Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

Learn about Luana this Weekend: I know you have it in you!

Luana (loo ah na) is a short, easy to pronounce Hawaiian word good to know for any day of the week, and in particular, it can be a fantastic weekend mantra:

luana. vi. To be at leisure, enjoy pleasant surroundings and associates, live in comfort and ease, enjoy oneself, relax, be content.

He aha kō ‘oukou e hana nei? E luana wale ana nō.

What are you all doing? Just enjoying ourselves.

---from the Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert

This weekend: Ho‘oluana--- Cause your luana feelings to happen intentionally; don’t leave them to chance! Be purposeful--- even with fun and play.

Life is short, so Kēia Manawa (seize your moments!) It will be a three day weekend for many of us, so take advantage of it! (Happy Birthday and 4th of July America:) The rewards I reaped from my last weekend was a mere 3-hours investment within the whole:  Weekend Warrior (Mine was a Wiliwili tree)

Let’s talk story: Tell us what you will be doing this weekend, and give others some inspiration.

"One of my favorite places to go is Balboa Park here in San Diego with all the art museums."
---shared by Maria Palma

"I was off down in the far south west of Scotland, staying at a wee fishing harbour - which proved great for a few shots of nets, crates and boats - then up for a walk in the moorland.

It looks bleak from a distance but rich with vegetation when you get out and explore. The moorland flowers are tiny but exquisite - made me want to learn so much more about their names and how to take better photos of them!"
---Joanna Young last weekend (Visit Confident Writing to read about how Joanna deals with her inner critic.)

So, what will you be doing over the next few days for your sense of luana?

‘Ike loa: Boldly about Knowledge

This is the poster I have made (via Wordle) as my own visual ‘Ike loa trigger this month:

‘Ike loa: Boldly about Knowledge:

I created it with the excerpt from Managing with Aloha I had shared in the MWAC Day One Essay: ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian Value of Learning

Feel free to print up a copy for you too! You can get a download on my Flickr page; this one is a bit off-center.

When you "write story" about learning, what leaps off the page for you?

Write a short paragraph with what you think about learning, paste it into the Wordle Create box, and see what comes up... you actually only need one or two few pithy sentences.

Share your biggest word impression for learning in the comments for us: Learning is a huge topic and we can come up with several hits! Any surprise to you?

A lot of English words in my book compared to the Hawaiian ones... using Wordle, aka "beautiful word clouds" I have also been fascinated to see how differently my book excerpts appear compared to my blog posts. For those of you who are writers, it is a great app to play with in your editing process.

Say Aloha to July 2008!

In July we are going full throttle LEARNING!

I have two Day One Essays for you to check out, one on Managing with Aloha Coaching, and another on Joyful Jubilant Learning; we'll dish more here later about them, okay?

For today, be sociable, and go join the rest of the Ho‘ohana Community:

• MWAC: ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian Value of Learning

• JJL: Learning From Pictures

You'll find out what this one is all about...

Weekend Warrior (Mine was a Wiliwili tree)

How are you doing (or did you do…) with your Reach into the Weekend?

Yesterday morning I indulged in an Artist Date, the exercise Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way recommends…

“Now to the second tool, the sticky one. [The first tool is her morning pages.] The second primary tool of a creative recovery involves play. Oh this tool is hard to master. Dubbed an ‘Artist Date,’ this second, essential tool involves a once-weekly, solitary, festive expedition targeted at enticing our inner artist into exploring new realms.”

My chosen “realm” to explore yesterday was my passion for, and fascination with, the endangered Hawaiian Wiliwili tree. This view is of a tree I have driven by for the past eighteen years, but had to hike into the scrub to see — and to appreciate up close.

We are surrounded by dryland ‘lava land scrub’ where we live on the west side of the Big Island, on the slopes of the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two of the five shield volcanoes the Big Island is made of.  One visitor to my Flickr photostream had commented, “it looks so remote” and it is and isn’t… it could more accurately be described as in adolescence with land development that may unfortunately be inevitable.

Meanwhile, it is an easy thing for me to set off on foot, and be within wilderness (that truthfully, someone somewhere may consider to be trespassing) within two walking miles. It would also be very easy to get hopelessly lost in the scrub, and you must be careful that you keep the roadway in some relative direction by sight or sound as you hike; the terrain takes you on 180’s in shift constantly, and the rolling hilliness obstructs your view with every few steps (and you do venture in because these old 4-wheel roads are not where it is most interesting):

Yesterday’s morning hike was more ambitious than usual, for it took me a good four hours (very sunny, hot hours) but it was so rewarding. My goal was to populate my Flickr photo set for the endangered Hawaiian Wiliwili tree, and there was one in particular I think of as the Warrior Sentinel. It grows in its natural habitat and is one which has been pruned of its lower branches by the land developer, but has never been transplanted, in fact, the road was rerouted to be built around it.

