Managing with Aloha

In Keeping with our December Tradition: Twelve Aloha Virtues

A preface;

On the first of December three years ago, I wrote an article called My Aloha Virtue List. It held brief descriptions of how I defined hope, freedom, humor, prayer, vitality, wonder, trust, faith, grace, gratitude, joy and peace as virtues. The article quickly became the most frequently visited posting I had ever written for ManagingWithAloha.com and by month’s end I added its link to the site’s in-residence listing of the nineteen values of Managing with Aloha to give My Aloha Virtue List the parking spot it seemed to have earned for itself!

Each November since, I have read the article again as I prepare for our next Ho‘ohana value study to come, remembering how perfect the seasonal mood of December seemed for the list at the time, and quickly deciding it is again a great time to revisit these twelve virtues. They shine so brightly, with a positive enthusiasm of all that is good about the season, sort of a “Twelve Rays of Christmas” in a MWA values meets virtues meant-for-December tradition.

Welcome to December 2008:
We make our own rules here, and always with an outlook of positive expectancy, right? So for our “value of the month” we are starring the Twelve Aloha Virtues.

To kick things off, a newly edited version of My Aloha Virtue List on MWA Coaching, and we will allow them to lead us where they may.

Virtue is not a word we hear all that much; it’s not a thought that crops up in the regularity and routine of our days. Well, I propose that we again consider Virtue as an aloha-filled theme for the coming month. A new habit to keep. A list to make and check off twice. Today is December 1st and the day presents itself as a perfect time to live within virtuous thoughts. The holiday season frames it wonderfully, and after the year I can imagine you’ve had, you deserve this. We all do.

What is Virtue?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“Virtue is the habitual, well-established, readiness or disposition of man’s powers directing them to some goodness of act. Virtue is the moral excellence of a man or a woman … as applied to humans, a virtue is a good character trait.”

How can you not like that, and want more of it?

Your character emerges from the deep inner weavings of your values, your spirit, and your instinctual emotional well-being: It is flushed out and propelled toward others on the vibrations of your good intentions. Indeed, the virtues you choose to practice were in fact chosen by your “moral excellence.”

On my list? All nouns begging our action to make them verbs.

Continue to read my posting here: In Keeping with our December Tradition: Twelve Aloha Virtues.

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We will Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Our value for the month of November is Ho‘omau

When we Ho‘omau, we reveal the good in our lives, and we make it long lasting.

Our value for the month of November 2008, is presented in Chapter 4 of Managing with Aloha;

Ho‘omau Perseverance and Persistence. To continue, to perpetuate.  Never give up. ~ Ho‘omau. Anything worth having is worth working for. Persistence is often the defining quality between those who fail and those who succeed. ~ There is never much satisfaction in giving up, and Ho‘omau is the value that will cause you to continue, to persevere in your efforts, and to perpetuate those that have worked well. ~ Celebrate your strengths in the face of all adversity. The obstacles that test you can actually make you stronger. ~ Ho‘omau. Persevere. Never give up. Cause the good in your life to last.

I had written this within my Managing with Aloha manuscript back in 2003, and as I sit here today, the words again apply, feeling almost too real for comfort:

“In my own personal striving within the business environment the last few years, Ho‘omau would be the single word that caused me to focus on what was most important and move forward with resolution, determination and confidence, for Ho‘omau encompasses all of these qualities. Ho‘omau will always be the value reminding me I can be bigger than my perceived adversity, for anything worth having is worth working for.”

Those words feel starkly real again given our economic struggles universally, however because Ho‘omau is a personal value for me, there is only enough discomfort to be useful discontent — to push me toward positive actions which corral my energies wisely and keep me optimistic.

That is my goal in the writing I will present to you on MWA Coaching this month: I want to share that feeling of optimism I have — yes! Even right now in this global recession we find ourselves in. I feel there are silver linings in these storm clouds, and we need to feel their comforting assurance. Ho‘omau will help us do so.

Also from that 2003 manuscript, and also true today:

“I wanted to get the job done; I did not want an excuse not to.”

