Are you a Hospitalitarian? Are you a Mea Ho‘okipa?

I have recently noticed that Seth Godin is piling up the conversational trackbacks right now about a new job description: Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer. I’d suggest to everyone showing so much interest in the idea that the person they are looking for is the Mea Ho‘okipa, and that’s not really a new job at all: It is a timelessly crucial role.

Seth, as you put together your job anthology, I am quite sure you will discover the future is now. High demand? You bet.

Mea ho‘okipa are tireless advocates and builders of community, and here’s something else to understand about them: They advocate and build as well as they do as a “selfish act.”

As you may know, I hold Mea Ho‘okipa in very high esteem, for I greatly admire their capacity palena ‘ole (capacity without limits) in giving – in LIVING – the art of hospitality. I wish I could be more like them.

I believe that Mea Ho‘okipa are born that way;

Personally, I do not believe that you can teach someone to be Mea Ho‘okipa: Either they are or they aren’t. You can’t fake a genuine sincerity for giving that you simply don’t have in you. The good news is that many people have it.

Learn to interview in a way that reveals those naturally born Mea Ho‘okipa. Hire them on the spot. You can then better devote your time toward creating the best possible environment for them to deliver their art of Ho‘okipa without shackles, boundaries, or inhibitions. You discard any rules that get in the way of them doing what they feel the guest needs—not always what that customer may think they want, but what they really need to be satisfied. When it comes to their guest—your customer—Mea Ho‘okipa are extremely intuitive: They inherently possess the instinct to know the difference and they proceed accordingly, giving them perfect delivery of service. Mea Ho‘okipa are dripping with caring, that marvelous ability to instinctively know what their guest needs to be happy; they can feel it.

~ from Managing with Aloha, page 82

Are you Mea Ho‘okipa? Do you have that instinct that I believe to be “extremely intuitive?”

This morning I was skimming through a book I have now read several times, one that I feel should be required reading for anyone who aspires to have a winning business, for it certainly is a primer on ho‘okipa and hospitality. The book is Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table, The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.

Meyer has another word for those who are Mea Ho‘okipa; he calls them hospitalitarians. This may be a case of when my Hawaiian words are easier to say! However whether you call them Mea Ho‘okipa or hospitalitarian, we agree about how special a person this is.

“It may seem implicit in the philosophy of enlightened hospitality that the employee is constantly setting aside personal needs and selflessly taking care of others. But the real secret of its success is to hire people to whom caring for others is, in fact, a selfish act. I call these people hospitalitarians. A special type of personality thrives on providing hospitality, and it’s crucial to our success that we attract people who possess it. Their source of energy is rarely depleted. In fact, the more opportunities hospitalitarians have to care for other people, the better they feel.”

~ Danny Meyer, in Setting the Table (page 146 if you have it)

Yes indeed. Being selfish can be a good thing, one where you and your customer come together at last to the great delight of a prospective employer.

You see, the Mea Ho‘okipa do not experience their inner peace and joy unless they have given to another person. Their spirit is conveyed through the equation of warm and beneficial human interaction. To a customer, Ho‘okipa is unparalleled service —it is the epitome of service! —for it was given to them completely unconditionally, something that is exceptionally rare. What they are actually feeling, and experiencing, is ho‘okipa, the art of hospitality in the good hands of a master at providing it.

As said so succinctly in one of my all-time favorite quotes, “One of life’s greatest laws is that you cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening your own as well.”

Related articles:

• How timely this is! Our value of the month is Ho‘okipa, the art of hospitality, and we had started July with this article: Ho‘okipa, the Hospitality of Complete Giving.
• What are your interview questions for the Mea Ho‘okipa? In the comments of this posting, you will find another quote from Danny Meyer about something he calls the “charitable assumption” of the hospitalitarian.
• Setting the Table, The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. My book review written this past March for A Love Affair with Books on Joyful Jubilant Learning.
• Another, slightly different take on selfishness: Selfish Mentoring. This is an article I had written for my guest posting invitation on Lifehack.org. Essentially the article is about better and smarter delegation, where Selfish Mentoring is about trading your ‘having to’s for more ‘wanting to’s.