Ho‘ohana Aloha

I appreciate transparent posts like this one: He didn’t have to write it —-or did he? Brian explains a key decision to his customers. I’m one of them, for I met him when selecting two of his Genesis themes for my website reinventions here and here.

“Why I Left My Solo Gig” contains tidbits we all can learn from… the concept of team continues to evolve, and this harks back to those “brutal questions” we spoke of on Managing with Aloha when the month of May began:

What should you be doing, and what should someone else be doing, and what shouldn’t anyone have to do at all?

What a great question to ask of your own values: How would I build a beautiful company?

Beauty isn’t just “a look” it’s the flavor of your human morality, ethics, and integrity.

Bill Witherspoon:

I am an optimist and an idealist. In shaping The Sky Factory, I started with the assumption that people are naturally curious and creative. I wanted to craft an environment in which they would act like entrepreneurs, not like robots. My first decision was to give people the opportunity to purchase discounted ownership, and 100 percent of employees have participated. The responsibility for revenue and profit belongs to everyone. From that foundation, I derived five principles… read more at Inc.

Recently for me, at TalkingStory.org: If you worked for me

Management gurus love to tell companies to reinvent themselves. The Bainies do something more interesting: they preach simplicity. They argue that most successful companies share three virtues. They have a highly distinctive core business. They make great efforts to keep their business model as simple as possible. And they apply it relentlessly to new opportunities.

Simplify and repeat.

The Bain authors argue that there are three ways to apply the repeatability model. Some companies, such as American Express, target ever more precise groups of customers. Some apply the model to new markets: Nike has brought its “swoosh” to one sport after another. Some apply the same management system to lots of different businesses: Danaher, an American holding company that specialises in manufacturing, has applied its “lean” management system, the Danaher Business System, to the 85 businesses it has bought over the past ten years.

On Talking Story today:

There’s an interesting idea which keeps popping up on my radar these early days of our new year, and I love it. It’s an inventive call to action:

Let’s shift what we value in society today, by shifting to the 20-hour work week.

The argument behind this proposal, is that our 40-hour work week has been our convention, but convention isn’t unquestionable fact. Convention isn’t necessarily right, and it may not be that good for us anymore — Was it ever?

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…

In my Makahiki letter, I’d said that I love this time of year because it is Ka lā hiki ola (the dawning of a new day) at its most pervasive moment: We human beings collaborate in self-care, and in our Ho‘ohana intentions. The whole world seems to be in sync, as we collectively look back to assess what we’ve come to know. We corral our confidences and our strengths, and then we look forward, expectantly, and with hopeful optimism knowing those confidences and strengths are packable and adjustable: They’ll remain with us, and they’ll remain useful.

What’s not to love?

Well, in a word, the overwhelm.

Here’s what you can do about it…

Article teaser from Inc.:
Strategic management can be a huge time drain for managers. Why not just ditch the conventional wisdom and go with your intuition in order to innovate once in a while?

Not just for innovation, but to get moving, period. I’m all for more intuition, and less analysis-paralysis! And any forecasting based on history (still done with way too many business budgets) is downright foolish today.

Those who are strategy-laden often ignore a real-world truth today. Strategy is tactics—and tactics are strategy. The Great Recession forced many corporations to throw out the old rules and experiment. And many built sales and strengthened their strategies through tactical execution.
~ John Gerzema, author of Spend Shift

Ben McConnell:

A strategic plan has a better chance of being successful when it’s easy to understand, easy to find, and easy to share.

This earlier post (also by Ben) helpful too, in keeping your vocabulary consistent - whether you take his suggestions or use his, get your team to all speak the same language: Objectives, goals, strategies and tactics