I won’t bury the lead on this. The great reveal of Undercover Boss, which premiered on CBS after SuperBowl XLIV is this: Whatever the size of your company, there are layers between you and the truth you need to know about, layers which are smothering untapped energy in getting your best possible work done.
I doubt the premise of the show was much of a surprise to any manager anywhere. I could easily imagine all the heads nodding at their television screens, saying, “Welcome to my world.”
While popping the lonely-at-the-top bubble, "Undercover Boss" creates a much bigger one: creating a deeply suspicious work environment in which business leaders risk the confidence of employees in their leaders and colleagues. One of the most important jobs of the boss is to create a positive work ethic and a supportive work environment. The undercover boss does the reverse, establishing a culture you and I certainly wouldn't want to work in.
The short term impact: good TV. Longer term: a big hit to teamwork, productivity and performance and, probably, the bottom line. Would you want to work in a place where you didn't know whether your mate was a co-worker or a corporate spy? Had the boss simply visited with teams, or worked night shifts, or utilized an employee survey, he or she would have learned most of the same information without destroying trust.
A boss who misrepresents him or herself invites employees to misrepresent themselves, or perhaps misrepresent the company or its products and services to customers. Sneaky leadership authorizes sneaky behavior from others. What's next? How long before unethical conduct is acceptable in other areas, such as sales overcharging customers just a little, or accounting cooking the books just a tad to see if anyone is paying attention? Two hour lunches - why not? The most likely consequence of managerial deceit is, well, a culture of deceit.
I have higher hopes for Undercover Boss. It did disappoint me in a couple of different ways, yet near the end of the show’s premiere I tweeted, “Happy to hear all the #undercoverboss chatter! Hope it gets workplaces buzzing, talking about things we assume can’t be done, when they can” and I meant it, for I prefer to think of the show as a conversation starter, and with that positive expectancy. As I will often write here, I don’t believe we talk story enough, allowing for the continued conversation which can truly matter, and that certainly proves true within the workplace.
And you will never convince me that a workplace which cannot improve in some way exists.
Undercover Boss IS another reality show, constructed for entertainment ‘value’ according to the judgement of those making that decision at CBS, so take it with a grain of salt if you watch it. Make that a big rock of cleansing Hawaiian salt, for next week’s preview clip highlighting “reindeer games” at Hooters’ has me very concerned, and stopping short of any “see it for yourself” recommendation one episode into it.
If you watch Undercover Boss, allow it to challenge you.
Walk your own gauntlet in doing better as an Alaka‘i manager accepting your Kuleana [your personal responsibility and accountability] for the health and well-being of your workplace culture.
I agree with the cautions Jon Younger well articulated in his article, and I add my voice to his in saying, don’t go undercover in your own company, for there is a better way.
So let’s talk about that, shall we?
What is the better way?
Start from the place of what your company values are, the ones you hold near and dear to your heart, knowing they define you —or you couldn’t work there, certainly not as a manager charged with demonstrating them, championing them, and upholding them to ever-higher standards!
For instance, in an ‘Ohana in Business® as defined by the Managing with Aloha business model, we apply the values of
Kākou [inclusiveness and the language of “we”] Ha‘aha‘a [humility as open-mindedness] Mālama [caring within the stewardship of workplace assets]
and Ho‘ohanohano [Aloha, dignity and respect to all people]
to any discussions that have to do with the way we communicate. We get these values to guide us and grow us.
In addition, the Daily 5 Minutes® (D5M) is our adopted tool for ensuring that we talk about anything and everything, and as often as we need to: We commit to it, and we practice it daily: Two Gifts: Values and Conversation. If they are ever done, our employee surveys are not anonymous, because they don’t have to be. Managers are responsible for ensuring that anonymity isn’t required in order for people to speak up without fear of repercussion: They foster a culture of open communication, with other tools in addition to the D5M used so healthy communication is practiced constantly and not left to chance.
Does our ‘Ohana in Business® approach take a lot of work? Sure. That’s why managers matter.
That is, they matter when they courageously do the right work.
