Ho‘ohana Aloha

Speak up, I’m listening | Managing with Aloha

Tue, 29 May 2012 07:44:20 -1000

Speak up, I’m listening | Managing with Aloha:

Those may be the most powerful words a manager can say. “Speak up, I’m listening.”

Those words frame an invitation, and they make a promise…

Let’s Be Less Productive - Tim Jackson, The New York Times Sunday Review

Tue, 29 May 2012 07:37:00 -1000

Let’s Be Less Productive - Tim Jackson, The New York Times Sunday Review:

As a proponent of the 20-hour workweek, I completely agree with Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and the author of “Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet.”

But the relentless drive for productivity may also have some natural limits. Ever-increasing productivity means that if our economies don’t continue to expand, we risk putting people out of work. If more is possible each passing year with each working hour, then either output has to increase or else there is less work to go around. Like it or not, we find ourselves hooked on growth.

What, then, should happen when, for one reason or another, growth just isn’t to be had anymore? Maybe it’s a financial crisis. Or rising prices for resources like oil. Or the need to rein in growth for the damage it’s inflicting on the planet: climate change, deforestation, the loss of biodiversity. Maybe it’s any of the reasons growth can no longer be safely and easily assumed in any of today’s economies. The result is the same. Increasing productivity threatens full employment.

…there are sectors of the economy where chasing productivity growth doesn’t make sense at all. Certain kinds of tasks rely inherently on the allocation of people’s time and attention. The caring professions are a good example: medicine, social work, education. Expanding our economies in these directions has all sorts of advantages.

…The care and concern of one human being for another is a peculiar “commodity.” It can’t be stockpiled. It becomes degraded through trade. It isn’t delivered by machines. Its quality rests entirely on the attention paid by one person to another. Even to speak of reducing the time involved is to misunderstand its value.
Care is not the only profession deserving renewed attention as a source of economic employment. Craft is another. It is the accuracy and detail inherent in crafted goods that endows them with lasting value. It is the time and attention paid by the carpenter, the seamstress and the tailor that makes this detail possible. The same is true of the cultural sector: it is the time spent practicing, rehearsing and performing that gives music, for instance, its enduring appeal.
…In short, avoiding the scourge of unemployment may have less to do with chasing after growth and more to do with building an economy of care, craft and culture. And in doing so, restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society.

This quote has always been a favorite of mine, artfully executed...

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:15:00 -1000

This quote has always been a favorite of mine, artfully executed here by Striking Truths - A manifesto a day.

Two quotes on HA‘AHA‘A, the value of humility

Mon, 28 May 2012 07:18:20 -1000

William Temple, once the Archbishop of Canterbury:

“Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.”

and from Frederick L. Collins:

Always remember there are two types of people in this world.
Those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!”
And those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are!”

Taken from: In search of the ultimate freedom

More on HA‘AHA‘A as a Hawaiian value is here.

In search of the ultimate Freedom | Managing with Aloha

Mon, 28 May 2012 07:11:35 -1000

In search of the ultimate Freedom | Managing with Aloha:

Most of this posting originally appeared in May of 2008. This is a shorter edit which came to mind in honor of Memorial Day. When I remember the lives of those who lived before us, I often think about what they had lived for: What values-based heritage did they give us?

Restore Yourself to Your Factory Default Settings - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

Sun, 27 May 2012 16:01:00 -1000

Restore Yourself to Your Factory Default Settings - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review:

So I put all my deep technological know-how to work: I yelled at it.
No change. So I yelled at it some more.

Been there!

Also from Peter: When nothing works

Why I Left My Solo Gig to Form Copyblogger Media | Brian Gardner

Sun, 27 May 2012 12:57:45 -1000

Why I Left My Solo Gig to Form Copyblogger Media | Brian Gardner:

I appreciate transparent posts like this one: He didn’t have to write it —-or did he? Brian explains a key decision to his customers. I’m one of them, for I met him when selecting two of his Genesis themes for my website reinventions here and here.

