Our March Ho‘ohana: Visible Reinvention in Action

Aloha mai kākou,

Welcome to the month of March on Talking Story. Our monthly Ho‘ohana is going to be a bit different this month. I have a theme for you as usual, but this one is a bit more personal, and it very likely will stretch past these next 31 days of March (and on April 1st we will still roll out a new month’s Ho‘ohana).

Our March Ho‘ohana is called Visible Reinvention in Action. I’ve decided to go back to another beginning with Say Leadership Coaching, Managing with Aloha and the way they are presented here on Talking Story.

My book, Managing with Aloha, has now been in print for three months and ten days, and when this month’s Ho‘ohana is over, you may be wondering why I didn’t do this earlier. It has been a time for me as it should be for us all in business: talking story with customers and business partners, constant change in the marketplace, eager adjustment to that change, and eyes open for any possibility of a work reinvention which makes good business sense, and a good life for everyone involved.

These have been three+ months during which the success and resonance of Managing with Aloha (how ‘bout we make this easy and get used to the MWA acronym for starters?) has literally turned my business at Say Leadership Coaching upside down — and definitely for the better. It’s been three months of reshaping, reorganizing, and reinventing the coaching that we offer so that it is better for our clients and continually improving. With each new customer, we recommit to making the coaching, training, or speaking experience surpass the last one. With each new hands-on experience, we recommit to the excellence of management as a profession.

I’ve talked about and only skimmed the surface with some things, and there are other parts of our curriculum you’ve not yet heard about. This month one of my goals is to share much more information with you about the specifics of what we do. Some may consider it “proprietary information” — I consider it the opportunity of Talking Story. For instance, I use a four month coaching plan in my MWA Executive Coaching program. I’ll be publishing an outline of it for you, and the month’s posts will include a few of the coaching lessons that are normally incorporated.

Managing with Aloha is not just the name of my book: it is also the name of our coaching philosophy. We coach managers to bring nobility to management, and to lead with distinction by bringing the universal business values of MWA to real-time everyday practical application.

These past three months have seen a large increase in new subscribers to Talking Story, and I’d like to save them the trouble of hunting through the archives for old catch-up that I now know I can definitely improve upon, in a way that I’m pretty confident those of you who are my earlier “charter members” will enjoy as well. I have this goal to de-clutter your choices when you are online and help you focus on what you really need and want as a business person. Your time and your attention are valuable; that’s an awareness I don’t take lightly.

Am I setting myself up here with some big expectations? You bet I am.

As the month goes on, this month’s Ho‘ohana will seek to be a visible execution of the word for you: Ho‘ohana is to work with intent and with passion, and March will be about our re-working of the Talking Story, Say Leadership Coaching, and Managing with Aloha online presence right before your eyes. There will be some little things (have you noticed that some of our older Talking Story categories have been re-worded?) and there will be some bigger things (we’ll be introducing some totally new online pages to the site). I’ll be starting a company intranet because I’ve added some new players to the SLC ‘Ohana in Business, and we’ll all be experimenting with it freely, as a hopeful breeding ground for new Talking Story features.

We want to lead by example, and take some risks: every day I coach other business people to shatter old paradigms, act with urgency instead of planning things to death, learn to be less risk-adverse, and most of all, go for that multiplier effect, empowering their staff to the fullest, and treating them like the business partners they are capable of being. In successful businesses today, everyone involved works on the lifeline of the business itself, and not just routinely swamped in its inner routine and process monotony. The concept of an ‘Ohana in Business is expanded, and that ‘Ohana thrives with vibrancy.

So here on Talking Story and at Say Leadership Coaching, our theme this month of March is Visible Reinvention in Action, and we’re “walking our talk,” offering up my own company as a case study.

And no worries, we’ll lighten it up: Play is important, and we’ll have fun too (we’re actually very good at that).

As I played with several different ideas for this month’s Ho‘ohana, this thought came to me in one of those aha! moments: I’m not one of those bloggers who has any fear whatsoever that I might get reprimanded, fired, or suffer any other world-shattering repercussions from whatever goes on Talking Story: I don’t need to print one of those disclaimers (“These views are my own and do not reflect the position of my employer,” etc. etc. yada yada) because I’m the owner, founder, and blogger of the company. Not only is that a huge advantage for me, I figure it also means I should be seizing my Kuleana, my responsibility for leadership, in a more farsighted way.

So my Ho‘ohana Community, you are welcome and encouraged to come along on this joy ride with us this month. Ho‘ohana with us, for our passion is managing with Aloha. Yours can be too.

And as usual, Let’s Talk Story as we do so. Let me hear from you; for when all is said and done, Talking Story is for you, the managers and leaders who choose to have their best possible life in business. Please share your ideas with us.

