Ho‘ohana Aloha

Tim Cook is giving us a history-in-the-making look at leadership today (the value of ALAKA‘I). A few quotes:

What shocked the Apple investors that day, was that CEO Tim Cook popped into the room about 20 minutes into Oppenheimer’s talk, quietly sat down in the back of the room, and did something unusual for a CEO of Apple: He listened. He didn’t check his e-mail once. He didn’t interrupt. After the CFO finished, Cook, at that point chief executive of Apple for all of five months, stood to offer his remarks. He strode confidently to the front of the room and held court in the no-nonsense style that has become his trademark. “He was in complete control and knew exactly who he was and where he wanted to go,” says one of the investors. “He answered every question head-on and didn’t skirt any issue.” … Steve Jobs wouldn’t have bothered.

A 14-year veteran of the company, Cook is maintaining, by words and actions, most of Apple’s unique corporate culture. But shifts of behavior and tone are absolutely apparent; some of them affect the core of Apple’s critical product-development process. In general, Apple has become slightly more open and considerably more corporate. In some cases Cook is taking action that Apple sorely needed and employees badly wanted. It’s almost as if he is working his way through a to-do list of long-overdue repairs the previous occupant (Jobs) refused to address for no reason other than obstinacy.

Cook consistently pays homage to the legacy of Jobs, but he doesn’t apologize for charting a new course. He seems, at the end of the day, to be honoring one of Jobs’ dying requests: that Apple’s management not ask “What would Steve do?” and instead do what’s best for Apple.

Tim Cook at a March event introducing the new iPad in San Francisco

Considering the widespread hand wringing over how rudderless Apple would be without Jobs, it is remarkable how steadily the company has sailed along without him.

Even as he tweaks the Apple operating manual, Cook goes to great pains to pledge allegiance to the corporate culture Steve Jobs created. Asked at the Goldman investor forum how his leadership might change Apple and what of its culture he intended to maintain, Cook ignored the first part of the question and focused only on the latter. “Steve grilled in all of us over many years that the company should revolve around great products and that we should stay extremely focused on few things rather than try to do so many that we did nothing well.” He called Apple a “magical place” where employees could do “their life’s best work.”

For their part, most Apple employees seem more than satisfied with Cook. … At Apple, Jobs was simultaneously revered, loved, and feared. Cook clearly is a demanding boss, but he’s not scary. He’s well-respected, but not worshiped. As Apple enters a complex new phase of its corporate history, perhaps it doesn’t need a god as CEO but a mere mortal who understands how to get the job done.

Big Mahalo to leadership coach Dan Oestreich, for sharing our MWA verbing of ‘managemeant’ in his March Newsletter.

Much more there to read and learn from ~ check it out and pick up your own subscription. This month, Dan features an interview with Ed Batista, an executive coach, change management consultant, and Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Bonus Link: Also, do not miss the latest post on Dan’s blog, The Air is There, Waiting. He gives us a wonderful Aloha Spirit metaphor to keep in mind, for me, a post I will print and insert in my teaching copy of Managing with Aloha, in chapter 17 on Nānā i ke kumu, the value of source, spirit, and personal truth.

Received these questions from a friend of mine, a professor teaching a college course on the “Emotional Health in Organizations” and thought I’d share my answer with all of you who read Talking Story as well:

How does one effectively “lead up” in their organization, if it is still managed like the Industrial Revolution? How does one BEST change the culture from within? Is it REALLY possible…since the key leader always defines the culture of the organization????

Yes, it’s possible, if you are willing to do what it takes…

Last post, we talked about an approach for the January overwhelm that can appear this time of year, and our talk story about it slanted toward the personal. Let’s talk about your workplace today.

If you are a business owner, or an Alaka‘i Manager — one with Kuleana (a sense of personal responsibility, and personal accountability) within your circle of influence, whatever its scope, and you have the Ho‘ohana intention to manage with Aloha — this post is for you.

An Aloha Business for 2012

What will the Aloha business look like and feel like? Why will it be the best kind of business to tackle the coming year’s challenges with the greatest prospects of success? What will it take, so it truly thrives and prospers?

