manage or lead others, even when you feel it is your calling, until you self-manage your own behavior first. Live, work, manage, and then lead. Those are verbs, not rights, and we all need to better practice them. Management and leadership are highly visible, and your best results will speak for themselves, loudly and clearly. When Alaka‘i Managers lead by merit of their own initiative and good example others eagerly follow.
Our Workplace Aloha School experiences consistently confirm: Those who get the most out of Managing with Aloha do so very successfully within their work teams whether or not the rest of the organization buys in. We call this work team effort MWA-inspired mountain climbing — it is our “striving to the summit” of Kūlia i ka nu‘u as described in MWA’s chapter 5 on the value of achievement and excellence: Live, work, manage, and then lead. Workplace teams greatly underestimate what they are capable of when they collaborate in value aligned work. You will find the team approach can truly move mountains — pun fully intended! So let’s start by concentrating on you and your team.
Make room for MWA. Don’t Add. Replace
If you are now in a management position of any kind you know that managing can be stressful enough, and I certainly don’t want to add to that stress. I’m sure you already feel you are running at 100% and burning the midnight oil at times, so here’s your first how-to tip: Make room for learning MWA, both in your head and your day. You do so by adopting the MWA mantra of stress-free high performance: Don’t Add when inspired to try something, however do Replace.
When you learn something in MWA, get excited about it and prepare to try it, don’t add it to your present work load: Look for an existing activity, system, or process it can improve, and hence replace. You will be systematically ridding your existing operational m.o. of automatic pilot, waste, duplication, sacred cows, and old habits which fall into that workplace quagmire of forgotten intentions: “Now why do we do this again?” Not all of that quagmire is necessarily bad, but it is clutter, both physical and mental; it’s amazing how much energy we can squander on maintaining systems and processes we no longer really need. Devote that energy to something better — meaning something which works better.
Best of all, this won’t be drudgery for you: You’ll be on a values-based agenda! You’ll be tackling this continual improvement of your workplace at the time inspiration strikes — MWA inspiration which connects directly to your personal value calling. Trust me, that’s when your energies are at their highest and can be better optimized, for energy is a direct result of inspiration. Think of ‘inspiration’ as being ‘in-spirit’ and then be in your Aloha Spirit! Inspiration is fleeting and it’s perishable: Don’t miss it or let it go to waste.
Starting is great. Finishing is even better
Some of your replacement candidates will be very easy to pick out. For instance, I give you suggestions in the book for operational processes like annual performance reviews (page 48) and light duty (page 188). Others will require more thinking on your part, or more steps; you’ll opt for an individual approach (e.g. a replacement conversation you will have with Jason) versus a team or group approach (e.g. a replacement huddle with all your auditors). The key is to strike when the fire is hot: Replace when you are within your learning excitement, and inspiration — your idea about an action you can take — is giving you clear purpose and a more passionate intention.
Secondly, one thing at a time: Finish well instead of keeping too many balls in the air. You will be introducing shift and change to your workplace culture: Give it the time needed, and enjoy the process — learn all you can from it. Challenge yourself to have more conversations with people about what you are doing — tell them! — and get them involved where they participate in your decision-making. Ask them to help you, just as Mark’s boss did.
Share your inspiration. Understand that people will want to talk about how your actions will likely affect them too — you both need to talk those things through. Heed this wisdom from organizational change pioneer Richard Beckhard, who said, “People do not resist change; people resist being changed.” Let people know you’re on their team and want to partner with them, not work around them. You want to achieve what’s best for both of you.
One of the very best ways to finish well is to end all conversations with agreements. When you’ve talked about something, how will each of you follow-up? Share your plans with each other, and then coach each other toward achieving those plans. Don’t “try” to do something, but state something specific, “I will…” and be sure to ask, “How about you? What’s your next step so I can support you?” This was the strategy I shared with Mark and his boss in my response to his email. We’ve kept in touch since then, and Mark’s boss calls this their “divide and conquer” strategy. Mark calls it something else. From his perspective it’s their “guarantee that follow up will happen — by both of us.”
Lessen your work with systems and processes
You’ll be amazed at just how much you can accomplish when you have more workplace conversations (not meetings, conversations). One of the things Aloha does is help make talking to each other more enjoyable so we don’t avoid things and sweep them under the rug. We appreciate learning from each other.
