Writing a book, and founding a business based on the philosophy of that book, is not the All Access Pass you may think it is. I have encountered a variety of push back for the ideas and suggestions offered in Managing with Aloha over the years. Still do. Resistors will say things like, “Well, I’m sure those things worked for you in the hotel and hospitality business, but our work is different/ but we face other challenges/ but walk in my shoes for a day…”
I came to realize they were all “Yeah, but” hesitations. Not objections, hesitations. Shift was still possible, and I would see that possibility in looking past the resistance and toward the contrast: The ‘But’s Which Work to Favor:
…that’s where I find ‘but’ working in our favor as the better culture builders we managers aspire to be. We don’t care for ‘but’ as a form of resistance, but we can love it as a form of simply shifting toward better:
- Resistance digs in, from negative to negative.
- Contrast shifts, and can take us from negative to positive.
There are two values which illustrate this well in our value-mapping… The ‘But’s Which Work to Favor.
When people throw a “Yeah, but” down on your path, you have two options. You can focus on the objection of the ‘but’ or you can seize the possibility within the ‘yeah.’
This doesn’t mean that you start nagging and insisting, and you probably do need to step back and regroup instead. To ‘seize the possibility within the yeah’ means that you don’t take their resistance personally, even when softening your approach is in fact necessary. You recognize that the objection isn’t really about you, your lack of experience, or your status as an outsider; it’s about the other person’s lack of readiness: Readiness, Good Impatience, and Maintaining our Ignorance.
They recognize the possibility — hence the ‘yeah.’
They can’t embrace it fully yet — hence the ‘but.’
I share this with you, because I know you can get the yeah buts thrown at you too. Perhaps you’ll even get it when you forward one of my articles to your colleagues and peers. I’d bet the last one about considering everyone a partner is a prime example. Forward that one to your manager or boss, and they’ll probably jump all the way to assuming that you want an immediate change in policy, when we didn’t even make that leap at Say Leadership Coaching. As I wrote in my article, we arrived at the change via a pilot program to test it first, a pilot program which allowed us to have all the conversations we needed to have as a team.
So, when you hear of or read about a great idea, whether from me or someone else,
- Consider it a conversation starter.
- Think about how you can test it first, in your own practice. Lead by merit of your good example.
- Then, think about how you can help others get ready, (like this, or this), just as ready as you are.
Most times, achieving a shift in vocabulary (for Language of Intention), or in current energy levels is huge in and of itself, because you’ve helped effect a shift in attitude.
We don’t seek policy changes in Say Leadership Coaching, not exactly, and never immediately. We seek the value-aligned, ALOHA-seeded groundwork of culture-building instead, so that each workplace culture will arrive at the readiness they require — readiness to then initiate their own pilot programs and policy changes, allowing that change to come from within, and from their own values: Ethos: Be true to your Values.
What we do seek in the work of Say Leadership Coaching, are behavioral changes: Let’s Define Values.
When you act differently than you did in the past, it’s likely you have altered your vocabulary and shifted your habits in some way so your walk matched your talk — your habits realigned with your current values. When your daily conversations shift, you’re speaking with, and starting to hear, the Language of We.
If you’ve read this far, I know we’re in this together, KĀKOU. Thank you for forwarding my articles and sharing them as you do, and please don’t think I ever want you to stop! Hopefully they work to initiate fuller conversations for you with whomever you’ve sent them to, and you’ll work on your partnering readiness together.
Key 5. LANGUAGE OF INTENTION:
Language, vocabulary, and conversation combine as our primary tools in business communications, just as they do in our lives: What we speak is fifty times more important than what we read or write. The need for CLEAR, intentional, reliable and responsive communication is critical in thriving businesses — and in learning cultures, for we learn an extraordinary amount from other people. Drive communication of the right cultural messages, and you drive mission momentum and worthwhile energies. Communication will factor into every single value in some way as its primary enabler. The Managing with Aloha language of intention is inclusive, and is therefore defined as the “Language of We” with the value of KĀKOU as guiding light.
[…] Though you can certainly go big, the rough drafts for difference I’m talking about here needn’t cover large-scale, sweeping change. I’m taking about drilling down, tackling the small stuff, and checking off items that have lingered on your Someday/Maybe List so they can finally be done! I’m talking about having conversations you’ve meant to start but haven’t, and about making tweaks and adjustments. I’m talking about giving your tiny, but smoldering hot ideas their day in the sun, and remembering that policy changes ache your foundational groundwork. […]