That can be the way you can watch future episodes of Undercover Boss: Reveal a manager’s right work. Have episodes of the show challenge you as the manager YOU are. Ask yourself the questions it triggers and be honest with your answers. What would you do if you were in the shoes of the managers portrayed in the show? Help your peers who co-manage with or alongside you, to see what they must see when blinders threaten the health of your workplace culture, and ask them to help you see better too.
If Undercover Boss can convince CEOs that the job of managing people at any level in a company must be a calling which serves human beings, I’ll be cheering for it.
And “keep them” or not, choose company you love with Aloha.
We have all heard the sentiment of my post title in some form. Perhaps our parents said it to us first, as they protectively watched us choose our earliest budding friendships, fully knowing how little they could truly change or minds; usually they’d make us more stubborn about it.
You may have proved them wrong back then. Or, you may have had to admit they were right, as they smiled that “I told you so” look parents can have without having to say a single word.
Did you learn the wisdom of the admonition as you got older? Are you choosing well, when choosing the company you keep, whether they be friendships, networking liaisons, community associations or workplace teams?
And relevant to Alaka‘i managing and leading, how is this a management topic?
1st, can Aloha be choosy?
Isn’t Aloha the value of unconditional love and acceptance?
Yes it is.
So how do we reckon with being choosy about people?
Aloha accepts all people unconditionally as our fellow human beings, worthy of the Aloha we then give, within the values-held belief that all people are good, and thus worthy of our love. And remember: If you are to receive that beautifully authenticAloha Spirit from other people, you have to be obsessed with giving them yours first!
Keep this positive expectancy, and optimistic belief close to you: If people seem less than good at any given time, it is a behavioural issue, or an expression of where their values are at a disconnect with yours; they are not irreparably “bad to the bone.” Everyone can always return to a place of their goodness.
2nd, what comes next, after acceptance?
Beyond this foundational belief, we must be realistic when we think about what comes next, afterour unconditional acceptance lays a good-attitude foundation. We know we cannot be all things to all people; we cannot possibly act on all our attentions with Ho‘ohana intention. (About Ho‘ohana).
This “what’s next?” intention is where our deliberate choosiness comes into play. Who will we align our actions with, for beyond Aloha, they share in other values currently within our Ho‘ohana’s intentional and disciplined focus?
Perhaps ‘Ike loa (lifelong learning) is the value:
Who will we associate with, intending to learn from them? We know how much learning can open us up, and with very personal vulnerability, and we know we learn best from other people.
Perhaps ‘Imi ola (creating best-possible life and legacy) is the value:
Which vision and mission will we support, and lend our voices to? Which cause will we champion, knowing that it can add richness to our life and make some meaningful difference to others? What effort reflects the values we believe in, and also want to be known for, today and after we leave this earth?
I love your sentence Rosa: “Opportunities present themselves as long as I pay attention.” This paying attention part is half of the equation towards success. The other part is “doing.”
~ David Rothacker, February’s Strengthening. We know it as Love.
What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say
Your “doing” of everything puts up a kind of mirror of what you believe is worthy of your efforts. Otherwise, why bother?
Conversely, if your actions are very badly chosen, and seem a disconnect from your normally demonstrated values, you will cause people to wonder if you have changed course with your convictions, if you are currently paying attention as you should, or if you are trying hard enough. They might wonder if you’ve given up on something, or if you even care enough to make better choices.
What you do, will always precede the reputation you have, and no matter what you might actually say. Our reputation is something we earn; it gets awarded to us by others.
When Alaka‘i is the value
I must assume you have read this far, because you seek to self-manage well, and manage others as your calling.
When management is your calling, and you’re on the job for the right reasons, you are passionate about helping people within goals connected to their self-development. You want to support, enable and empower them. You serve them as you teach, coach and mentor them to stretch, learn, grow, and get continually better.
The workplace basics you steward and foster:
Your team represents good people who always work with “good behaviour.” The workplace is values-aligned, and they are productive within it. Call this that basic of Aloha acceptance.
The choosing of “what’s next” for you both:
Self-management, and self-leadership. We work on ourselves first to set a good example (live and work with aloha) and to inspire others (manage and lead with aloha)
Good to great self-development: Ho‘ohana causes something to happen. You work on moving from consistently good, to the greatness you are capable of, Palena ‘ole, without limits and in all capacities (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual).