Generally speaking, we managers work with three things: Systems, processes, and people. The goal of MWA is shifting your work away from task-related systems and processes in favor of your more rewarding work with people as much as possible. The finishing well conversation for mutual agreements which we just covered is but one example.
Your best work is to be done in cultivating the relationships in which you’ll teach or train, and then coach others toward their stress-free high performance: This is the way that Alaka‘i Managers serve others, by helping them grow into their greater potential. Great managers create more leaders, not work drones, and not more followers. They facilitate partnerships, treating employees as business partners. You can’t do those things when swallowed up in task work.
Go to page 7 in the book, and review the section titled, Process versus people. You will never completely rid yourself of task work, but you can lessen it. When you do, you open up space in your own work for two things: The fun and opportunity that MWA section speaks of, and your Ho‘ohana (your own rewarding work) in reconstructing your role as a manager — an Alaka‘i Manager.
Next, go to page 130 in the book, and review the section titled, Seeking empowerment and ownership. Complete the exercise suggested on page 131. There is a good way and a bad way to handle the delegation which lessens your work with systems and processes effectively — and the MWA way is guilt-free! Alaka‘i Managers think of empowerment as the positive case for delegation: It’s a gift of transformational learning, and it opens doors to greater opportunity.
Expect people to do great things, and have that same positive expectancy of yourself.
“Those who are Alaka‘i possess healthy self-esteem, with a strong belief in their own capacity and in the power of possibility: They are confident optimists. In the world we live in, you must be an optimist, and you must have hope. This is the fundamental requirement I always have for those leaders whom I willingly and eagerly choose to follow — don’t you? They challenge me to be positive, no matter what. The visions they speak of help me see things that are better.”
— Managing with Aloha, page 179
We always have a choice between the positive and negative, and our workplaces can create an abundance of positive choices and a scarcity of negative ones: The difference-maker is the culture each manager delivers within his or her stewardship. If most of the choices available to us are overwhelmingly positive they fill us with enthusiasm and very productive energy. We trust that more likely than not, a great result will follow. So we step forward with a great attitude, ready to get involved and be engaged.
Angela Coloretti of our Ho‘ohana Community described this perfectly in a conversation we’d had about this concept of positive expectancy. Here’s what she wrote in the comment box of my Talking Story blog:
“I LOVE the term ‘positive expectancy’ too! In training for my master’s in counseling, I learned three tenets to effective listening: Be authentic, be non-judgmental, and hold every person in unconditional positive regard. If I could strive to include positive expectancy as part of my daily routine, with every person I interact with, I believe that the interactions would take on a deeper meaning. In fact, if I operate with Aloha in every way, then by definition, I would be connecting with the beauty and spirit in every living thing.”
She’s absolutely, positively right! Aloha IS unconditional positive regard, both for self and for others, and there is beauty within every human being, waiting for you to discover it and make your connection.
I’ve already asked you to do a bit of reading and one exercise. In learning “what to expect” you have learned five highly useful approaches you can add to your Alaka‘i management toolbox:
Don’t Add. Replace.
Be a Finisher: Finish Well.
Finish Conversations with Mutual Agreements.
Lessen Task Work. Focus on Partnerships.
Choose Positive Expectancy.
We did say “starting is great.” You feeling it yet? Now let’s really jump in.
Just one more point of clarity in what you can expect: As my ebook title says, you will be becoming an Alaka‘i Manager within the five weeks’ time this ebook sets forth as a self-coaching program, and you have the option to take more time with it (more about that in a minute). However you will also be writing action lists within this process, and should expect they may take longer to complete.
Are you a list-maker? Most managers find they must be, so here’s some good news: Short lists work best, and keeping them to lists of no more than 5 works especially well.
Section 3: To Best Learn MWA, Take 5
5 has evolved to be one of our favorite numbers in Managing with Aloha (the other, as you’ll learn toward the end of this ebook, is 9). It started with our discovering the power of 5 minutes in the Daily 5 Minutes® which you will learn about in the book on page 145 — we’ll talk about the D5M later in this ebook as well.
What we discovered was that “taking 5” made a significant difference in workplace cultures, and it delivered a bounty of gifts. We’ve therefore attached our positive expectancy to the number 5, and when given the chance, we’ll use it for all our list making. We’ll write a list of 5 when penning our strategic initiatives each year. We’ll give new managers 5 weeks to become an Alaka‘i Manager. You just learned 5 useful self-management approaches in the last section! You get the idea: 5 has become one of our replacements for our previous automatic pilot with brainstorming older, longer lists we never seemed to finish well before. 5 has been proven to work better.