“Why I Left My Solo Gig” contains tidbits we all can learn from… the concept of team continues to evolve, and this harks back to those “brutal questions” we spoke of on Managing with Aloha when the month of May began:

What should you be doing, and what should someone else be doing, and what shouldn’t anyone have to do at all?

How Tim Cook is changing Apple - Fortune Tech

Sun, 27 May 2012 11:54:37 -1000

How Tim Cook is changing Apple - Fortune Tech:

Tim Cook is giving us a history-in-the-making look at leadership today (the value of ALAKA‘I). A few quotes:

What shocked the Apple investors that day, was that CEO Tim Cook popped into the room about 20 minutes into Oppenheimer’s talk, quietly sat down in the back of the room, and did something unusual for a CEO of Apple: He listened. He didn’t check his e-mail once. He didn’t interrupt. After the CFO finished, Cook, at that point chief executive of Apple for all of five months, stood to offer his remarks. He strode confidently to the front of the room and held court in the no-nonsense style that has become his trademark. “He was in complete control and knew exactly who he was and where he wanted to go,” says one of the investors. “He answered every question head-on and didn’t skirt any issue.” … Steve Jobs wouldn’t have bothered.

A 14-year veteran of the company, Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple’s unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple’s critical product-development process. In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It’s almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy.

Cook consistently pays homage to the legacy of Jobs, but he doesn’t apologize for charting a new course. He seems, at the end of the day, to be honoring one of Jobs’ dying requests: that Apple’s management not ask “What would Steve do?” and instead do what’s best for Apple.

Tim Cook at a March event introducing the new iPad in San Francisco

Considering the widespread hand wringing over how rudderless Apple would be without Jobs, it is remarkable how steadily the company has sailed along without him.

Even as he tweaks the Apple operating manual, Cook goes to great pains to pledge allegiance to the corporate culture Steve Jobs created. Asked at the Goldman investor forum how his leadership might change Apple and what of its culture he intended to maintain, Cook ignored the first part of the question and focused only on the latter. “Steve grilled in all of us over many years that the company should revolve around great products and that we should stay extremely focused on few things rather than try to do so many that we did nothing well.” He called Apple a “magical place” where employees could do “their life’s best work.”

For their part, most Apple employees seem more than satisfied with Cook. … At Apple, Jobs was simultaneously revered, loved, and feared. Cook clearly is a demanding boss, but he’s not scary. He’s well-respected, but not worshiped. As Apple enters a complex new phase of its corporate history, perhaps it doesn’t need a god as CEO but a mere mortal who understands how to get the job done.

Start with two words: “with Aloha” | Managing with Aloha

Sun, 27 May 2012 11:41:32 -1000

Start with two words: “with Aloha” | Managing with Aloha:

If you’re one of those “Let’s cut to the chase” kinds of people, the total philosophical view of Managing with Aloha can overwhelm you, I know…

The Boy Who Played With Fusion | Popular Science

Sat, 26 May 2012 11:55:00 -1000

The Boy Who Played With Fusion | Popular Science:

I adore stories like this. They help you better understand your gifts as a remarkable human being.

Found via the DailyGood newsletter with this quote:

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.
- Pearl S. Buck -

Almost from the beginning, it was clear that the older of the Wilsons’ two sons would be a difficult child to keep on the ground… “Where does it come from?” Kenneth and his wife, Tiffany, have asked themselves many times. Kenneth is a Coca-Cola bottler, a skier, an ex-football player. Tiffany is a yoga instructor. “Neither of us knows a dang thing about science,” Kenneth says.

