Ka Puana: Managing with Aloha, second edition

Aloha Ho‘ohana ‘Imi ola Ho‘omau Kūlia i ka nu‘u Ho‘okipa ‘Ohana Lōkahi Kākou Kuleana ‘Ike loa Ha‘aha‘a Ho‘ohanohano Alaka‘i Mālama Mahalo Nānā i ke kumu Pono Ka lā hiki ola

Aloha is a value, the outpouring and receiving of the spirit. To work with intent and with purpose. To seek life. Our purpose in life is to seek its highest form. Perseverance. To continue, to perpetuate, to renew. Achievement. Pursue personal excellence. The hospitality of complete giving. Family. ‘Ohana is a human circle of complete Aloha. Harmony and unity, cooperation and collaboration. Inclusiveness. Learn to speak the Language of We. One’s personal sense of responsibility. To know well. Seek knowledge and wisdom. Humility. Be humble, be modest, and open your thoughts. Dignity. Cultivate respectfulness. Leadership and initiative. Stewardship. To serve and to honor, to protect and care for. Thank you, as a way of living. Look to your source, and find your truth. Rightness and balance. Optimism, hope, and promise.

Think of your employees as business partners

In my own interviews, Ho‘ohana would be the foundation of an alliance between me and candidate, a collaboration that helped with my matchmaking by uncovering the passion people had for the work they do. With these first conversations our professional relationship began, based on the honesty with which candidates shared personal goals with me, and my honesty on the connection I saw, or truthfully did not see, between their goals and our mutual business success.

Yes, mutual success. Not only would we be manager and staff, boss and employee, we would be business partners.

There has to be a win in the partnership for both the business and the employee.

Do not underestimate the power there is in the simple fact that an employee enjoys what he does every day. When you enjoy something, feeling you thrive within doing it, you don’t want to give it up. When employees love their role in your company, they nurture a growing interest in your success, understanding they have much greater job security in a healthy business. They will work with you to ensure that health, including financial health and the numbers—the bottom line you need and want.

They will go one step further. When they have passion for what they do, they put up a hand that beckons you to involve them even more. In essence they are saying, “Let me work on the business too, not just in it.”

The Daily Five Minutes (a partial excerpt)

Perhaps my most valuable lesson in ‘Ike loa was the one born at Hualālai out of our desire to know our employees well. We instinctively knew we could manage better the more intimately we knew those we managed.

The Daily Five Minutes is a simple conversation habit: Each day, without fail, managers are to give five minutes of no-agenda time to at least one of their employees.

My initial goal, was actually to give my team of managers daily practice in the art of listening well, and in being a ‘good receiver.’ I was trying to come up with a solution for the common complaint heard when an employee is frustrated enough to go over his or her managers’ head, saying “my manager doesn’t ask for my input and feedback, and if I do give it, he or she doesn’t really listen well to what I’m trying to explain to them.”

I reasoned that if managers had no agenda themselves with this Daily Five Minutes, relinquishing that agenda discretion to their employees, they wouldn’t half-listen as they mentally prepared what they’d say when they could get a word in.

The managers were coached to listen more intently in order to respond better to whatever was being shared with them—to listen with more curiosity and genuine interest.

Employees were brought into the plan and openly told about the program, so they’d know what to expect, and did their part too. They were asked to welcome the conversation, and set a goal of ‘talking story’ to their manager a bit more often. They were then asked to always have something prepared as their agenda, and be ready to fill the silence when a manager approached them and asked, “How about a break from the action here, let’s step away and Take 5? What have you got for me?”

In the process of learning to better converse, better listen, and self-develop this habit, people greatly improved their own approachability. Managers nurtured a circle of comfort for their employees to step into and talk to them whenever time presented itself, and conversations were elevated in how people regarded them—they worked!

The Daily Five Minutes became more personal after professional issues were settled. Employees started to share their lives with managers—what they did over the weekend, how their kids were doing in school, how they felt about a local news story or community issue they were involved in.
Managers began to know their employees very well, and became much more perceptive about sensing their coaching opportunities.

Their employees began to relate to them more as people and not just as managers—they asked their managers to share more about them, and the help they might need. They were practicing the art of ‘Ike loa together within Aloha intent.

Contact author Rosa Say, Managing With Aloha