And let’s get real: Managers will indeed choose who they will do this with. They are supposed to be choosy! If they aren’t choosy about it, they’re frustrating everyone else. The stars within any workplace are never content working with others who are apathetic, complacent or mediocre: Low performers bring them down, and drain energies.
When Aloha is woven through-out this progression as your guiding value, there is simply no way you can go wrong. Even when your results may differ from what you originally set your sights on, you have discovered that love applied within your work (your Ho‘ohana) has become a strengthener for you.
You’ll be the company you keep
This process, of applying the value of Aloha to where you Ho‘ohana, and intentionally work as a manager, is all about the managing and leading which concerns other people. It is something Alaka‘i managers work on every single day. More often than not, they work on it every single working hour.
But make no mistake about it: They choose to do so, and they do it, getting great work done.
Within this choosing, there are times you will make the hard decision to release someone from your team. Be brave about that decision when you know you have done your best in trying to work with them, for if you have done your Aloha best, that decision to release them is best too. You’ll be releasing them to a new and likely better possibility with discovering their own Ho‘ohana elsewhere; you’ll usher them back to their foundational good.
The release from obligation or an ill-chosen job is a gift when given with the strengthening love of Aloha:
Work gives meaning to our lives. It influences our self-worth and the way we perceive our place under the sun. Being great at what you do isn't just something you do for the organization you work for, it's a gift you give yourself.
~ Robin Sharma says "Be a Rock Star" in The Greatness Guide
The question of whether or not we have dared to reveal root cause in Hawaii’s public education woes, is FINALLY getting better exposed as a consequence of all the political posturing and finger pointing gone chronic since our first Furlough Friday. I’ll probably have several readers rolling their eyes when I say this, but at this point of all the continued drama, we should be thanking Governor Lingle for rocking the boat enough for us to see the huge drag of barnacles which have kept us from smooth sailing all along.
“Prompted by widespread discontent over public school furloughs, three former Hawai‘i governors say it is time to overhaul the state's education system and they've drafted a manifesto of education reform.”
“Our combined experiences have convinced each one of us that a change is needed,” said [Ben] Cayetano, who was governor from 1994 to 2002. “I just don't think that the elected board has worked very well.”
—Loren Moreno, Ex-governors urge education reform
Make that four governors if we include Lingle… from the same article:
“The former governors' pitch for education reforms comes on the heels of Gov. Linda Lingle's call for an amendment to the state's Constitution to abolish the state Board of Education and make the superintendent of schools a Cabinet-level position appointed by the governor.”
We’re getting a bit closer, but not close enough… ah, here!
“This is not my idea: Former State Rep. Brian Schatz perhaps first posited the idea that the best way to fix our public school system is to "blow it up" and start over from scratch. Well. Thats not likely to happen. But the political consensus is growing that something has to change.”
—Jerry Burris, Time for school board change
Almost... Let’s just say it directly shall we?
At root cause of our public education woes, is NOT the money we need to get more instructional days back on the school calendar.
At root cause of our public education woes, is NOT (as former superintendent Patricia Hamamoto whines) a “school system [needing] the support of the governor and resources so that principals and teachers can do their work.” (Moreno)
At root cause of public education woes, is a HUGE management problem. Alaka‘i management and leadership is sorely MIA, and the principals and school administrators we have in place are NOT getting their jobs done effectively, nor accepting responsibility for all the factors which ARE directly under their control and ARE within their sphere of influence.
Forget the goverrnor, forget the legislature, and forget the union bigwigs for the moment: Just how many principals and school administrators in the system are there? This has got to be an awful large group of people, who have to admit, with heads bowed low, that they have failed to be a management and leadership group which is a force to be reckoned with, because they are simply good at what they do both individually and collectively. They have been unable to mentor teachers effectively, manage their existing resources well, and lead by championing the learning which happens within the instructional days we DO have.
Money doesn’t solve finger pointing, and blaming others when you need to improve your own performance.
Alaka‘i managers who manage well and lead effectively are those who solve these issues with whatever money they have to available at any given time.
