February 2008
77 posts
Kuleana, the Value of Personal Responsibility →
You will find that our value of the month study is very much about my heart, my mission, and about the elemental basics and core principles of why the Managing with Aloha workplace philosophy exists. Learn about Kuleana in my Day One Essay for February.
JJL in February, 2008: What do we learn by reading... →
In our Joyful Jubilant Learning Community, February is a month for reading, and indulging our deep, almost fanatical passion for books. Are you ready for our Love Affair with Books to come?
January 2008
59 posts
Mahalo for your Mana‘o on Pono →
Mahalo, thank you so much, to those in our Ho‘ohana Community who added their Mana‘o (thoughts, beliefs, convictions) and Aloha conversation with comments and trackbacks this month! Our study on Pono has been all the richer because of you.
Please Welcome Kevin Eikenberry to Joyful Jubilant... →
My good friend Kevin Eikenberry, currently in high demand as the author of Remarkable Leadership, joins us at JJL as a monthly contributor! Read his first article for us too: Packing Right.
Pono in a 5-Beat Rhythm →
Wow, just writing the title for this month’s 5-Beat Rhythm recap gives me pause: To have a habitual rhythm based on the balance, rightness, integrity and contentment of Pono would be such a profound gift. Yes, would be. I am still working on Pono too! However the wonderful thing is that the more you work on it, the closer you get to it. It is time to debrief your month: How did Pono...
Can We Sit and Talk? 3 Great Reasons for Starters →
Can we sit? Maybe not. At first it was an annoyance. It has become a pet peeve.
25 Reasons to Adopt Rapid Fire Learning →
If you are not yet participating in Rapid Fire Learning, held the last week of each month at Joyful Jubilant Learning, I urge you to do so. It is such a valuable learning exercise … in 25 different ways.
“I learned early in life that if you want people to love you, you gotta make sure...”
– ~ George Foreman Truer words were never spoken.
A Pono Attitude will Determine a Pono Outcome →
Those of us who have been charged with hiring others, have very likely been taught to “look for someone with a great attitude; you can train them in all the skills they’ll need.” Good advice, but just the beginning.
Oh Alice, I feel for you! →
Cartoonists have a way of communicating a message that I so, so admire and envy! Today’s Dilbert by Scott Adams is one of those that hit way too close to home. You aren’t Ted, or Wally (the messenger in this strip) are you?
Employee Engagement for All →
Employee engagement expert - and all around Aloha Guy David Zinger, has created a new social network on the topic at Ning. Employee engagement is near and dear to my MWA heart, for there is no Ho‘ohana without engagement (you are only halfway there with empowerment) and so I had a quick Yes! at the ready when I received David’s invitation to join up. Click in and check it out, for you can...
Talk Story about Stopping: 5 Reasons to Kill... →
After sharing today’s Sunday Mālama on Managing with Aloha Coaching, my next thought was about talking story: Don’t you think What we should stop would be a great topic for discussion at work? Go on… Press the button!
Sunday Mālama: Do you have a Stop Doing List? →
Life is full isn’t it. Living a life is full of all sorts of stuff, and we human beings are great collectors of that stuff, carrying so many inconsequential quirks, habits, and to-do listings around with us. We collect, and we create busyness with such predictable repetition. How much of what is on our lists do we really need to attend to? How much information gluttony do we truly need to...
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. He who...”
– ~ Carl Jung
What do you pack for those times you are waiting? →
Tell me, when you know you will be somewhere you will have to sit (or stand) and just wait, do you pack something to pass the time? What do you do? Any original ideas to share?
Book Review: Microtrends ~ The Small Forces Behind... →
I love trend-spotting. For me trends are behavioral clues to what people value, and how their values may be changing, and in particular I get fascinated with how they affect shifts in workplace preferences. Author Mark J. Penn however, makes my fascination with values-driven trends seem like a mere flirtation.
“Write yourself a prescription that says, “One hour of play each day top...”
