Value Your Month for One — You

Values equip us and energize us.

We have a 7-letter acronym within the Managing with Aloha philosophy: VYMTVYL. It stands for Value Your Month To Value Your Life and refers to the value of the month program we recommend for culture-building in the workplace via value-mapping.

Those who’ve decided to have a Managing with Aloha workplace in intentional working spirit, will often map out their entire year: Ka lā hiki ola in January, Aloha in February, Kākou in March and so on, choosing values which will characterize and inspire the work they’re anticipating for the year to come. We do this for what value immersion can do for us conducive to value alignment, our MWA Key 3:

Key 3. VALUE ALIGNMENT:
Work with integrity by working true to your values, for your values will drive your best, and most desirable behaviors. Focus all efforts on the right mission and the right vision (yours!) for it honors your sense of self and brings compelling pictures of the future within your reach, making them your probable legacy. Whether for a business partnership or specific team, deliberate value-alignment creates a healthy organizational culture for everyone involved: When we want to collaborate and co-create, shared values equip and energize us.
Site category for Key 3: Value Alignment

If, for instance, you’re rolling out a major company initiative in June, Ho‘ohana or Kuleana are great choices for the value of the month in July: Ho‘ohana would relate the initiative to worthwhile work both professionally and personally, and Kuleana would deepen and better define sense of responsibility and personal accountability specific to that initiative at the time it’s needed most; that beginning stage prior to habit creation. There might be a specific connection to the initiative itself, such as Mālama for the stewardship of workplace assets, or ‘Ike loa to accompany a new training program.

A value of the month program feels strategically proactive as we look ahead toward months that currently seem pretty distant. It is also immediately practical and sensible: In working one month at a time, we break our big picture vision into 12 chunks of more manageable mission-driven work effort.

There are only 30 or 31 days in a month however, with just 28 or 29 in February, and so we impose a meaningful deadline on ourselves too. With at least 4 weeks, a month is a good chunk of time to get things done. The month-end deadline gives us a healthy sense of urgency, where we WILL Ho‘ohana, and make things happen without procrastinating about them ‘someday-maybe.’ We speak the Language of Intention of our chosen verb during the month more than we’d otherwise do, and we use value-verbing to help us walk our talk.

Do you want to study this concept a bit more?
Apply this Mini Course in Value Alignment:

1. Let’s Define Values
2. Next-stepping and other Verbs
3. Ethos: Be True to Your Values
4. The Rub of the Business Model is Solved by your Values
5. Purposeful Following

There are so many benefits to VYMTVYL. Why not grab them individually?

If your workplace isn’t on board with a value of the month program, create one for yourself. Be Alaka‘i, and lead by merit of your own good example.

Make it simple, as a means of effectively sorting your ATtentions, and thus, directing your INtentions. You needn’t map out your year in advance; when doing this personally, I think it’s actually better if you don’t, and you nalu it (go with the flow) instead.

Start with a ‘what’s happening right now?’ list that is meaningful to you. Mine for instance, looked like this for the month of May, with some extra info in the parentheses to explain:

• Waning days it will feel like Spring and not Summer (I have a Sense of Place transition to be aware of)
• May Day and Plumeria (they’ve long gone together for me)
• 5th month Goodness of 5 (in numerology and my other batching habits)
• Mothers’ Day. Gratitude as both mother and daughter.
• Updated financial resolutions (they often result from doing our Income Tax returns in April personally, and for financial literacy initiatives in my business — May is a great month to teach and coach our Key 6 business modeling)
• ‘Imi ola for July/August publication (one of my publishing deadlines in my Writing with Aloha business)
• The 12 Rules of Self-Leadership (currently being revisited for a series of workshops I’m doing)
• Lighter than usual travel schedule (means I can realistically tackle a meaty project this month)

Pull out a piece of paper, and hand-write your own list before you read any further.

Melia na Mei:
— There will be many lei of all variety given on this May Day. For me, the month has always been about the plumeria, and I’m grateful for the beauties which grace our yard in yellow, pink, and gold.

Got your list?

The next thing I do, is assess my list. What am I hoping for this month? How can I begin, with the best ends in mind? What values will help me, with the alignment they tend to trigger and drive?

Then, having directed my INtentional thinking this way, where my current attentions have stirred the pot of my mindfulness, I decide on a value driver for my month.

Now you try it:

Assess your own list— What would your answers be to these questions?

1. What are you hoping for this month? It might be in achievement, in productivity, in partnerships or other relationships, or in mood (attitude shift). Think of them as 30-day goals.
2. How can you begin, with the best ends in mind? Identify the actions which will be important in making real progress with your goals for the month. Do starting actions differ from ending actions, and if so, how? Be specific.
3. What value(s) could help you, with the alignment they tend to trigger and drive? What value associations are you thinking about? Trust in your gut instincts.

I always push myself toward one value, but there have been months I work with a pairing of values. I’ll also trust in the glaringly obvious ones on my list: For May, I decided on ‘Imi ola. I added another sentence or two for each item, interpreting or clarifying them through my ‘Imi ola lens.

Then, my personal VYMTVYL program is quite simple: I immerse myself in the value I chose all month long.

I become a student again, and re-learn it. I push myself to talk about it with others whenever I can, and push myself to speak it. I write it on post-it notes I’ll post in various places — the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator door, the flat surface of my laptop keyboard, the car dashboard. (Speaking of post-it notes, check this out: So very cool, and so very MAHALO!) I publish at least one blog post or Writing with Aloha article on it, and I constantly doodle it onto other notes I write. Within my photography hobby, I look for photo subjects I think will illustrate the value for me, in the way I like to think about it — or need and want to think about it: The instinctive, natural selection of Wanting.

May has just begun, and it’s never too late to plot your own value-mapping. What value will you choose to add managing with Aloha to your life this month?

When May 31st arrives, this may happen for you… and this too. Values speak up for us at the most opportune times.

Footnote:

Value Alignment is the subject of my third book, Value Your Month to Value Your Life: I wrote it to guide Alaka‘i Managers through the what, how, and why of Value of the Month programs conducted in the workplace. In my view, these programs are pure gold as a Managing with Aloha jumpstart, for you choose your own values and begin your culture-building in a personalized way as you learn more about the MWA philosophy as a whole.

From the book’s synopsis: “Value mapping is a way that good begets good, beginning with the good which already resides within you in the form of your personal values. To illustrate, we’ll cover two workplace how-to’s: The Value of the Month program, and Value Steering for Projects, both which help foster healthy business cultures.” You can buy VYLVYM on Kindle and on Smashwords.