One look at the trunk near its base, and you can understand why transplanting it would be a monumental endeavor…

Plus the wiliwili is now considered an endangered tree, so it may be that the developer had little choice… law or no law, it is likely that messing with this one would have created an uproar. I wasn’t here at the time the road was built, but if they ever try to mess with it now, I’ll be one of those making the most noise.

If you would like to learn more about the Hawaiian Wiliwili you can start with my Flickr photo set, now 62 photos full as of this writing, and then do some Google searches.

The wiliwili is starting to be a more frequent illustration for me now that I have a digital camera, and I have had a few people ask me (and I paraphrase to sum them all up succinctly) “Rosa, what is it with you and this tree?” for to many it is interesting yes, but it is gnarled and less than totally beautiful when compared to some others; in the late summer and early fall it loses its leaves completely, and the older ones I most reverently take my photos of barely leaf at all when they do.

The answer is that the Hawaiian Wiliwili represents significant kaona (hidden storied meaning) for me, so much so that if I ever had to pick one image for all of Managing with Aloha it would not be my book jacket; it would be one of the wiliwili. I will tell the full story one day soon (there is some of it within the Flickr photo set descriptions). For now, I hope you enjoy more pictures.

One of my rewards yesterday was to find another tree with yellow blossoms I had not seen before. Its blooming was farther along than the Warrior Sentinel, and so I could get photos of the wiliwili seed pods:

So tell me, how did you Reach into your weekend?

What are your current triggers with what is interesting to you? My timing for this particular Artist Date had to do with a couple of different things, like having my camera now, and learning to love Flickr photo-journaling, but mostly because the Warrior Sentinel is in full summer bloom right now (there are other ‘before’ pictures from May in the same set). The wiliwili blooming was my reason for a hike into the scrub versus taking another kind of Artist Date, and there are a bunch of other things you can do that are not solo propositions.

I am interested in your stories: There is nothing like the weekend for talking story where we all get to know each other better. Especially for humans, but trees can count too... then there is the very worthwhile goal of learning to be interesting too.

Did you get rewarded with any surprises, as I did with the yellow wiliwili tree I found?

Reach into the Weekend

and Kēia Manawa, or as may be more familiar to many, “Carpe, Diem, seize the day.”

It is 5:40am as I write this - just had to wake up early and get the weekend started, for there is so much to do, so much to feel, so much to be, with joy in the living of it all.

How will it be Kēia Manawa for you this weekend?

It's RFL Time: Rapid Fire Learning for June

Today is the 25th of the month: You shouldn't be here...

You should be at Joyful Jubilant Learning for RFL!

Wow, this was a great month. And Talking Story readers, I love the JJL RFL exercise as one that you kinda sorta talk story through in both the doing and sharing.

• The doing is like self-talking story, where the story is the month that just was some kind of milestone in your life, but it is one waiting for you to articulate it.

• The sharing is the magic of what happens over within the JJL community: All you have to do is read today's RFL posting and comment conversation to feel the goodness of it, and see exactly what I mean. For me to try and explain that a bit more here will not do it justice.

Adding in my own RFL sharing there took me all of 5 minutes tops because RFL is intended to be a stream-of-consciousness exercise. You must do this for yourself. It allows your own personal learning to feed your spirit.

Dwayne Melancon is hosting this month, and Joanna Young of Confident Writing already chimed in —- I’m waiting to see you and your name pop up in the comments or trackbacks there next!

Yes, a lot of bold in this because I feel RFL is that important (learners make the world go round, plain and simple) and that good for you, and I care about you.

So click over there: Rapid Fire Learning for June.

Then you can come back and tell me that you weren't just "ing-ing" around with it... come back later and See me when the “ing” stuff is over.

Subscribe to Joyful Jubilant Learning by Email

See me when the “ing” stuff is over

I ask myself 'do I want permission so I can have someone on my side when it fails, or so they know it was my idea when it works?' —Ken Smith

If it's done the right way, no apology is necessary - you are right, it is irrelevant. —Terry Starbucker

Love description of approval. Have starred this one - it's a keeper! —Jen Parke

Those are snippets from the conversation continued on Twitter about permission (or approval) versus forgiveness (or fessing up with an apology!) after I told my Twitter Village about the posting here yesterday: Get permission or ask for forgiveness?

