Managing with Aloha: Aloha Intentions

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 (belief and conviction) in business and workplace health, we imua (move forward) with Managing with Aloha’s Series Two within this, our Ke Ola ‘Ohana in Business conversation.

Mahalo nui 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 (work with 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, and intentional work.

Values are first, because values drive the other two and they equip us, as well. 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 Two, and with upcoming issues we will revisit all 19 values as first introduced to you in Series One.

Going forward, think of Series Two 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 Magazine issue.

Let’s name our Managing with Aloha practice of value alignment “Aloha Intentions.” These Aloha Intentions are those five active verb 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 Two 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 Managing with Aloha 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.

~ Rosa Say

Next issue: We revisit Aloha, our genesis value.

Contact writer Rosa Say: Managing with Aloha

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.