– ~ Rice Freeman-Zachery in Living the Creative Life
Get Pono Integrity for your Business Model →
In my own value system, ignorance is not bliss in business. I have a passion for learning about all of it. Once I do, the business plan and the business model have to match up - the business model has to be realistic, and it can’t wring the blood, sweat and tears out of people because it is incomplete, unachievable, or just plan insensitive to the human element.
What happened to On the Job Training? →
You don’t have to apologize to me for “only” doing On the Job Training. You should be apologizing to your employees, your customers, and your business for not doing it.
Pono the Judge →
How do you know when something is right to you or not? You just know, don’t you. I think that sense of just knowing is your value sense of Pono. Pono is our personal judge and jury, ever wise, and never hesitating to pass judgment on us pretty quickly - and very decisively.
10 Ways to Run a WOW! Campaign at Work →
How do you introduce new ideas in your organization, and secure buy-in? How can you introduce positive, catalytic change, and get everyone excited and inspired? Run a WOW! Campaign
Start a WOW! Project at Work →
Before you start groaning, “No way, not another project!” (…“No way” is a “Yeah But”) understand that a WOW! project is a FUN project, and if you can get everyone you work with to approach ALL projects in the WOW! project way, life where you work will be all the sweeter.
“What good is a philosophy if it doesn’t make your heart race?”
– ~ Not sure where I got this quote… I think I clipped it from a car ad. However it keeps me on my toes with the mission of Managing with Aloha!
Sunday Mālama: The First Time versus the Insider’s... →
After you get over your initial surprise that these people actually do exist, there is something very cool about watching someone who has never been in a Starbucks before, come in to one for the very first time. It is easy to pick them out, for they are the only ones who walk in front of the overhead menu board, step back a few paces to take the whole thing in, and actually begin to read it.
“I don’t teach writing. I teach patience.Toughness. Stubbornness. The...”
– ~ Richard Bausch, from Off The Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Endings, and Everything in Between
Learning about the Variety of Answers →
Silence is not always a non-Response. Are you completely aware of how people respond to you?
Starter Moves with Social Media: Conversation is a... →
Chris Brogan has a series of great postings in progress right now. He calls them Five Starter Moves for Introducing Social Media Into Your Organization: Companies are being pressured into the whole social media thing from lots of angles. They’re reading about it in mainstream press more often. Their PR agencies are asking them about it. Hell, PR agencies themselves are being pressured into getting...
New Resource Page: Why Choose Values? →
I have created a new resource page on www.ManagingWithAloha.com, one you may find helpful if you would like some help in explaining to your team — or your boss! — why you have decided to bring Managing with Aloha to your workplace. The page explains why I believe in value-based management, and why it makes so much sense to me, and if you start with the link of this Tumblr-title, you’ll...
Pono is A Value you can See →
We think of most values as quite intangible. For the most part, we understand them and can describe them, but it can be difficult to think of them in a very sensory way. Responsibility (Kuleana) and generosity (Lokomaika’i) for example, are not values that we associate with things we see, can touch or taste, though we certainly feel their effects, and can hear them in what people might say....
Another sad semester of textbook rip-offs
Email from my daughter this morning: “Mom, If I buy all “required” textbooks for the Spring ‘08 Semester (which, btw, I’m NOT) the subtotal comes to $1,286.45 Ridiculous ‘eh!? (That’s used prices too.)” She’s at UNLV, but that doesn’t really make a difference… it’s the plight of everyone in college right now. I’ve...
In 2008 I'm losing it →
Be nice… no, not my sanity, or my sense of all reason. My stuff. Then again, losing a certain degree of sanity could be pretty interesting too… I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
Yeah, But I don't have my own business →
Today you don’t. Tomorrow you might. And today, it’s not just about business, or about your job. It’s about you and what you are all about. [This post also has a note about Yeah But begone! as a new category for Talking Story.]
I know a little about that book; my name is Rosa. →
I’ve been thinking about the copyright versus public domain discussions in BlogLand recently, and have decided, Open Source Blogging, okay. Stealing, no. This is a follow-up to what I tumbled here.