The words we choose can indeed give us some immediate context.

I also got some private push-back in regard to the caveat about “great bosses” versus “run-of-the-mill managers” with one gentleman writing me that,

“my boss’s favorite line is, ‘don’t come to me when you are doing it, just after it’s done.’ Problem is, it’s a crap-shoot for me on if he’ll like the done or not. I just never know.”

Which goes back to the second caveat: “If you are the manager, make your expectations clear in regard to how people should best work with you…” If you are the boss, you should expect your people to do well, I agree with that, however you also have to set them up to succeed with you and not wait for them to hang themselves! (That is true jerk-dom). Talk story with them, and get more clarity to happen between you.

If like my emailer you also have a boss stuck in jerk-dom, you will have to get brave and talk to him (or her) about it being a challenge for you to meet their expectations. Not easy, I know, but something you will just have to do. It is either that, or risk getting hung.

I once had a boss that was a bit similar, but he did go the distance making sure we completely understood what was expected. His line for us was, “see me when the ing stuff is over.” It was a way he made his expectation clarity pretty easy for us to remember. What he meant, was that we needed to think twice about coming to him when our work could still be described with “ing” ending words, like:

• Planning
• Reviewing
• Analyzing
• Budgeting
• Organizing
• Strategizing
• Brainstorming
• Scheduling

As far as he was concerned, all those kinds of words were still stuck in the doing and not in the “done” of accomplishment.

In contrast, he loved “ed” ending words (and certain ones):

• Executed (was way better than planned)
• Decided (was way better than analyzed)
• Financed (was way better than budgeted)
• Collaborated (was way better than strategized)
• Prototyped (was way better than brainstormed)
• Reinvented (was way better than reviewed)

You get the idea. This gentleman was my boss well over a decade ago, but his expectations were so crystal clear, they stayed with me long after he was out of my work picture.

He had a related phrase that always stayed with me too, which was, “Wishing and hoping is not a strategy.” This one pretty dramatically affected the way that I view Ka lā hiki ola, our value for the month of June, which you’ll recall is the value of hope and promise. I still have a lot of cautions about wishing and hoping (frankly, I feel pretty wimpy whenever I catch myself using those words), but drop that “ing” and HOPE is pure gold.

I talk about hope today in my last MWAC Tuesday essay about Ka lā hiki ola: Hope, thy name is Optimism. The article also shares the Legend of the Wiliwili Trees. Check it out. 

(How was that for a segue between the two blogs, hmm? Yeah, kinda pleased with myself... classic example of what writing morning pages can do for you :)

“I once heard it said that “hope has nothing to do with what is going on in the world.”

More at MWAC today… it’s the wrap up for Ka lā hiki ola.

A new month begins next Tuesday.

Reading here on the site?

Another mini-lesson on Context is in this Post Extention: open her up...

Get permission or ask for forgiveness?

I've just done a guest spot for the www.CrankyMiddleManager.com newsletter which was sent out today by Wayne Turmel. Each month, Wayne will ask a readers' question of a guest he'd once featured on his CMM broadcast, and I was his guest back for Episode 15, talking with Wayne about Managing with Aloha shortly after HCer Bren Connelly had introduced us. Wayne is up to 148 episodes now, and that's a lot of terrific talking story...

Thought I'd share my response to Wayne's reader question with all of you too, for it's a question that comes up occasionally in my coaching as well.

It was also a guideline I would explicitly give to my managers when I was actively managing, telling them that in my preferred "style" of managing them, I wanted them to defer to asking for forgiveness instead of my permission. The underlying assumptions were pretty clear:

--- You probably won't want to ask for forgiveness either; asking for it is a bummer no matter how nice I might be about giving it to you.

--- So do whatever it takes to get the job done the right way and the best way; then both permission and forgiveness are unnecessary and thus irrelevant.

Yes, I told them not to ask for my permission unless they had a shortfall within the realm of talent, skill, or knowledge with something (i.e. needing more training, not approval) ---more in the newsletter excerpt below. We've talked about this subject before: If you are the manager, make your expectations clear in regard to how people should best work with you:

SIDEBAR: For later review:

1. 5 Things Employees Need to Learn—From You
2. New to management: 2 Learning Hit Lists

There are also two words within my response written for Wayne which MWA readers and practitioners know are packed with implied meaning: "Great bosses" are not the same as run-of-the-mill managers. There is a calling for management I assume to be built on 10 core beliefs.

Here's the newsletter snippet. You can subscribe for Wayne's newsletters at the www.CrankyMiddleManager.com --- check it out.