So we’ll be “taking 5” in our learning approach within this ebook’s self-coaching as well. To best learn Managing with Aloha and Become an Alaka‘i Manager, you will take these 5 progressions with me in the pages to follow:
Take 1: Read the book once through, and annotate it
Take 2. Draft your Ho‘ohana Statement and invite your team to do so too
Take 3: Reconstruct and rejuvenate the Role of the Manager (yours)
Take 4: Cultivate the “Language of We” through ‘talking story’ and the Daily 5 Minutes®
Take 5: Learn the 9 Key Concepts on Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community
I’ll give you a brief overview of these to start, as a means of defining our best possible outcome for each progression, and then we’ll proceed in more detail.
Very briefly, this is how you’ll read and use Managing with Aloha using this ebook as an additional guide, and in the process, become an Alaka‘i Manager:
Take 1: You will first read the book cover to cover, taking notes in a learning method and self-coaching framework I will describe to you. Everything begins with Aloha, and we’ll get comfortable with this value in an actionable way, allowing its goodness to inspire us! Know that you have everything it takes, for in short, Aloha is you living from the inside out, and “Living with Aloha” is dwelling in the self-awareness of your own ability and capacity.
Take 2: MWA will employ workplace values, turning them into a ‘business of business’ and ‘business of life’ strategy which is mutually rewarding for you and your workplace. We’ll learn more about how this informs and equips Alaka‘i Managers as our second progression. You will write a first draft of your Ho‘ohana, and invite your immediate work team to do so as well.
Take 3: Your Ho‘ohana is your intention with worthwhile work, including your purpose and passion for working. What is frustrating for so many of us, is that our Ho‘ohana intention doesn’t necessarily match up to the role we are given or assigned to in the workplace, and thus you have to do that matching up for yourself. In this progression you’ll learn how the Role of the Manager unfolds for Alaka‘i Managers with the MWA calling, and you’ll get started.
Take 4: We human beings are not meant to live alone. Like life itself, Alaka‘i management is not meant to be a solo proposition, and you will achieve your best success with MWA when you share your Aloha, and involve your team as soon as possible, receiving Aloha from others. You will actually have started with these efforts in Takes 1, 2 and 3: In Take 4 we add “talking story” and the Daily 5 Minutes® as our means of cultivating the “Language of We” in your work culture.
Take 5: Much of what I have done since MWA was initially published in 2004 has been to Ho‘omau with it (get the good we’ve created to be longer lasting — chapter 4 in the book) so that Alaka‘i Managers everywhere can tap into an ongoing Ho‘ohana Community movement as they continue their practice. Our final step in this guide will cover my invitation to you to Ho‘omau with us too. The 9 Key Concepts are not presently specified in the book, and you will get them here in this ebook as a framework for continuous learning.
As you can tell, this is not just any reading guide: It’s a free coaching program, and it’s ambitious. I’m a workplace culture coach, and one who believes that anything worth having is worth working for. This is what I do, and Managing with Aloha was designed and written to help me coach Alaka‘i Managers.
How long will all of this REALLY take?
That’s up to you, and how you’ve been able to “make room for MWA in both your head and your day” as I’ve asked you to. It differs for everyone, and this ebook will not specify precise 7-day weeks of time for you: It’s paced for self-coaching, and requires your self-discipline. It is entirely possible to have this be a 5-week program for you, with a week (or dedicated weekend) devoted to each progression of the Take 5. We do this in 6 weeks when managers hire me for one-on-one coaching through the program; the 6th week adds a 2nd writing of their Ho‘ohana as ‘Imi ola coaching, within the framework of the Healthy Workplace Compass (web page link).
What will be your commitment to your goal, and how strong is your Alaka‘i calling? What else might you need to say “no” to in order to make room for this learning? Therein lays your answer.
You know what your own present-day workload and attention-pullers are like: If you want to give two weeks to each Take 5 progression, go ahead and do so. However I strongly encourage you to commit to calendar blocks of time on your schedule if you stretch this out, and I discourage you from stretching it out too much, for you’ll lose the exponential benefits of continuity and flow. Batching work is always the smarter way to tackle your time and channel your energies, and working on your learning is no different.