Ask any manager in virtually any business, how much they do, and what they can change and effect each day where money is totally irrelevant: How Managers Matter in a Healthy Culture. The issue is normally not money, but time and energy, and the people who are willing to devote both, but in ways where neither is ever wasted or squandered.
I keep wondering about this bit in Moreno’s article, and I hope Hawai‘i, that you are too, and that your questions are getting louder and more insistent at a very local your-neighborhood level.
“People at the teaching level ought to have the ability to work out how the system would work best for their children. We need to give principals and teachers more authority, make it possible for principals to really manage,” ex-governor John Waihee said.
“DOE chief financial officer James Brese said school autonomy was the main thrust of Act 51, and that much of the theory behind the governors' proposal is already in place. In addition to controlling 70 percent of their budget, principals, along with their school's School Community Council, make decisions about the purchase of textbooks and supplies, the hiring of teachers, librarians, resource professionals, tutors and other personnel.
"Everything that is student-achievement-related is being spent at the school level," Brese said. The other 30 percent of the DOE budget, about $530.7 million, is spent at the district or state level and deals mostly with running the school system, including bus transportation, food services, utilities, building repairs, unemployment benefit administration, workers' compensation, federal compliance and other expenses. Brese said it would be inefficient to have principals be in charge of those functions.
"It is a lot of work that is not going to add any value to student achievement. Principals need to be the educational leader for their school, and having to take care of all that administrative-type stuff just adds more work," Brese said.
Aha!
If you are a teacher, frustrated because of the support you do not receive, manage up: Get your managers to manage and lead better and do their job. Demand that your unions work for you where you need them to support you best, and work in partnership with your administrators.
If you are a principal or administrator, please speak up and let us hear from you! What’s going on? If I was a parent with a child in your school, I’d be in your office demanding to know.
Managing and leading are profound responsibilities. Seize them. Auwe, our children are counting on you.
Besides, do your work well, and then our governor and legislators can get back to solving some of our other problems.
Fact is, it truly pains me to write something like this, for I am one of the most vocal managers’ advocates you’ll find: I want you to prove me wrong. The comments are open for you.
I asked the young man taking me on a workplace tour about his company’s management team, admitting that I had not met all of them yet; “What are they like?”
We’d been walking and talking for a good amount of time, and so my question was not entirely out of context or noticeably surprising to him.
His response was one I hear relatively often, careful and safe, but not usually offered unless it is mostly true. He said, “They are very well liked.”
It’s an answer which doesn’t tell me much at all, for as I see it, a well-liked manager isn’t necessarily an effective one.
Better to be liked than unliked; no question there. It’s great if people feel you are approachable, and your likeability does factor into your relationship building, and into the coaching that a team will readily accept from you. However the acid test is this: Do people consistently perform for you?
Ramping up that acid test, I also want to know if workplace performance is reliably consistent, whether or not a likeable manager is even around.
The most effective managers I know, are those who are pushing their teams into extraordinary levels of self-direction, frequent collaboration, and productive messiness in the workplace cultures they are fostering. Do sparks of creativity occasionally fly, sizzling their way into leaps of passion? Are new ideas regularly germinating in a fertile environment, often rooting and bursting into bloom?
If you feel your people like you, ask yourself why that is.
By all means, congratulate yourself for the human face you put on management, and the good revealed within your likeability factor, for I have no doubt you’ve worked hard to achieve it.
Then to be a great manager, and be Alaka‘i, dig deeper, and ask yourself just how much your team is performing for you, and how much progress they are steadily making toward that vision you have both deemed important, and have committed to.
Ask yourself if your people are enthusiastic, and if they have a positive expectancy of each and every day they clock in. Assess how much people have grown while you have been on watch and in charge. Chalk up a score which details their new learning, and how they have applied it.
Be honest with yourself about how much of their growth was because of you, and because you know this to be true:
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be,
and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832),
German writer, scientist and philosopher
“Soft and fuzzy” has taken a severe hit with our recent economic tumbles. You know what I mean; those workplace humanity concepts which fall beyond the bottom line. We were doing fairly well working on them for a while, and our very rational, genuine selves will speak up and say, “Oh, don’t worry, we haven’t given up on that stuff. But you do understand we have to get the basics back first…”
Just great. A “yeah, but” from our emotional intelligence.
