The newest issue of Ke Ola Magazine was just published on May 1st, and I thought I would share it with all of you subscribed for this blog as well, for it kicks off the 2nd series on Managing with Aloha I will be writing for the business column of the magazine.
Click on the cover image for Ke Ola Magazine’s online reader
As you will read, this kick-off article serves as a reorientation of sorts, and it made me think about going back to the basics as a business owner and workplace coach too, and not only as a columnist. Perhaps it will help you do so as well.
Repeating some of the instruction and inspiration we seek to give during orientation for onboarding, can serve our seasoned partnerships exceptionally well as refresher courses… what should you reflect back on, revisit, and repeat with fresh intentions?
Aloha Intentions
“Your mission is what you do best every day.
Your vision is what the future looks like
because
you do your mission so exceedingly well.”
Aloha mai kākou,
Last issue I wrote, “Prepare to grow. Should there be a Phase II to your business? Decide on the tone for it, and have your vision illustrate your dawning of a brand new day, Ka lā hiki ola.”
This issue, we do so. After speaking of 19 Hawaiian values inherent to our sense of place, values aligned with our mana‘o in business and workplace health, we imua, and move forward with Managing with Aloha’s Series 2 within this, our Ke Ola ‘Ohana in Business conversation. Mahalo nui, thank you for continuing to welcome me as your Alaka‘i ka ‘ike, your guide in our learning together.
Our ethos, that characteristic spirit of a culture or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations, remains the same — we work on being true to our values.
Within our ethos we make three crucial choices: we focus on the values of Aloha to guide our behavior and our decisions; we focus on our relationships and partnerships, defining ‘Ohana as the ‘human circle of Aloha’ and company we keep; and we focus on the work you devote your efforts to, knowing that your work ethic will sustain you physically, intellectually, and emotionally. We Ho‘ohana — we work with purposeful intention as people who do important work; work which matters to our families and our community.
Those foci center any Managing with Aloha practice — values, relationships, intentional work.
Values are first, because values drive the other two as well, and they equip us. Values come packaged with morality and our good intentions; they drive us to be our best selves. Aloha, ‘Ohana and Ho‘ohana will be our core values in Series 2, and with each issue to come we will revisit all 19 values as first introduced to you in Series 1.
Going forward, think of Series 2 as our value of the month program, in our case, fresh value inspirations for the coming two months, as framed by each new Ke Ola issue.
Let’s name our Managing with Aloha practice of value alignment “Aloha Intentions.” These Aloha Intentions are those 5 active phrases we’ll constantly study, verbs I’ll coach you to practice contextually:
Living with Aloha
Working with Aloha
Speaking with Aloha
Managing with Aloha
Leading with Aloha
Each has a personal and professional complement to them, such as self-managing one’s behavior and managing others.
As all business owners and company founders know, it’s much too easy to get mired in the day to day routine which businesses are chock full of, without an unwavering focus on values, mission and vision.
Frankly, without mission and vision, businesses are boring. Our distinction between the two appears at the top of the page, and I encourage you to co-author Series 2 with me. Take a few minutes to decide for yourself the reading and learning relevance you seek, whether it be personally in the mana‘o of your Aloha spirit, as a working professional, or as a business person articulating your community connection to the Ke Ola mission to ‘celebrate the arts, culture, and sustainability of Hawai‘i Island.’ The Life is our life.
Values, mission and vision have something in common: They only matter if you use them. This commonality is significant, for using them makes all the difference in the world.
Make this personal, for work is personal. In Managing with Aloha’s language of intention, we refer to mission and vision as our ‘Imi ola, which we also know as the value guiding us “to seek your best possible life.” Leaders wise with humility know people are more apt to invest in and be committed to their own decisions regarding mission and vision, than they are to following the marching orders of a leader, even one considered founder —and I do believe that is how it should be!
If you would like to share your mana‘o with me as a reader of this column, please write me at the contact page of my website for I would love to hear from you.
Live, work, speak, manage, and lead, all with the bountiful Aloha Spirit I know is within you.
Next issue: We revisit Aloha, our genesis value.
Rosa Say is a workplace culture coach, a zealous advocate of the Alaka‘i Manager, and the author of Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business. Contact Rosa at www.RosaSay.com, and discover more about the Managing with Aloha philosophy at www.ManagingWithAloha.com.
Postscript: Ke Ola is published 6 times a year, and distributed in print on Hawai‘i Island and by subscription. I have therefore made a practice of archiving the articles on RosaSay.com for any within our Ho‘ohana Community who may want to read them: You can access all 20 articles I had written for Series 1 via this index.
Series 2 will also be archived there, or you can look for the hashtag #AlohaIntentions on social media, as seen on Twitter and on Instagram.