Now that you have this overview, it’s time we get to work. Let’s begin the Take 5 with your reading.
Take 1: Read the book once through, and annotate it
Readers can sail through this part: You’ll need to slow down, taking notes in the learning method and self-coaching framework I’m about to describe to you. For non-readers, I fully realize that this will be daunting at first, and you may feel it’s the hardest part. In a way you’re right, but you may surprise yourself thanks to the way we tackle ‘reading.’ Stick with me in this first progression with MWA — truly reading it well, and starting to apply it as you annotate it, and the rest will go much, much faster and easier. If you consider yourself both a non-reader and non-writer, give yourself two weeks for Take 1, investing in the front-end of this study, for your diligence with Take 1 pays off sequentially with each Take which follows.
You are about to join our hardcover club of zealous book annotators and story collectors who are equally insistent that their reading be useful, translating to practical application. This is a process we developed for the students of our Workplace Aloha School, and it’s delivered an added benefit of new enthusiasm with reading. Let’s Write in, Tab it, and Annotate:
Write in it
Go to page 14 in the book, rather than starting in the beginning just yet. You’ll see a section there titled, How best to read this book. Let’s start there. You’ll get an overview of the book’s construction, and learn about mana‘o. As you read page 14, think about your own workplace context, both from the standpoint of where you now are, and the viewpoint on where you want to grow to.
On page 15, a paragraph begins with, “I strongly encourage you to mark up this book” and we’re going to start right now! At the end of that phrase, draw one of these: ^ pointing to the white space just above it, and write in “I will!” In fact, I’ll give you another incentive with doing so: If you really want another unmarked, pristine copy of the book when we’re done, I’ll happily send you one, IF you can send me a photo of your tabbed book and its annotated pages.
Now flip to page 16, and before we go any further, use that big blank space to answer these two questions — write your answer there even if you’re a hardcore-journaler with another prized writing capture notebook you prefer, so we’ll both know where to come back to later:
1. Why Managing with Aloha? What are you hoping to find within these pages?
2. What is your calling for management and leadership? Describe it.
Great. Now before you launch into your actual reading, get familiar with the extras in the book. The back jacket flap was designed to be a quick and easy reference to all chapter names (and thus, the 19 values): People who immediately strip dust jackets off their hardcovers cut it off and use it as their bookmark. In the back of the book you’ll see a Recommended Reading list (page 229) a Hawaiian Glossary (page 240) an Index (page 247) and those promised note pages begin on page 261. Write on all of these pages too! For instance, the Index in my own copy has twice as many entries now, noting parts of the book I use in my coaching curriculum, and others for the workshops delivered in my Workplace Aloha School.
Tab it
Think about how you can use post-it tabs in using the book as a resource guide going forward. Because of the way I use the Index, my book has tabs for each section and chapter heading along the page edge opposite the spine. Across the top I have tabs for sections I refer to constantly in workshops (e.g. The Role of the Manager is tabbed on page 8, as is The Daily 5 Minutes® on page 145). Here’s a photo, and a web link so you can see a larger view on Flickr:
As you can see, I do this for all the non-fiction books I study and commit to applying, making them optimally useful to me, and not just Managing with Aloha. When I certify coaches in our MWA University train-the-trainer program, their books are top-tabbed according to their company’s strategic objectives in coaching, training, and mentorship (we’ll talk about these distinctions in a moment). Thus I now have several copies of MWA on my office shelf, customized for the value-alignment of my customers.
When you begin to read the book, use the margins to write down your notes about what you are reading — including when you question it! — and capture what each of the values will cause you to think about. Underlining or highlighting will not be enough for this process, because you are simply accenting what I’ve said: You need to capture what you think about it.
Use a legend of single-letter codes. I suggest these: In the explanations which follow, you’ll see that what you are doing is picking out the book’s contextual and actionable relevance for you as a manager. You’ll start to make it useful.
G: = This is a GOAL for me.
After the : write any specifics, for specificity is key in goal-setting.
I: = This is an IDEA I can apply (or, This gives me an idea!)
After the : write how you’d apply it — what connection are you thinking about? What was your take on the idea?
Q: = This stirs up questions for me.
Your questions are pure gold: Capture them. Just write them down for researching later (you’ll be coming back to them.)