As a Say “Alaka‘i” reader, you are aware of my answer. In the financial literacy which is as real as it gets, hard, soft, and everything inbetween, wealth is a value. No matter what goes on in our world, and no matter what factors are at play at any given time, our values are “hard concepts” in my mind: They will always be foundational to why we care, why we bother when we keep trying, and how we go about surviving.
I gave a 20-minute talk about this to an audience of association executives in New York City last week, and I was asked if I would share the transcript of my speech for their future reference. Here it is, for I thought you might enjoy it too, as a good summary of many of the conversations we have had here. My hope, is that you will have it be a mirror image of the business model you give your attentions to today, for you and I both know this to be true: We humans, at our rock-hard, real-as-it-gets core, are “soft and fuzzy” in the true intelligence which matters to us. Task at hand, is getting that to match up to the way we work — from now on.
~ ~ ~
Aloha mai kakou— a hau‘oli makahiki hou— e mahalo keia lā
My Aloha to all of you, and a very happy New Year. Thank you for allowing me to share this time with you.
As you might guess, a luncheon speaker who wrote a book called Managing with Aloha has a mission in mind for these next 20 minutes we spend together, and I'm not going to lie to you, I do! My mission however, may not be exactly what you think it is, and so I’ll start by stating it, for Aloha has no hidden agenda, and neither do I:
By the time you get out of your chair and walk toward the rest of your life, I want you to feel that Aloha is much more relevant to you than you previously may have thought. Once something is relevant, you answer that question we all get in our heads about everything we decide we’ll award our attentions to, “What’s in it for me?” And despite the negative connotation that question can have at first-take, I think it is a very useful question from a perspective of self-leadership, just as useful as Aloha.
Relevance, and usefulness are two of my favorite management concepts. Because, well, they are relevant and useful, and probably never as much as now, in this aftermath of a “great recession” we find ourselves in. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, and we all need to know “What’s in it for me?” and also, “Why should I bother?”
So let’s get to it:
Condensed into its shortest, and most relevant version, my story as a manager who loves being one, is simply this: Managing, with Aloha as a value, worked wonderfully for my business success and my own well-being at work, it worked brilliantly for the employees I had the good fortune of learning from. So now I offer Aloha as something which I am certain can work for you, even if you never set foot in our Hawai‘i nei, though we hope you will one day.
My mission of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business, has gotten to be an everyday and every thing kind of presence for me, precisely because it is so relevant and useful. Managing and leading are verbs, actions all managers take regardless of their titles or positions on an org chart. To not talk about the managing we can do, with Aloha, has gotten close to trying not to think, or not to breathe for me. It is a mission which had come to be, because it helped me make sense of my life, and my working history, as someone born and raised in the Hawaiian islands deeply affected by sense of place. Very cool to have a mission you feel is all you, fitting you as snugly as a second skin. We call it “having Ho‘ohana,” an on-purpose intention within worthwhile work which is all-in us, whatever we define the mechanics of our work to be.
My mission started as a way to help me make my roots healthier, and to help me understand my sense of place in a more tangible way, a way more ethical, pragmatic and sensible in the work I was doing while in the hotel business. My approach, was gaining a better understanding of Hawai‘i’s ancestral values, and it led to my discovering many of the answers I needed for my questions about a better future. I was involved in hard work, but I wasn’t that sure why I even bothered. I didn’t want my work to be a job and nothing more.
I am a local girl, 4th-generation native by birth in Hawai‘i, but without a single drop of Hawaiian blood in me. As you might imagine, that gave me some explaining to do with other native Hawaiians who felt I had too short a native-born only ancestry to write authoritatively about Hawaiian values, or emotionally enough, and they were quite bold in their indignation at first, looking me directly in the eye, and saying, “How dare you!” You see, the big deal about values, is that they explain our behavior, and that’s what I was daring to do. And yes, I dared, for the payoff was too big to ignore.
