Hawaii Spa Association

Tag: covid

  • Silver Linings and Our New Normal

    **The following content is from Rosa Say’s weekly newsletter**

    Aloha mai kākou, Let’s talk story. This week… there are choices to be made, and new habits to be forged in our lessons with social distancing and sheltering at home. There is also much good to be found!

    “This will be the end of Twitter if outbreaks of courtesy like this don’t stop.” —Tom Nichols, when a disagreement broke through to more clarity and understanding.

    The phrase “life comes at you fast” has settled into the forefront of my awareness this week; you too? I’ve also counted the blessing of our value of the month practice once again, in how serendipitous it can be; if there was ever a time to dwell on ‘Imi ola choices with “Seeking your best possible life,” surely, this is it!

    Suggested MWA Review: ‘Imi ola, the Value of Mission and Vision. #achoicewasmade

    Ho‘ohana Conversations

    Our New Normal

    I’ve never before thought of myself as an “elder at risk” or as ‘non-essential’ yet here we are! Here in the Say household, I’m on day 22 sheltering in place voluntarily; my last ‘business as usual’ outing was on February 26th, a Wednesday. By the time the week ended every one of my future business engagements had been canceled, and understandably so—I initiated the calls to any clients I’d not yet heard from. Yesterday was day 1 for my husband, as the day his employer trimmed his normally full-time schedule to an on-call (and unlikely) one. His personal ramifications aside, he is one who feels his employer, a hotelier, should be closing their doors completely for the best welfare of all… we’ve been amazed by the number of wealthier travelers who selfishly, callously – and erroneously – feel they can somehow escape the pandemic here in Hawai‘i given our location as the remotest inhabited place on earth, expecting others to serve them without disruption or any inconvenience.

    According the New York Times, a new study suggests that the coronavirus is “hiding in plain sight,” and that for every known case of Covid19, another 7 to 10 cases are “out there” undetected. Please, please follow the hygienic requirements and social distancing recommendations now shared to keep yourself healthy as we ride out the evolution of this novel virus. It’s the most generous, giving thing each individual can do, for in a ‘novel virus’ we have not gone through a cycle of responding biologically with our own human immunity. For now, and perhaps forevermore, everyone must think of themselves as an easily crossed bridge to someone who is more vulnerable.

    Coronavirus timeline at NBC News: Tracking the critical moments of COVID-19.

    Good Read at The Guardian: The family lockdown guide: how to emotionally and structurally prepare for coronavirus quarantine. An oldie but goodie: You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!

    Habits are powerful – think of them as human magic. Lifestyle adjustments and habit changes can be challenging, yet this is also a time to ask yourself, “Should this be a change I keep forevermore?” each time you encounter a silver lining, such as new standards of cleanliness, polite social distancing, and other Kākou behaviors. Learn from history, and let past accomplishments inspire you: From the Washington Post: During a pandemic, Isaac Newton had to work from home, too. He used the time wisely.

    Silver Linings

    Adversity does 2 things for us: It proves how much we are capable of as human beings, and it exposes shortfalls we have not worked on and solved. Our radar intensifies during hard times, and we will see, and freshly analyze and reconsider issues that were previously relegated to our someday/maybe wish lists before.

    “When we talk about ‘getting back to normal,’ we need to rethink the effect of human encroachment on the natural habitats of other living creatures.” – @HawaiiDelilah commenting on the dolphins returning to Sardinian waters without the toxic polluting of ships and ferries. “Wow… Earth is recovering – Air pollution is slowing down – Water pollution is clearing up – Natural wildlife returning home… Coronavirus is Earth’s vaccine… We’re the virus.” – Thomas Schultz

    In Work

    When you don’t “have” to, you “get” to. The silver lining in my own 22 days at home and counting, has been the opportunity to work on my passion issues via more research, data collection and study. The mainstay of my work is value alignment, the role of the manager, and workplace culture-building as reflected in the 9 Key Concepts, whereas my passion issues include financial literacy, a living wage for all labor done, and the reconstruction of business models – I consider them the most pressing concepts within the ‘Ohana in Business® model;

    As Steven Pinker has said, “If you’re committed to progress, you can’t very well claim to have it all figured out.” Like many of you right now, I do think about our loss of revenue as my husband and I learn to better appreciate our time at home together away from the work which normally pays our bills. Yet I must say I am loving the time I now have to work on my passion issues, and on other hot buttons!

    (e.g. I fully agree with the caveats and conditions Senator Elizabeth Warren outlines here, when she says, “We’re not writing blank checks to giant corporations. Any taxpayer dollars that go to help big businesses during the coronavirus crisis should come with the following minimum requirements…”) What are your passion projects, and how might you be able to work on them right now? Suggested MWA Review on those shortfalls adversity tends to illuminate for us: Ho‘omau, the Value of Perseverance, and Ho‘omau; Love the one you’re with: “Love the one you’re with” is better coaching than “practice continuous improvement.” It sounds more intriguing, and well worth one’s effort. Yet the two phrases are the same, both framing an essential business practice; necessary reiteration, the constant tweaking to get ever better at whatever it is we do.

    At Home

    In one of the more recent governmental responses to the pandemic, comes the decision by the Trump administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to help make up for potential medical supply shortages and deploy two hospital ships as the US battles the coronavirus pandemic. As my at-home habits for the long haul evolve, my own thoughts have been on victory gardens:

    “For the average American in World War II, the Victory Garden was a practical way to contribute to the war effort. Some 20 million Victory Gardens were planted (US population in 1940 was 132 million), and by 1943, these little plots produced 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in the US. It’s estimated that 9-10 million tons of vegetables were grown.” – Victory Gardens in World War II, UC Master Gardener Program of Sonoma County

    Yesterday morning for example, I was ready to pull out one of 3 eggplant shrubs still thriving in my garden after planting them last Fall – they are prolific producers, and there is only so much eggplant our family can eat. I fertilized, watered, and let them be, challenging myself to think more broadly instead – surely I can share them with more friends and neighbors.