A: = This must be an ACTION step for me.
Again, write specifics after the : and challenge yourself to take that action before you finish reading the book, or within the 5 weeks possible with this ebook if they start to really add up for you. Keep reading: The next 3 codes which follow all help with this, for this A: coding should only be for you, not others.
P: = This can be a PROJECT for us.
Projects require multiple ACTION steps, and they will usually involve other people (or should: You’re going to get better at sharing them!). You may want to note departments or divisions, groups or teams, or the specifics of your associations and networks here. I use PT: in books I annotate for P’s specific to my immediate team; for instance PT-SLC: is for Say Leadership Coaching, and PT-HP: is for Ho‘ohana Publishing. P: alone is all on me, and frankly, they’re rare — yours should be rare too, particularly in this process.
D: = This is a DELEGATION candidate for me.
You’ve already tried the delegation exercise on page 130 (it was in the “What to Expect” section of this guide, under, “Lessen your work with systems and processes.” If you’d only read about it, stop here and do it now, for it will make a big difference). As you read the book, you’ll discover more ways to do this. After the : write down the name of the person you’re thinking about, and why. Commit to having these conversations with them as soon as possible, ending those conversations in finishing well agreements.
I’m going to group these next 3 together, for they are similar, but different. They are similar in that like delegation, they apply to others. They are different in their focus, though three words that are often interchangeably used (as maddening as when we don’t define the difference between management and leadership.)
C: = This is COACHING I can share with:_____ (name).
Apply coaching to ACTIONS and PROJECT ACTIVITIES the people you manage and lead are currently involved in working with (and to your DELEGATION).
T: = This is TRAINING I can share with:_____ (name).
Apply training to the SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE you want to bring to the people you manage and lead for attaining higher level performance. This may include formal programs, but not necessarily; training should be something Alaka‘i Managers handle in conversations on a daily basis, and not just with meeting agendas or in classrooms. Teach in conversations MORE (and end them in finishing well agreements) and in meeting or classroom settings LESS (which too often result in passive listening without an agreement).
M: = This is MENTORING I can share with:_____ (name).
Apply MENTORING to the GOALS and IDEAS you have for the people you manage and lead, and to the goals and ideas they have already shared with you. How will you guide them? Whereas coaching and training is more directive, mentoring someone requires their co-authorship with your guidance, and their complete ownership of the initiative which results. Jump to mentoring when someone asks you to delegate something to them. (Listen for the clues in your conversations, for they won’t use those exact words.)
Here’s another way to remember these distinctions:
In coaching, you manage/lead what IS.
In training, you manage/lead what IMPROVES.
In mentoring, you manage/lead what GROWS.
G I Q A P and D C T M — you may want to jot our annotation codes down on a single index card to start, and use it as a bookmark. It won’t take very long for you to remember them.
To Review
Familiarize yourself with what the book construction offers, and get organized first: TAB IT in a way that makes flipping through it quick and easy for you. As you read the book, WRITE IN IT: Underline or highlight the text which will trigger thoughts for you — for your mana‘o. Draw an arrow from your highlight to the nearest margin or open space on the page, and ANNOTATE: Enter your legend code, and specific notes. This will get you started with studying MWA in a way that saves a lot of duplicitous yet less-than-clear writing: Your note-taking is categorized, and becomes very purposeful and intentional.
Using these annotation codes will organize specifics for you, versus specifics which involve others, and it makes categories easy to find when you go back to your notes later. In essence, you have created a second indexing for MWA which is completely personalized for your own workplace context and current managerial responsibilities as you see them.
Act on your notes as your inspiration strikes (remember, inspiration is perishable, and your energies are best then): You need not wait to finish the whole book! Verb MWA with your actions and your management style will be infused with Aloha before we even get to Take 2 and your Ho‘ohana, where purpose and intention gets very meaningful, both to you and your team.
Please note that your WRITE IN IT is very important for the progression which follows. Even if you leap up from your reading with an idea, inspired to take an action right there and then, write that annotation in your margins when you’re done, and add a completion date. Those value-context captures become very useful, as you’ll soon see.
Add Journaling
I have one more suggestion before you begin your sequential reading of Managing with Aloha: Journaling. Write your before and after for each chapter.