Start here for my Day One Essay on Ho‘omau, and for a preview of each Tuesday Coaching Essay to come this month (there will be 3 more!):

Ho‘omau: Reveal the Good, and Make it Last.

We Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Our value for the month of October is Nānā i ke kumu

Aloha and happy October everyone!

I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret confidence: I will often decide upon our value of the month based on my own needs at any given time as well. I want to work on it with you, just as we have done over the past few weeks with Ho‘ohana. I want to empathize with you, yes, however I also love the thrill of collaborative work itself, and with getting things done, and I believe that the best way to do so is with the power of value-aligned work.

I will look for connections to the values that we have most recently learned about, and Nānā i ke kumu connects magnificently with both Ho‘ohana (September) and Alaka‘i (August). You will also find it connects perfectly with any kind of transition where we look for new beginnings, and January of 2009 is a new beginning that we will soon share universally. If you invested your efforts to designing a new Ho‘ohana for yourself in September, you may feel that you are in a new beginning right now (Bravo!) and if so, I promise you; you will LOVE Nānā i ke kumu!

Look to your Source, Find your Truth

Nānā i ke kumu is a value which brings clarity to your other values: It is a kind of lens through which you can see what most rings true for you instinctively.

The reward of Nānā i ke kumu-aligned work, is one of grounding and contentment; it helps you feel all is right in your world. The value of Nānā i ke kumu asks us to “look to your source, and find your truth” recognizing that Aloha gives us each an inner wellspring; we go to this inner well and drink from it to get healthy in our best way possible, body, mind, and spirit.

I am dedicating the entire month of October to the study of Nānā i ke kumu, and I invite you to join me.

Start here: Nānā i ke kumu: Look to your Source, Find your Truth.

We Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Our value for the month of September is Ho‘ohana

Aloha and happy September everyone!

Ever since I began to dream of writing Managing with Aloha, the American celebration of Labor Day has caused me to think deeply about the one value I hold in highest esteem, right up there with Aloha: Ho‘ohana, the value of work, of worthwhile, satisfying work. I hold work in high esteem, believing that the work we do should be important to us and to others.

The value of Ho‘ohana is also our namesake as the Ho‘ohana Community, a fellowship of practitioners dedicated to the mission of Managing with Aloha.

Our mission in short:
To reinvent our workplaces for the better, one value at a time.

I define the word “work” in this way:

WORK —what I intend to do for me, myself and I. When I “work on something” I am working on something useful or important to me in some way.

The person who considers Ho‘ohana to be a personal value for them, would sound something like this:

I work for my purpose, a purpose that is clear to me. I work on-purpose, no more “going through the motions,” no more “paying my dues” or “earning my stripes,” and no more “biding my time.” Even when I work within a job I feel stuck with (for the time being as a transitional time) I am learning as much as I can, learning which is connected with the experience, skills, or knowledge I will use in the future.

MY MANA‘O (what I believe to be true) ~ ~ ~ ALOHA is about you living with authenticity in a world populated with other people. We human beings were not meant to live alone, we thrive in each other’s company. Aloha celebrates everything that makes you YOU. HO‘OHANA is about you making your living in our world in the way that gives you daily direction and intention and leaves you with a feeling of personal fulfillment every day —not just when you have accomplished large goals.

Ho‘ohana is not about career, it is about best-possible livelihood, so that you can achieve ‘Imi ola, your best-possible LIFE.

I am dedicating the entire month of September to the study of Ho‘ohana, and I invite you to join me.

Start here: Ho‘ohana: Redefine the word “work” and make it yours.

I have high expectations of September ~ high expectations, AND grand plans! Be part of them, for we Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Our value for the month of August is Alaka‘i

Alaka‘i (Ah la ka ee) is the Hawaiian value of Leadership.

I find myself thinking about leadership an awful lot lately. Yes, our upcoming state and federal elections have a lot to do with it. So does the less-than-healthy economy, so does the war in the Middle East, so does global warming and our energy crisis, so does the quality of education that I realize my children (and yours) are getting (or not getting) in their colleges as 21st century teachers struggle to reinvent their curriculum and their methods.