If I get fired I’m going to blame Rosa!!! (If I... →
“It was late. I was tired. It seemed like a good idea at the time…” Rich G. knows how to make my day. And night. And next day :)
The 6 Saving Graces of New Year's Resolutions →
On the one hand, I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, urging whoever will give me their ear to choose values instead. On the other hand, and in light of how many people craving a fresh start ignore me and make New Year’s resolutions anyway, I am a big fan of talking about them —especially with people you care about.
Balance? What balance? →
Putting balance in the proper perspective may be the biggest gift we can give ourselves (and to the people who put up with us). If you’re going to have a self-fulfilling prophecy, make it a good one.
“I release my copyright on this content.
From now on, there is no need to email...”
– ~ Leo Babauta writes Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content today… fascinating. Is he foolish, or is he brilliant?
Perfect Pono Partner: Positive Thinking →
A short post to start our week on MWAC with more on the contentment of Pono, our value for the month of January: “This morning I got the most tremendous jolt of energy from a short five minutes in my yard pulling weeds…”
This year, Learn to Reframe Self-Esteem as... →
The feature article by Aimee Lee Ball for the January 2008 issue of O Magazine is very thought-provoking, and it will be one I am going to read a few more times, milking it for all I can. [You can see the magazine cover here, but unfortunately, the article I refer to is not online.] I love this premise of re-framing self-esteem by thinking of self-mastery as a better pursuit, one directly...
“There’s nothing second class about being a commenter alone.”
– ~ Tim Milburn The conversation gets started at Joyful Jubilant Learning about our Comment Culture there. Now into my fourth year of BlogLand adventuring, your observation brought several bloggers into mind for me, people I have watched and read over these years who I knew for a good amount of time...
“There is one simple habit that has revolutionised every day, since the first day...”
– Found via April: Benjamin Ellis at Benjamin On WOWNDADI - “Work Out What Needs Doing And Do It” in Never Lose Another Thought - Ever
Newly thinking about~ Guilt and Obligation →
Excerpt: The Sunday paper offered up little of much value for me this morning, and so instead, I found myself editing my feed reader with a new resolve about what I’ve chosen to give my attentions to there as well. Whenever the list gets too long red flags go up for me. It’s not the number, it’s my displaced intention with reading versus collecting versus referencing: My...
Sunday Mālama: You can do it for each other, why... →
This past Wednesday afternoon we noticed that we’d be ending Day 2 of the new year with a leaking water heater. What followed turned into a customer service story for this weekend’s edition of Sunday Mālama. It’s the first one for 2008, and Lowes is my unwitting star of the story.
Tell us like it is: What would you want our JJL... →
This is Chapter 2 of my JJL Roadtrip 2008 down Jubilation Way. If you missed it, this was Chapter 1: Pack your bag! Our January Journey Starts Tuesday! …and you can bookmark three directional pages and track the milemarkers that are in the Prologue: We couldn’t wait to show you ~ Eggplant, Joy, Aloha.
Talk Story about your Values with Pictures →
Remember Show and Tell in grade school? I’m thinking it would work pretty well for us at work too. Think “conversation catalyst.”
Is Pono where Integrity goes? →
An article wherein I answer one of your emails on MWA Coaching. Big mahalo for the email, and keep them coming *HCers: Don’t think I could have set myself up better than you did for an article about integrity! *HCers is my shorthand for Ho‘ohana Community members :)
A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible... →
Hat tip to Joanna Young for pointing me to this article by Skellie. Every blogger and citizen publisher using Flickr images for their post pops should read and bookmark it. While you’re at it, subscribe to Skelliewag.org. Love this (and the Flickr photo she found) on her home page today: ”The Web’s Best Content Has One Thing in Common …It’s the ability to make audacious promises,...
Say No to Resolutions: Choose your Values instead. →
We all have values, a whole bunch of them. However the whole list of our individually-held values is not always in play. You choose your passion-critical ones individually with Ho‘ohana. In the workplace, great managers help their teams choose their mission-critical values within strategic planning. Say no to those automatic-pilot January resolutions you’ve gotten trapped in before, and...