You’ll see a shadowed text box at the beginning and end of each value chapter in the book: They give a preview of the chapter to start, and a wrap-up to end it. As you read each chapter:
1. Read the chapter value name and description, and the preview in the box.
2. Stop, and in the blank space atop the page, write down what those first few sentences evoke for you — how do you think this will apply to your work? With words you’ve heard before, (Aloha is a good example, for nearly everyone has heard it), what do you think it means as a behavioral value, before I explain it to you in the MWA context?
3. Then, when you’ve finished reading the chapter, annotating it with your notes, use the blank space at the end of the chapter to debrief: Are there other behaviors you’ve long associated with that value that I’d neglected to mention? Any contradictions or surprises? Was an earlier question answered — or added to? If so, go back there and enter the page number as a cross-reference.
4. Make note if you thought about anyone in particular during your reading of that chapter: You are already training yourself in the value identification of others, but in the MWA context, for people may actually describe themselves differently.
5. Pull out your Calendar or Conversation List. Schedule the actions and/or conversations you captured as your intentions so you can begin to work on them. When you’ve completed them, go back and enter a completion date — well done!
Okay: It’s time for you to read Managing with Aloha from start to finish. When you’ve finished reading it we’ll move on. Enjoy the book.
If you’re one who’ll forge ahead and preview this entire ebook first, I will forewarn you that I shift my writing slightly from this point forward and all may not be completely clear: Starting from here, I’ll be assuming you have read MWA and have Take 1-annotated it.
Take 2: Draft your Ho‘ohana Statements
Continue your book annotation as we proceed. You’re now familiar enough with the book to know exactly where you’ll want your writing captures to appear as your learning retention, and as you’ll soon discover, your notes are going to become increasingly useful in this process. Some people choose a different pen color to keep this Take 5 progression clear, while others prefer the clean look and begin to date each new entry they make, which is my recommendation with both options: Dating your writing is a great habit to have. For this progression, consider adding “Take 2:____(date)” to your legend of annotation codes.
Now let’s write your Ho‘ohana!
From the Take 5 Overview: “MWA will employ workplace values, turning them into a ‘business of business’ and ‘business of life’ strategy which is mutually rewarding for you and your workplace. We’ll learn more about how this informs and equips Alaka‘i Managers as our second progression. You will write a first draft of your Ho‘ohana, and invite your immediate work team to do so as well.”
We’ll start with some information that will function as a filter for the reading you just did in the book. Actually, there are three filters: The 4 Peaks of Aloha mountain climbing as a values construct, M/L Energy, and Intention. Then I’ll have you write your own short Ho‘ohana Statement similar in form to mine. You read mine within Chapter 2 of the book; it’s the last paragraph on page 32, and it’s contained in a single paragraph all of 90 words long — not hard at all!
Where your skill as an Alaka‘i Manager will shine is in reading Ho‘ohana Statements to receive them with an eye and ear for the wealth of information they contain about their author — and the book will help you with that.
Remember the if in the introduction to this ebook? It read, “If you are a manager committed to managing and leading with the integrity of your values, we need you.” Ho‘ohana will reveal how values and work intention merge in the wondrous packaging of a human being. In other words, Ho‘ohana informs and equips you by teaching you more about the people you work with: Ho‘ohana Statements will help you see them in a whole new light as the fascinating, abundantly rich creatures they are.
We’ll see how this happens by writing a Ho‘ohana Statement for you first, for you’re a fascinating creature too! You’re about to open up the abundance of your own capacity. As you read on, I want you to proceed keeping your thoughts contained to YOU and to your Ho‘ohana. We’ll get to the invitation you make to your team near the end of this Take.
The 4 Peaks: Live — Work — Manage — Lead
By now you know the big deal about values: They drive the desirable behavior you can articulate in your workplace “language of we” and they do so pretty automatically. Beautiful. However managers also inherit values people bring with them. You drive alignment — not cooperation or consensus, but true Lōkahi value alignment, to drive the Ho‘ohana behaviors of a healthy workplace culture. You focus on the values which are aligned with the intentional, purposeful and worthwhile work everyone deems important, for it’s work that’s connected to a company’s mission and vision (‘Imi ola).
Most companies have some kind of value statement: You’ll see mine for Say Leadership Coaching on this page: The Healthy Workplace Compass (web page link). Those values are important, for they contain the desired Leadership Statement of a company: When we get to Take 3 and work on the Role of the Manager, you’ll want to reassess the Leadership Statement of your company, thinking about how you can bring it to fruition.