However these are just the biggies that we all hear about and grapple with daily. There are a myriad of smaller reasons too. They are ‘smaller’ in that they don’t make the headline news as frequently (if at all), but they are not small in their importance.

Read my Day One Essay in its entirety at Managing with Aloha Coaching: Alaka‘i, Chiefs and Indians.

This month, you will find that my Tuesday Essays will primarily talk about SELF-LEADERSHIP.

I do hope you will join me.

~ Rosa Say

Our value for the month of July is ‘Ike loa

This month is somewhat of a first for us.

After publishing online for four full years, this will be the first time that ‘Ike loa serves as the value of the month for our Ho‘ohana Community. ‘Ike loa is very well known to MWA readers and practitioners as the Hawaiian knowledge of learning and the seeking of wisdom.

The literal translation of this value breaks down this way:

Long or lengthy (loa), and Knowledge (‘ike).

For more details and a preview of my complete publishing schedule in July, please visit Managing with Aloha Coaching. Just dates and essay titles follow.

~ July 2008: ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian Value of Learning ~

• 7/8 = Tuesday 1 Learning as a process: Beginning, Middle, and End

• 7/15 = Tuesday 2 The Learning Process of MWA

• 7/22 = Tuesday 3 Learning from other People

• 7/29 = Tuesday 4 Explorations in Tertiary Learning: Developing your ‘Ike loa Habit

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Our Value of the Month for June 2008 is Ka lā hiki ola

Ka lā hiki ola: The dawning of a new day.

With every sunrise we get another shot at perfecting our lives, another fresh chance to be all we can possibly be. Another chance to say mahalo, thank you.

This was the view that would usually greet me outside my bedroom window the last week of May, just about 5:30am or so. It was as if the rising sun, or some Providence in my life was speaking to me, saying,

“I know what you’ve been thinking...
I’m ready, are you?
No more waiting... let’s do this!”

This, is Ka lā hiki ola. It is the dawning of a new day, and it’s your day.

Make it your best one ever.

Ka lā hiki ola will be our theme for June all month long throughout the reaches of our Ho‘ohana Community. Join us by starting here, imagining the photo which greets you there as the sky above which joins us all together, and there will be no more waiting for your new day too.

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Ka lā hiki ola

Ka lā hiki ola translates to ”the dawning of a new day.” This is the value of hope and promise in which we are reminded that there will always be the dawning of another day — life affords us many different opportunities, and it is up to us to grab hold of them, and make this day our day, and the best day ever.

Pronunciation Guide: Ka lā hiki ola (Kah-lah hee-kee oh-lah)

For more on this value, these are articles Rosa has written on Ka lā hiki ola, Hope and Promise since Managing with Aloha was first published:

• Ka lā hiki ola; The dawning of a new day

Pono

Pono is the personal and organizational value of rightness and balance. When a person is “Pono” they have the feeling of contentment when all is good and all is right in their life. Pono teaches the attitude of positivity and optimism. Life itself excites you, and you are full of hope, seeing that the future can only get better.

Pronunciation Guide: Pono (Poh-noh)

For more on Pono, Balance and Rightness, cruise the category link we've set up on Talking Story: Pono

Hawaiian Tag on Technorati: Pono.

Nānā i ke kumu

Literally translated, Nānā i ke kumu means ”look to your source.” Seek authenticity, and be true to who you are. Keep your aloha at the surface of what you do daily, and celebrate those things that define your personal truths. In the Hawaiian culture, sense of place factors very deeply into this value, sense of place being defined as both the feel of a place, and the feel for a place.

Pronunciation Guide: Nānā i ke kumu (Nah-nah ee kay koo-moo)

For more on this value, these are articles Rosa has written on Nānā i ke kumu, Source and Truth, and Sense of Place since Managing with Aloha was first published:

• Do you know what Hawai‘i means?

• Places, Feelings and Learning. Learning Serenity

• What it means to “Look to Your Source”

• Our December Ho‘ohana; Nānā i ke kumu, Look to your Source

• They are “Visitor Demons,” NOT “Inner Demons”