Managing with Aloha: The ‘Ohana in Business Model—Our Economy Done Better

Series 3 on Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business. Seventh in Series Three on Managing with Aloha

By Rosa Say

When I left the hotel industry to work for the Hualalai Resort back in 1996, I had been employed by a hotel or hotel chain for 22 years.

It no longer felt feasible or sensible to be a hotel employee to me. I felt the business model of the hotel industry was seriously, and irreparably, broken, and still do. When they profit, hotels make money for hotel owners, corporate holdings, and a few executives, but they don’t provide a good living for the rank and file who assure the hotel operates well, and who give customers the aloha-filled customer service hotel owners and executives market.

The hotels I had worked for did give back to the community, but I wondered if donations were sincerely given or simply more marketing at the local level, for shouldn’t a business operation take better care of the people it employed first?

When they recruited me, Hualalai offered me the director of retail position, and here’s what sealed the deal: they told me what their retail clerks were getting paid, nearly double the hourly rate of their hotel-employed counterparts. Why? “It’s the right thing to do—they need to make a decent living just as much as anyone else does.” Today, we refer to that as “a living wage.”

I hadn’t yet heard what they would pay me. I didn’t have to before knowing I’d made my decision to join them. After receiving their offer, I went home and put pen to paper on my first draft of what I felt a ‘Business with Aloha’ model would be, a document later anointed the ‘Ohana in Business model, Key 6 of the Managing with Aloha philosophy.

(To be clear, the Hualalai Resort focused exclusively on real estate sales at the time as a resort development firm which owned the hotel on their resort as a separate holding; the hotel was managed separately. The business model of the resort may differ today.)

The Covid19 pandemic has been a death knell for small business. By some accounts, small business owners by the thousands are closing up shop in the United States alone. In contrast, big business conglomerates are enjoying astounding profits, for one of capitalism’s most notable features is that wealth begets wealth. It has become blatantly obvious that the stock market is not a reflection of the economy: according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “America’s richest 1% now own half the value of the US stock market. The richest 10% own 92 percent.”

There is something seriously wrong with this economic picture, convincing many of us who study business to question our assumptions, and many conventions we’ve long taken for granted, or did not pay enough attention to.

Tackling a readjustment of the entire model of the US economy is necessary but daunting, a staggering endeavor to be sure. Revising your own business model, however, so it will be ethical, equitable, and self-sustaining, isn’t—it is entirely within your own scope of influence and control. The only questions are what changes you are willing to make, and how much profit and prosperity you are willing to share with your partners—including your staff.

A business without a valid business model isn’t just a business without a recession-resistant roadmap, it’s a business without a conscience. Your intentions within your vision—good, values based, equitable-for-all intentions—are everything.

The pandemic has been painful, yet it gives us an opportunity to reset: let’s take it. Break the rules. Dust off your vision. Create a new one.

When you’re in business, you must be a visionary. You must want better for yourself, and all whom you employ, partner with, and serve. That’s what being “with Aloha” requires.

Consider your business to be a constant work in progress, theorizing on how more becomes possible. Experiment. Make a better reality for everyone involved, for visionaries keep hope alive and well. Here’s my vision, in part:

• Everyone who works receives a living wage: their earnings sustain them in a good life.
• A business model is not valid or feasible, unless a living wage is what it creates and sustains for everyone involved with that business.
• Service jobs are admirable, appreciated, and valued by others, and worth having.
• There is no “paying your dues” or “working your way up” into a living wage: you get it upon hire with every job, in every career, in every business model whether for-profit, nonprofit, public or private sector. You get it if you’re hiring yourself in an entrepreneurial, self-employed model—ignore the Shark Tank venture capitalists who say otherwise.

Am I dreaming? In today’s world I am, but that doesn’t mean it has to be this way. We can change the world one business model at a time.
Be the visionary of an ‘Ohana in Business: I call them Alaka‘i Benefactors, because they are.

Next issue, we’ll talk about Key Concept 7: Strengths management.

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Contact writer Rosa Say at RosaSay.com or ManagingWithAloha.com