However there are several more values in play within workplace cultures. More often than not, a Leadership Statement of Values describes what you are striving toward. We first want to work with what you already have, for those values are important as well. Based on what you’ve learned, you can understand how we don’t employ people per se, we employ their values and we gain their behaviors. This first filter will help us “scope them out” using our Live — Work — Manage — Lead mountain-climbing within Kūlia i ka nu‘u — which you now know a good deal about!
Find a blank page in your book: If you’ve used up the notes pages, go to the very beginning of the book; there’s a lot of space before the Table of Contents. As you read the paragraphs which follow, see if you can specify your own values in these four subsets we refer to as the 4 Peaks, using the names of the 19 values you just learned about in the book (here’s where that bookmark from the back jacket flap can come in handy so you can skim the whole list). Duplicating them is fine: It’s entirely possible that will happen, but don’t list more than four or five for each mountain peak, and add whatever clarifying writing might help you be more specific.
Peak 1: Living with Aloha is a personal mountain peak: It’s about you, the unique signature of your Aloha spirit, and your personal values. Everyone brings a personal set of values to everything they do, and every thought they have. Collectively, we’ve referred to them as mana‘o, those thoughts, beliefs and convictions which consistently ring true for you as your personal truths. They apply everywhere, both in and out of the workplace; you bring them with you wherever you go. Your personal values are how you Nānā i ke kumu, and look to your source. They help you feel the contentment of Pono.
Peak 1 Writing prompt: What values do you strive to live your life by every single day? One clue is that these are the values you simply cannot turn off, even when you try to.
Peak 2: Working with Aloha is personal too: As your second mountain peak, it’s about how your personal values will shift their hierarchy of importance to you within the context of work, and in the workplace. You employ some of your values more than others, putting them to work for you dependent on workplace variables. A blending also begins, where you enroll in the values of others; you share them. They’re climbing this mountain with you: You met them on the trail, and invited them to climb with you — or you accepted their invitation. When you accept a job somewhere, you basically are saying, “I agree to uphold your company values too: They are now our values.” You are making a professional agreement, and attaching it to how you personally work with Aloha.
Peak 2 Writing prompt: Two questions here. First, what values define your approach to work? Second, what values did you agree to uphold in your present workplace role? (Note: If you’ve encountered an ownership change during your tenure, list the key values you are expected to uphold now, for understand that you’ve agreed to them by staying.) When you compare your answers to these questions, chances are that your work feels easier where they match up, and more challenging where they don’t (not necessarily impossible, but definitely more challenging).
Peak 3: Managing with Aloha is personal in its self-management: You rely on your personal values to self-manage your own behavior ethically and emotionally as you navigate different situations — either you’re true to yourself, your truths, and your Aloha Spirit, or you’re not (Pono). Managing with Aloha gets professional in your persona with yet another blending when you presume to manage others, and must now accept shared responsibility and accountability for their behavior too: They’ve become part of your Kuleana as you answer your calling for the Mālama stewardship of a workplace culture. You now attend to the coaching, training, and mentoring of other people within the striving for the summit of this mountain peak.
Peak 3 Writing prompt: What values do you consider your self-management guidelines? Are they the same as those you expect from your team in how they self-manage themselves, or are there differences? If we asked your team to describe your management style, what do you think they would say? Can you see how your values promote that style? Conversely, can you see where you are keeping your values suppressed for some reason, and managing in a way mandated or instructed by others?
Peak 4: Leading with Aloha is personal in its self-leadership: You rely on your personal values to self-lead and create new energies for yourself. For example, your commitment to the Take 5 learning progression of this ebook is a self-leadership strategy you are learning and testing for your own ongoing use and practice, and your values are what got you to accept this challenge in the first place. With the previous mountain peak of Managing with Aloha in play to support you, Leading with Aloha takes on another futuristic, visionary blending: It asks what professional or entrepreneurial initiatives you seek to create as ‘Imi ola, creating your best possible life. A company’s Leadership Statement of Values seeks to frame this for the entire organization, and you enroll in their vision.