Now you can play for a bit: did you notice that there wasn’t a single link in this post? Take a look around: your clicks will tell me where you go, and what you’re interested in. Or better yet, start to talk story with us: the comment fields are open.

We are going to have a stellar month; I can feel it!
Rosa 

Comments

[Jay]

WOW! Rosa, I'm excited :)

You can take me anywhere you want, I'm along for the ride!

[Rosa]

Mahalo for the encouragement Jay! Shotgun is yours!

[Dave]

Reinvention is such a good thing. It seems to draw tighter focus on what has been done and lends clarity to what could be.

So Rosa, tell us your thoughts on minimizing or eliminating links!

[Rosa]

Aloha Dave, there’s a couple of answers to your question for me …

- As a blog author, I love links- they keep me from being too redundant, because I can link to refer someone back to something that was written previously (by me, or better by someone else) without having to repeat it in another post. I think that helps regular readers fast-track too.

- As much as I love studying about SEO (search engine optimization) and how links bring more internet spiders crawling your way (Wayne at Blog Business World is so good at teaching us about those things) because it’s pretty fascinating stuff, my own goal is always to link for the benefit of the Ho‘ohana Community and the chance new readers that are already here reading Talking Story, not to strategically bring in the masses. Besides my regular feed readers, I have many email subscribers who have told me that they visit Talking Story for a sort of cheatsheet and quick review of where to find other good stuff online that’s similar to what I write about in Managing with Aloha. The end-of-month Talking Story recaps I started this year have been pretty well received, and so have the Weekend Learning Links on Business Values.

- That being said, I’ve also been receiving emails from readers saying that now that they’ve read my book they want more new writing from me, so I’m trying to deliver on that too.

- In particular, I do know my monthly Ho‘ohana is received by many @work email addresses, and people are sensitive to staying online too long on the job. With this post I had been thinking about that, and

- There are so many people who are “friendly lurkers” and in “the silent community” --- they don’t comment or email, but they stop by frequently to read. As blog authors know, I can follow most (not all) of the clicking within Talking Story, and those clicks are another kind of customer voice that talks to me. In particular, that’s the “voice” that helps me de-clutter Talking Story on a monthly basis - removing the links that don’t get used, and maintaining the ones that people seem to use pretty often.

Whew - long answer! But thank you for asking the question Dave!
Rosa

[Wayne Hurlbert]

One of the most interesting aspects of search engine optimization for blogs is the act of helping others improves a blog's search engine rankings.

Isn't that cool?

Links help a blog's ranking, as does the frequent addition of keyword rich themed content. In essence, the more you offer your blog readership, the more SEO goodwill flows back to you.

As I always say on my blog, and often in direct opposition to some (but not all) other SEOs, is the more a website or blog helps others, the more help one receives back in the search engines.

[Dave]

Man Wayne, I'm thinking Rosa's Talking Story is going to come up number one in every business category one can think of!

[Roger Potter]

Visible Reinvention in Action

The first thing you must remember and accept is that
somewhere in the world, something is changing whether you
want it to or not.

You form a company with a clear vision and focus, and for
awhile (maybe 1 to 5 years) things are going ok and
expected. Then within this time frame things start going
not as planned. If you are smart you take notice of this
and either modify your business or change it as needed.

But what if you were faced with the fact that you had to
literally reinvent yourself and or your company.

What would you do if you had to go into (for yourself) uncharted waters - because someone else has found an item
that they are better at than you and they are capitalizing on it.

What would you do if the wheels of your organization were
churning out the results that you wanted but you had to
duplicate yourself and people who either had an interest/
or wanted to help you either came from a slightly diferrent point of view (but agreeded with you on most
everything) were willing to help, but they also might have an rougher edge.

From a lay perspective - Invention means either taking an item that didn't exist before and creating an item that now exists or taking items already existing and
creating a labor saving device. Reinvention means taking a look at what you have and changing that to allow for the changing times/attitudes/what have you.

When I was at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard - the shipyard, just before I left started implemeningting W
Edwards Demning Principals. We had been told that Demning went first to the corporations and they asked if
that would mean that workers would have a voice in what
happened - yes they were told - they refused it. Next
Demning people went to the unions and they asked if it
would reduce overtime - yes they were told - they refused
it. Next his people went to Japan and they asked if it
would help them become more productive - and they said
yes - Japan said 'welcome' - the rest is history.

When you reinvent you must keep that Core belief, Core
mission - however you also must be willing to look and see what is being productive and what is not. You must
be willing to speak with more force and authority than
you did before, and you must be willing to say with
Professionalism that someone is wrong if they are wrong,
whether it's in your organization or in the organization
of a company that is hiring you.

You must be willing to take the Bull by the Horns if need
be and do what must be done.

Admittedly, reinvention may not be the easiest thing to do, but your business may ultimely depend on it for its
very survival, if not growth.