When we, as managers, equip ourselves with a values vocabulary in the context of a work environment, using them as the building blocks of a workplace culture, we make that culture relevant to a community, healthier for our employees, and much more useful to us as the ambassadors of a company’s mission. It takes diligent focus at first, but in the process, we do make our job as managers easier.
I was careful to study with the kūpuna, our indigenous elders, before publishing anything, but quite honestly, that was happenstance initially, a stroke of good luck as I just jumped in and did it, and the result of my getting very fascinated with our Hawaiian values simply as someone who is a lifelong learner through and through: I’m kind of a learning nerd, and study of a subject I am highly curious about is an energetic high for me. Applying what I learn, and having it work its magic at work is the icing on the cake.
I was within year 17 of a 30 year hotel career when Managing with Aloha became my sensibility for healthy workplace culture: 17 years of learning to approach my work the hard way with all the bruises to show for it. I had plenty of passion for my work up to then, but as odd as it might sound to you, I never completely understood why I did, and I just did it. It was work at a passionate level high above going through the motions, but it wasn’t high enough, in that it wasn’t intentional for me —so believe me, I completely get it when people say “passion isn’t enough.” My work was what I was supposed to be doing according to my parents, my teachers, my bosses and employers, and even my fairly well-educated brain… By most standards I was an exceptional employee and a highly successful manager, fulfilling smart standards —all but my own.
So in this study of values, I eventually got to the point where the history of it all was fascinating —it continues to be fascinating the more I delve into Hawaiian history —but my goal was not to explain the past: I was more interested in its relevance to the work I was doing every single day —no matter what that day threw at us, and for our industry’s business prospects in the future. And simply said, the work I was doing every day, was about managing people, and specifically, people in a hotel business which sells Aloha like some charm bracelet draped around every conceivable business model you can imagine connected to the travel and hospitality industry, models intent on making healthier profits.
That’s what we business people are supposed to do, right?
Does that sound like self-justifying, commiserating marketing yuck to you? Greedy green monsters hidden in Aloha service clothing? Sounded that way to all my employees too, no matter how prettily I tried to dress it up in any business-speak. They did not want Aloha to mean revenue, and if that was what I wanted as their manager, you can bet I’d have undercover sabotage or a full-blown mutiny on my hands. They would serve my customers, and serve them well, but they would not sell if any resulting wealth defined Aloha as revenue.
Fact is, we managers cannot define wealth simply in financial terms because our employees don’t, and that is a reality you will never, ever change or escape. Money is part of everyone’s reality, and our unemployment in this global recession is the evidence plain as the nose on your face, but wealth is a value —not a result. Wealth may be better financial health at a base level, but once you are earning it, wealth is also defined by family, connection to our ancestry, and our best vision of our future. All of these find their inner spirit, their constancy, and their strength in the values which shape our thinking, and our actions. And when the needs of our spirit are met, we find that any additional wealth we gain is most satisfying when shared in service to the community which had been there for us, and lifted us toward our greater good.
Wealth, as a value, is the reason ‘social entrepreneurship’ flourishes despite all odds, and even when non-profit business models flounder.
Wealth as a universal value, is the reason countries all around the world have flocked to help Haiti even though they have costly problems to address in their own back yards at home.
So if Aloha is a value too, one which does not mean revenue, what is it?
When you are born and raised with a Hawai‘i sense of place, this is what Aloha is, as briefly as I can possibly describe it to you with the etymology of the word:
Aloha is the combination of two smaller Hawaiian words, ‘alo’ and ‘ha.’
Ha is the breath of your life, a concept which is like DNA to the Hawaiian people. When you breathe in, and collect your breath, you are collecting a type of intelligence from three centers of being, which is DNA-like in that it is unique to you. It comes from your gut, where your ancestral wisdom resides, your genitals, as your intention for continuing all life in future generations, and your head as mindfulness which is as close as you can come to being graced with divine intervention. Those three things (ancestral wisdom, forward-looking intention, and divinity), combine in each and every breath you take, the breath which will propel you toward living the rest of the following moments. This is what we mean by someone’s Aloha spirit. That is ha, the breath of your life, and the engine of your body.