But they did know how to be extraordinary parents:

For his fifth birthday, [son Taylor] wanted a crane. But when his parents brought him to a toy store, the boy saw it as an act of provocation. “No,” he yelled, stomping his foot. “I want a real one.” This is about the time any other father might have put his own foot down. But Kenneth called a friend who owns a construction company, and on Taylor’s birthday a six-ton crane pulled up to the party. The kids sat on the operator’s lap and took turns at the controls, guiding the boom as it swung above the rooftops on Northern Hills Drive. To the assembled parents, dressed in hard hats, the Wilsons’ parenting style must have appeared curiously indulgent. In a few years, as Taylor began to get into some supremely dangerous stuff, it would seem perilously laissez-faire. But their approach to child rearing is, in fact, uncommonly intentional. “We want to help our children figure out who they are,” Kenneth says, “and then do everything we can to help them nurture that.”

People Who Do Good Work | Managing with Aloha

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:34:59 -1000

People Who Do Good Work | Managing with Aloha:

People will quickly point to all kinds of reasons for their dysfunctional workplace culture.

“Who has time for innovation when there’s so much other stuff to be done?”
“We work with equipment harking back to the time of the dinosaurs.”
“Nobody walks by this street corner anymore; our storefront is useless.”
“We can’t afford anything. When will this recession be over?”

And the biggie:
“Our boss is clueless and completely out of touch.”

There are exceptions to the rule, however.

Those exceptions are the people who do good work.

[ … read more … ]

Later is better...

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:20:56 -1000

Today is our 29th wedding anniversary, yet Ker and I had the same reaction to a picture in the paper of a high school graduate proposing to his girlfriend while still in cap and gown:

“What’s the rush? I hope she says no, even if she loves him and believes he’s the one.”

Please wait.

Neil Gaiman: Library opinion, made rebloggable...

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:18:00 -1000

Neil Gaiman: Library opinion, made rebloggable...:

neil-gaiman:

I’m a graduate student earning my master’s in library science, and everyone asks me, “Why are you doing that? Libraries are going extinct because of e-readers!” Obviously, I don’t agree, but I’m curious - what’s your opinion on libraries today and in the future, and do you own an e-reader?

I have a Kindle somewhere, but I have no idea where it is any more. On the other hand, I know where the Kindle apps are on my phone, tablet, iPad and Macbook Air, which makes knowing where the actual Kindle is irrelevant.

Let’s see… we’re entering an age of too much information, in which knowledge and information retrieval and navigation are going to be some of the most important skills anyone can possibly possess. You are being trained in library science, which is knowledge and information categorisation, management and retrieval. And someone wants to know if your job is going to be extinct because we may not have as many places with lots of paper books any longer?

I think libraries are more vital now than they have ever been. And whatever form books (and other information) take in the centuries and millennia to come, we will always need librarians.

A Sense of Place Delivers True Wealth | Managing with Aloha

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:10:00 -1000

A Sense of Place Delivers True Wealth | Managing with Aloha:

My Monday recharging on this glorious day in May:

When I meet Alaka‘i Managers (managers who are the Great Ones), and am able to visit their workplaces, I consistently see the Sense of Place commonality they share as culture-builders. I will feel it in my surroundings, for while sound and solidly built, their place pulses with its deeply veined character and vibrant energies.
Alaka‘i Managers know that this is what every single workplace represents: The wonderful opportunity to create a special place…

How to Build a Beautiful Company | Inc.com

Sat, 05 May 2012 12:52:01 -1000

How to Build a Beautiful Company | Inc.com:

What a great question to ask of your own values: How would I build a beautiful company?

Beauty isn’t just “a look” it’s the flavor of your human morality, ethics, and integrity.

Bill Witherspoon:

I am an optimist and an idealist. In shaping The Sky Factory, I started with the assumption that people are naturally curious and creative. I wanted to craft an environment in which they would act like entrepreneurs, not like robots. My first decision was to give people the opportunity to purchase discounted ownership, and 100 percent of employees have participated. The responsibility for revenue and profit belongs to everyone. From that foundation, I derived five principles… read more at Inc.

Recently for me, at TalkingStory.org: If you worked for me

Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed - Forbes

Sat, 05 May 2012 08:39:34 -1000

Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed - Forbes:

Keld Jensen, with info we can add to our learning within Palena ‘ole (Key Concept 9 in MWA):

Nobel Prize winning Israeli-American psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, found that people would rather do business with a person they like and trust rather than someone they don’t, even if the likeable person is offering a lower quality product or service at a higher price.