Peak 4 Writing prompt: What values inspire you, and evoke your self-leadership energies? Do you now have visionary or entrepreneurial initiatives in mind for your present work, and if so, what values would drive those initiatives? Is it possible that you can pursue them as a value-alignment strategy to your company’s Leadership Statement of Values? Realistically, as ambassadors of their chosen companies, Alaka‘i Managers will champion those possibilities where values match up — they’re shared, and they feel Pono.
In our Live — Work — Manage — Lead mountain climbing, Leading with Aloha becomes the crowning achievement of all your “Don’t Add, Replace” strategies.
As you shift, change and grow (either personally or professionally), you realize you can choose new values as you choose new behaviors within the same workplace as a means of growing that workplace. You feel more courageous about your leadership ideas as your effectiveness and influence within an organization increases. Sometimes you’ll choose to reach for a new work team and/or workplace, for Kūlia i ka nu‘u is driving you with deeply passionate Ho‘ohana intention:
“Excellence is never an accident: It is always intentional, and it demands more than the norm. Excellence in the achievements you set your sights on will set you apart, for it will color your character with the destiny of leadership.”
— Managing with Aloha, page 67
By the way, it is entirely possible for people to be on their 4th mountain, Leading with Aloha with their company, and fully supporting and sharing their vision, while they simultaneously work on another set of Leading with Aloha values in a second job, or as they begin to build an entrepreneurial vision and new business of their own. It depends on the harmony between those two sets of values, and on the amount of energy they have, so let’s talk about that next.
The M/L Energy Credo of Alaka‘i Managers
I invite you to adopt another distinction between Alaka‘i Management and Leadership with me, one which does not presently appear in the book. It has proved exceptionally helpful in our coaching of MWA organizations the past few years, and thus is our second filter in identifying what informs and equips you. We refer to it as the Management/ Leadership Energy Credo of Alaka‘i Managers, a credo which considers workplace energy your most important resource, and your deliverable.
LEADERSHIP is the workplace discipline of creating energy connected to a meaningful mission and vision.
MANAGEMENT is the workplace discipline of channeling leadership energy into optimal production, usefulness and fruition.
Human energy is workplace fuel. It’s your most important resource. Energy is more important than time, more critical than financing, and as blasphemous as it initially sounds, more necessary than some people, for you want and need energetic and committed people if you’re to inspire high performance and excellence. Energy makes everything else matter: It optimizes your time and it capitalizes your finances, for ultimately, the result of invested energy creates profits and more financing. Time is finite, but the human energy you optimize will increase and magnify the possibilities within your time.
Human energy propels performance, whether inspired (high energy) lackluster (low energy), or squandered in the biggest business sin of them all; mediocrity. In comparison, Alaka‘i Managers deliver the results of high energy brilliance: Aloha revealed in all their people through Ho‘ohana supported work.
Writing prompt: Go back to the in-book writing you just did above in your Live — Work — Manage — Lead mountain climbing. Can you pick out the areas where your energy is high and where it’s ebbing away or dangerously drained? How do your energy levels correlate to your personal values?
Where might you need to Mālama, and take care of yourself? Conversely, where are you ignoring that perishable, and crucially vital Aloha inspiration when you could be tapping into it instead? Pull out your Take 1 Annotation codes, and get your mountain climbing to be actionable. What’s all on you, and what’s to be worked on with others?
One reminder as we proceed: We’re starting with you, but Alaka‘i Managers don’t go it alone, so don’t feel overwhelmed. Your Annotation codes should be helping with this if you are opening your mind up to using more of the PT D C T M codes, and not keeping everything on your own plate. You are tapping into collective energies, not just your own.
Ho‘ohana intention as North Star
Now let’s go back to these sentences a few paragraphs back: “You drive alignment — not cooperation or consensus, but true Lōkahi value alignment, to drive the Ho‘ohana behaviors of a healthy workplace culture. You focus on the values which are aligned with the intentional, purposeful and worthwhile work everyone deems important, for it’s work that’s connected to a company’s mission and vision (‘Imi ola).”
In other words, Ho‘ohana, a person’s intention with what they consider worthwhile work, is a key driver of all these Live — Work — Manage — Lead energies and efforts. Let’s face it: If we don’t want something badly enough, we don’t work very hard for it. We may not bother paying any attention to it at all. In our Healthy Workplace Compass (web page link) we refer to Ho‘ohana as our “North Star” and our guiding light because in the context of the Art of Business intentional work affects everything.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-31 show above.)