Readers' Questions and Cool Answers

Rosa Say is one of my favorite people. She is just a walking hug and I have a weakness for conjoined vowels so anyone who speaks Hawaiian gets my attention. She was the star of Episode 15 and we've stayed in each other's orbits since.

"I get proactivity, but I'd like to keep my job. How do I know "when to ask permission" and "when to ask forgiveness?"

Great question, Garth.

The short answer is, "It depends." The good news is that what it depends on, are the kinds of situations that are usually ideal for self-coaching that helps you grow. You answer this question of forgiveness versus permission for yourself situation by situation, by answering two other questions that are pretty easy to remember:

1. What would make work easier on my boss?

2. What action should I take that will make both of us look good?

The answer to Number 1 is also the best possible answer to "how should I be managing up?" for ultimately, that is what terrific managing up is (whether we like it or not): Doing whatever it takes to make work easy on our boss. Do that in the ethical and right way, and your boss will pay you in kind eventually (trust me on this).

The answer to Number 2 has to do with understanding that "approval" can be read in a couple of different ways. Asking for approval before taking action means lack of talent, skill or knowledge (at best), but it also can mean lack of forethought, gumption and initiative (at worst). Bosses get annoyed when they are asked for approval that is actually a guise for shortfalls in thinking and doing your homework, wimpy buck-passing on owning a decision ("Well, the boss approved it.") or as a delay tactic hurled at them to buy more time on deadlines ("Hello, Ms. Gatekeeper? Can you let him know I need to speak with him before I can move forward?") In the strictest sense, approval is required when the action that must be taken is not normally within your circle of influence (even then, rephrase the question to, "Would you like me to take care of this for you?")

Great bosses look at granted forgiveness as an opportunity to give their performing stars more coaching. Cultivate a sense of urgency balanced by forethought, take action when you should, be quick to apologize and correct if need be, and you answer Number 2 by being that star unafraid of mistakes you can learn from, and about whom the boss will say, "Yeah, he/she is one of my people."

Rosa Say coaches, speaks and writes; she is the author of Managing with Aloha Coaching, where you can "Learn to put Managing with Aloha in practice in our value of the month program: Live, Work, Manage and Lead with Aloha!" She serves as the managing editor of Joyful Jubilant Learning to encourage the 21st Century social media and digital learning initiatives she feels are crucial in tertiary learning and the building of our global neighborhoods. Find out more about Rosa's coaching at Say Leadership Coaching.

Are You The Favorite Person of Anybody?

Took a look at this earlier today after it was shared on Plurk (hat-tip to Amber Lovell), and I can't get it out of my head. I've mostly thought about it in the context of the workplace, and how it is far, far too easy for us to take people for granted when we see them day in and day out, and they aren't those we consider to be family, or our best friends... though as you will see, the video makes you wonder about those relationships too...

We inherit so many others in our workplaces, whether they are co-workers, customers, suppliers or in other partnerships. Can you imagine how dramatically the workplace would improve, if every single manager made it their goal to have every person working with them answer, "Oh yes, definitely." and, "Oh yeah, I know that's the top answer, and that's the way I feel."

This also reminds me of that Gallup Organization Q12 question on if we have a best friend at work or not, and why that question is so important. From the Talking Story archives: Vital Friends, The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without.

So I ask you; Are you the favorite person of anybody? Whose favorite person would you like to be? Love to be? What are you doing about that?

If you'd prefer to sit with those questions for a while, or privately, how about sharing your reactions to this video? There are a lot of messages packed into these 4 minutes... If you are a manager, would you share it in a daily huddle or a staff meeting?

Your GET TO Guarantee: 9 Good-News Examples

I am incredibly behind in a number of things right now.

You know all those productivity articles I have written in the past? Well, you can quote them back to me unmercifully and laugh gleefully right now, at the thought of me falling off that proverbial work-hack wagon and scrambling behind it to get on my feet again… go on, I’ll wait for your laughter to subside. I deserve it. In fact, if you listen closely you’ll be able to tell I’m laughing right along with you, what the heck.

I can laugh with you, because of what I still get to do. I think of it as my Ka lā hiki ola Guarantee.

Here is the good news:

• My “incredibly behind” does not look anything like inactivity, apathy or complacency. I have lots to do, and lots I want to do. My situation is one of simple To-Do quantity versus personal bandwith right now (and both of those things are variable, not fixed).

• I am not bored. Can’t remember being bored since I was about 9 years old. Seriously.