Here are my suggestions for you…

On Talking Story today:

The message I have for those in HR and all managers who are now able to hire, is to interview with fewer shortcuts and with more compassion.

However compassion alone is never enough… we lead with compassion, but then, we manage for competence…

Sunday update:
This post had originated with current conversations within my coaching laboratory. Locally too, we are seeing a competency case study play out in Hawai‘i right now that seems to have reached a tipping point: Our governor, less than a year into his 4-year term, has lost 8 of his key staff as of this writing, including his Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief. Reference articles:

• Just sayin’ : Gov. Abercrombie’s tippy canoe (start here for a recap of local events)
• Senior Dems Pushed Gov To Shake Up Staff at Civil Beat
• Abercrombie administration flunking crisis management test by veteran Hawai‘i journalist Ian Lind

Two of these three articles point to a struggle of youth versus experience, and old guard versus new guard in government’s party-blind bureaucracy. Those may be how the story is playing out most visibly (each another fascinating case study in itself), but what we know as Alaka‘i managers is this: Both leading well and managing well are MIA through-out these events, and as usual, they matter. They are the problem-solvers, and the competency-makers, our MWA Key 4: Role of the Manager (category index)

Hawai‘i’s governor has three more years to turn this around and emerge as a stronger leader and much better manager. Let’s hope he does.

Charles M. Blow for the NYTimes:

The way the Republican field is shaping up, it may be poised to squander an electoral opportunity of a historic scale.

Republicans simply can’t find a competent, consistent candidate with whom they can fall in love and with which President Obama won’t mop the floor…

A Gallup report released on Friday found that President Obama’s average approval ratings for September remained at the lowest point of his presidency: 41 percent.

The economy is stubbornly resisting resuscitation, and even the White House predicts that the unemployment rate will remain above 9 percent through Election Day. (No president in modern history has faced re-election with an unemployment rate that high.)

The White House should be the Republicans’ for the taking. And it would look more likely if their current crop of front-runners weren’t so utterly inept and fallible.

My half-full hope is this: The more boring America’s 2012 presidential election shapes up to be, the better the chances we’ll ignore all the rhetoric and polarity (and the media which gnaws on those soundbites), and focus on more immediate issues — simply because they are far more interesting.

Politics = Boring.
Government = Ineffective (at least currently).
Media = Too negative (and they’re whining.)
Real life gets our attention instead.
Yay!

In contrast to movements like Occupy Wall Street and others now bubbling in local quarters everywhere, the 2012 presidential election is a non-event of any import if all it does is continue governmental deadlock and inaction (which may be likely whoever wins, given the current field on both sides).

True that we can’t ignore our governance completely (nor might we want to), but how about temporarily, until we learn to better infiltrate it, and then fix it? Our immediate ‘temporary’ is that we have just over a year before the 2012 election: We can get so much done by then!

I don’t think we’re ever in a complete vacuum of leadership. The right leaders (i.e. The good leaders we need, neither fully ‘right’ or ‘left’) do emerge when they find their foothold and their following, and they become effective.

What we Americans are learning, is that the leaders we need are no longer a product of our governance system, and there are other options to be worked on, and to work within. Better options — surely that’s what “both the Mama Grizzly from Alaska and the Papa Bear from New Jersey” as Charles Blow referred to Palin and Christie in this article, have wisely figured out. Thus we all watch other movements now, other options — or we bravely lead them ourselves in our own circles of influence: Working in today’s ‘Knowledge Economy’.

Let’s go to work and get the job done: Calling all Managers: We need you.

Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top 12 lessons I learned from Steve Jobs.

1. Experts are clueless …

Also see: The Man Who Inspired Jobs (at The New York Times):

In the memorials to Steven P. Jobs this week, Apple’s co-founder was compared with the world’s great inventor-entrepreneurs: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell. Yet virtually none of the obituaries mentioned the man Jobs himself considered his hero, the person on whose career he explicitly modeled his own…