No surprise there… so what to do?

With this in mind, instead of exclusively focusing on your conventional intelligence quotient, you should make an investment in strengthening your EQ (Emotional Intelligence), MQ (Moral Intelligence), and BQ (Body Intelligence). These concepts may be elusive and difficult to measure, but their significance is far greater than IQ.

MQ, or Moral Intelligence, strikes me as a good 2-word description of our values-based management at Managing with Aloha, for Jensen describes it as dealing with our integrity, responsibility, compassion, and forgiveness.

After reading this article, I enjoyed learning more about what author Keld Jensen does. He seems to have found a niche in negotiations, and his communications approach is rooted in some strong values: Can you pick them out?
[Related posting at Managing with Aloha: Values in the Drivers Seat]

Another from Keld Jensen for Forbes: Rebuilding Trust: It All Starts With You

…the single most powerful way to build trust is to show a willingness to trust others. This does not mean being naïve, weak, or overly susceptible to people driven by greed. It does mean being open to taking calculated risks with coworkers, employees, and in relationships that are in the earliest stages of development. The fact is, trust will always be based on a certain willingness to take risks—and you can’t win if you don’t play the game.

Banish your Possibility Robbers | Managing with Aloha

Fri, 04 May 2012 07:01:56 -1000

Banish your Possibility Robbers | Managing with Aloha:

Possibility Robbers don’t belong in your life. Get rid of them.

In the eyes of your Boss, or any coach or mentor who’s frustrated with you, Possibility Robbers are the villains who have robbed you of having a good attitude. They can muck up your other relationships too.

See them for who they are, so you can banish them once and for all, saying goodbye to them forevermore. Banish them, and your Language of We will blossom. You’ll be saying hello to much healthier work, and a much happier you. You’ll become magnetic: Others will be attracted to your positive energy like never before.

Let’s identify them, so we can truly see these Robbers for who they are, and what they are stealthily doing to you, until you have the foresight in stopping them.

There are 5 Possibility Robbers haunting our workplaces…

Schumpeter: Simplify and repeat | The Economist

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:41:00 -1000

Schumpeter: Simplify and repeat | The Economist:

Management gurus love to tell companies to reinvent themselves. The Bainies do something more interesting: they preach simplicity. They argue that most successful companies share three virtues. They have a highly distinctive core business. They make great efforts to keep their business model as simple as possible. And they apply it relentlessly to new opportunities.

Simplify and repeat.

The Bain authors argue that there are three ways to apply the repeatability model. Some companies, such as American Express, target ever more precise groups of customers. Some apply the model to new markets: Nike has brought its “swoosh” to one sport after another. Some apply the same management system to lots of different businesses: Danaher, an American holding company that specialises in manufacturing, has applied its “lean” management system, the Danaher Business System, to the 85 businesses it has bought over the past ten years.

The Victory of Continuous Celebration | Managing with Aloha

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:44:18 -1000

The Victory of Continuous Celebration | Managing with Aloha:

I’d like to tell you about one of my greatest victories, because I just celebrated it again and the goodness is so pervasive I must share it with you.

I celebrate it each time I do it, and it makes me think about what a ‘victory’ actually is — just how much accomplishment must be involved, so a person will feel victorious? How much quantity (or how little, in that vein where “Less is more” ) as compared to how much quality?

It’s a glorious feeling, being victorious and being able to celebrate it fully… [read more … includes a discussion of those brutal questions in Letting Go. Are you maintaining, or moving forward?]

14 Action Inducing Lessons from Benjamin Franklin - by Thea Easterby for Dumb Little Man

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:38:48 -1000

14 Action Inducing Lessons from Benjamin Franklin - by Thea Easterby for Dumb Little Man:

A good follow-up for our Managing with Aloha next-stepping and value-verbing discussions recently, for both practices are about higher energy action.