• The person I am disappointing most right now is probably me. Goes to show you what great people my life is surrounded with and enriched by. Believe me, there are others I know I am disappointing (and I’m not thrilled about that), but they understand and have cut me some slack (and boy, am I ever happy about that.)

• That disappointment I have is more of the “oh dear, (sigh)” variety, and hardly any of the “my work habits really, truly suck” variety. A little secret: My habits are a bit sucky right now. A bigger, better secret: I have learned that getting down on myself is akin to biting the hand (and spirit) that feeds.

• I am producing stuff, and actually a lot of it. (Re-pitch: Have you been able to listen to our first VoiceThread yet? Steve, Joanna, Tim, Phil and Karen are there now too!)

• I am totally enchanted with my new hobby: Digital photography and engaging with the Flickr community. Hobbies are great: They make us feel more well-rounded, and like we are engaged with all of life and not just parts of it. You can still suffer from workaholic-like behavior even when your work is your personal Ho‘ohana like mine is. Hobbies help you be more normal versus obsessive or possessed.

• Business could be a lot better... same refrain you are probably hearing from a lot of coaches, trainers and consultants who go into automatic luxury status in their clients minds whenever the economy gets wobbly (ethically, I coach mine that we probably should be on hold as they take care of their basics - like employee paychecks). The good news with this one? All of a sudden, I can make time to do things I had on a wish list for 2012.

• Those productivity articles I wrote before? They are there in the archives waiting patiently for me to remember them, and when I do, they will be shiny and new all over again.

• When all I feel like doing is talking story with you here at the blog, I can, and I do. There is a lot that I HAVE to do, but there is even more that I GET to do.

GET to do is guaranteed in a way. Do you remember the very first thing I wanted you to know about Ka lā hiki ola?

You can CHOOSE to have the “dawning of a new day”
whenever you WANT to,
whenever you NEED to, and (this is important),
whenever you DECIDE to.

You GET to do that!

Whatever time it is right now, get a picture of the rising sun in your mind too. Your picture might take the form of Good News bullets like these I just wrote for myself, or they might be a real picture like this one… you gotta love yellow.

Photo Library: Ho‘ohana Publishing ©.
See my Flickr page for other CC-licensed photos.

Or it may be that you just look down at your own To Do List and realize that you’ve already done a lot of it, and just didn’t cross things out yet (that would be cool, huh!)

Another idea is to write a Stop Doing List (put that on your To Do List:)

Okay, better pull out those old productivity articles now. Guess I could get more done with them if I took this yoyo string off my hand now, you think?

How ‘bout mixing up in some Voice Stew with me?

Would you like to be part of Managing with Aloha history?

Click over to MWA Coaching, and you will see my first-ever VoiceThread! Other than interviews, it is really the first time I have ever given away any "MWA Audio."

If you’ve been reading Talking Story for a while, or have read my book, but have yet to hear me speak, here is your chance:

MWAC Tuesday Essay #3:
Say Ka lā hiki ola to make it yours.

This is a pilot for me (remember what we've said here before about pilot projects?) and if it is successful, I will add at least one VoiceThread each month to the Tuesday-coaching line-up in the MWAC Value Your Month, Value Your Life program. So if you'd like to see me continue with this - click over, have a listen and comment!

In the spirit of the month... Ka lā hiki ola, it is "the dawning of a new day."

Great Web Meetings: Learn more about them

You may be doing pretty good with talking story face to face. How are you doing with the virtual conversations that you need to have, especially when they are of the remote meeting variety?

These days, web-based meetings are a must to know about: Those days of needing to get on a plane to attend them are old-school inefficient, and a frightfully costly option that gets more and more expensive every day. Current fuel and transportation costs aside, your time is more valuable than that.

My good friend Wayne Turmel will be hosting a free webinar on June 26th, 2008 at 11am Eastern Time, and it will be a good opportunity to learn more. You've met him within my Talking Story pages before as the Cranky Middle Manager funny guy, but truth is that Wayne is very savvy about web communications. He has a new company called Great Web Meetings which offers professional training, coaching and tools so that you can use any web platform to deliver powerful, targeted and engaging presentations, training and demos.

The webinar on the 26th is actually being presented by Dimdim, but they've asked Wayne to host it knowing that he is a leading independent expert in the area of virtual communication. And yes, I did say it's free :)

Get more info here: The Freedom to Manage: Guerilla Managing Remote Teams. With Wayne involved, one thing you can be guaranteed of is that it will be fun too, and not just smart.

Postscript:
Trying to remember the last time I mentioned Wayne? It was here: Are you an Underappreciated Workplace Genius?