Whereas ha is inside you, ‘alo’ is on the outside. Your ‘alo’ is the face you present to the rest of the world, and much different from DNA, your alo is of your choosing. Your demeanor, your presence, your blending into the world and opening up to what each and every day offers up to you —and to what each and every person you encounter offers up to you —you choose to make those encounters happen well, or you don’t. Alo is sort of like personality and mood, whereas ha is more like the character you have when no one is looking, character you will always have, and only borne of ancestral good.
One of the most beautifully compelling beliefs about the Hawaiian culture, is that there is no such thing as a bad person from the standpoint of ha: People are born good. There is only bad behavior, chosen in the manipulation of your alo for some mis-directed reason, but a reason which can always be redirected toward good when you manage to purposely connect to your ha.
So put them together, and Aloha is living your life from the inside out, where both inside and outside are a harmonious and healthy match, perfectly aligned, and willingly shared with the rest of the world. Thus Aloha is referred to by most in Hawai‘i as the value of unconditional love. Love for self and others. Loving yourself enough to share who you are in complete authenticity and vulnerability. “What you see is what you get, and it’s me, and it’s good!” It is a greeting hello, as in “I offer myself to you completely.” It is the Aloha of goodbye, as in “when we part our Aloha remains ever shared between us, helping us remain healthy and connected” for life is not meant to be a solo proposition.
We have mostly spoken of managing employees with Aloha, but imagine your customers getting that feeling from you!
At first Aloha sounds really woo-woo, soft stuff intangible and unmeasurable doesn’t it. However make no mistake about it; to the people of Hawai‘i it is REAL, and it is sacred. Imagine how my employees felt trying to script it, and then sell it.
To be clear, I have never, ever been down on business: On the contrary, business is my playground, and as a deliverable beyond the book, Managing with Aloha is an operating system in a healthy organizational culture where we focus on Aloha-woven management practices, including having a healthier attitude and reality check on economics. You are looking at a manager’s advocate who is quite a champion of financial literacy.
Money is not evil; it is a means to an end, and when you have it, business life is pretty sweet. Simply because you can do way more good than you can without having it. I believe that businesses have a responsibility to offer thorough, and completely transparent financial literacy training to all their employees; it’s one of the smartest financial strategies which I know of, because it answers that “what’s in this for me?” question I mentioned earlier, but on several levels: Your employees learn financial lessons in a harsh new great-recession world as they co-author better business models with you. They are close to so much, and chances are, they have a clue to the answer of some financial riddle which presently evades you.
Everyone needs and wants money today. A co-authored, value-aligned business model is one employees support, never dreaming of sabotage or mutiny, and never succumbing to far bigger evils: the mediocrity of going through the motions and not caring, or the hopeless feeling of there being no other option in sight.
On the contrary, when people work in an environment managed with Aloha, they arrive at their own Aloha authenticity. It is a profound gift, one your work culture has given them. Then, they pursue the Ho‘ohana intention of deliberate work, where they understand why they bother, and they wantwhat’s in it for them. They work incredibly hard for it. When your values are aligned, they want what’s in it for you, what’s in it for your vision and mission, and what’s in that cool and sexy future which better financial health will bring you.
So where do you start? You start with you.
Whatever you learn here today, make it relevant, and make it useful. Answer your “Why bother?” and “What’s in it for you” questions from that fertile place of your own Aloha. Live from your inside out. Say what your values are, stand up for them, and live by them. Then having done that for you, do it for your team, and welcome Aloha authenticity from everyone connected to the work you do.
I commend you for being here today, and for learning. If you are here, you are open to being better tomorrow than you were yesterday. Learn well enough to go back to your workplace and teach financial strategy as financial literacy. Be open to finding your relevance, and the usefulness lifting you to your greater good. Some call it ‘legacy.’ You will find the definition of wealth you can pursue with honor, with dignity, and with respect for the person you are meant to be. Wealth will have become your Aloha value too.
Rosa Say is a workplace Aloha coach, founder of Say Leadership Coaching and the author of "Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai'i's Universal Values to the Art of Business."
Manage and Lead: Learn to do both, and you can say and be Alaka'i (a leader), living and working within the Hawaiian value of management and leadership.