    My Auhili Garden is as far as I’m walking for exercise right now. We’ve planted tomatoes, turnips, radishes, snap peas and microgreens this week, all quick growers and high producers. Birds are nesting, gently (and noisily!) reminding us that life goes on and we must nurture it best we can.

    This useful, calming advice, which I recommend it highly, comes from historian Shane Landrum, PhD;

    “Start keeping a journal today, ideally a hand written one if that’s within your ability. Write about what you’re seeing in the news, how your family and friends are responding, what is closed in your neighborhood or city or state or country. Save it…Do it by hand, on paper. The hand-writing will adjust your brain. It will take you offline and out of the swirl of news and hopefully, for a moment, into a little bit of peace in the midst of crisis.” He explains; “I worked at a news organization on 9/11/2001, and I recognize the ways that my very online professional networks communicate in a time of global crisis. What’s going on this week is like that. The feeling in my gut about historical importance is nearly the same…Sometimes you know you’re living through an event that will be in the history books very large. I study the history of public health and information technology and law and politics. There’s so much going on that touches all of those things this week.”

    Be a historian and an analog curator for you and for your family.

    Bonus link on Managing With Aloha: Curate, and Be Curated.

    In my own curation, I am seeking out silver linings and acts of generosity and kindness during this pandemic, such as this one: Old Fourth Distillery usually produces premium vodka, gin and bourbon. Now, it’s hand sanitizer. Please send me a pointer on what you find businesses are doing to be better.

    Mālama pono – take care of yourself. I’ll end with some coaching from fitness expert Brad Stulberg on Wellness—the kind that actually works. (Last I checked, the link to Outside Online was broken, however I captured his tips on this MWA blog post). Have a great week, we Ho‘ohana Kākou, Rosa

  • The Role of the Manager, Redesigned and Reconstructed

    ** The following is from Rosa Say’s weekly newsletter, to get these directly to your inbox please go here **

    Aloha mai kākou, let’s talk story. One can easily view the world in two camps right now, those who want to return to how things were pre-pandemic as quickly as possible, our ‘old normal,’ and those chomping at the bit for the creation of a ‘new normal.’ I’ve made no secret of where I sit: I want a new normal which is better, in that it’s more sustainable and equitable, not just safer. Truth is, the pandemic didn’t create my views, it simply fortified them: I’ve been on a soapbox talking about management reconstruction (the profession) and business model reinvention for a long time, years which predate my publishing of Managing with Aloha. I’ve written about it as my latest essay for Ke Ola Magazine.

    Ho‘ohana Conversations

    In my Series 3 essays for Ke Ola Magazine, I committed to a focus on work’s detail via Managing with Aloha’s 9 Key Concepts. I’ll add the series introduction link below in case you missed it. The May Through August 2020 issue was distributed earlier this week, and it presents my 5th article for the series as its Business Feature. Here it is for you, in full so you need not click away:

    (A copy is also archived on RosaSay.com: The Role of the Manager, Redesigned and Reconstructed.)

    The Role of the Manager, Redesigned and Reconstructed

    People ask me, “What’s a good jump-start to help me deep dive into a Managing with Aloha practice?”

    First, read the book for an overall picture of what the philosophy is all about, and read it with purpose: What are your goals? Freshly articulate them.

    Second, identify your core values personally and professionally: Understand which beliefs and convictions propel you forward, for they drive your life and your work when pursuing Ho‘ohana, the value of worthwhile work. Identifying your values is the first step to harnessing their energy; get them to help you feel the work you do is for you and on you as your ethos.

    Third, start doing the Daily 5 Minutes immediately, the conversational practice described in Chapter 11 of the book on ‘Ike loa, the value of learning. It will help you become a “good receiver” practicing no-agenda listening as it keeps you connected to the practical relevancy of your everyday work and essential relationships. If you do not have direct reports, do it with your peers. I cannot overstate how useful this is: your Daily 5 Minutes helps you prioritize and “keep it real” with right task/right time focus, illuminating the action steps you need to take each day thereafter as it simultaneously strengthens your partnerships.

    Finally, commit to Key Concept 4, The Role of the Manager Reconstructed, for that’s where the magic of true “with Aloha” management for the better happens. This is the key which opens the door to all 9 concepts. Let’s examine this part of the Managing with Aloha jumpstart more fully.

    Can you guess who has the worst, most useless Job Position Description (JPD) in every company universally, and no matter what the mission and vision of that company may be? Managers.

    They often have no JPD at all, for managers are largely expected to write it for themselves—to show up where needed, and then be there as stopgap or emergency valve. They babysit—everyone cringes when I use that word, yet if they’re honest, they’ll admit that’s what they mostly do. They aspire to leadership by neglecting its foundation in good management.

    Therefore, when we at Say Leadership Coaching take on a coaching project, we initiate the same jumpstart just recommended to you:

    We identify that company’s mission and vision; we identify the core values we need to align all our recommendations and actions with; we teach and coach the Daily 5 Minutes to involve people immediately with difference-making participation; and we take steps to reimagine, redesign, reconstruct and then implement a renewed role for all managers in the company as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.

    Are JPDs a traditional tool in your company? Keep using them IF you continually revise them to ensure they’re relevant and useful. JPDs should be personalized to the mission of your company and to a person’s Ho‘ohana when seen as their professional mission statement. Therefore, I can’t propose a draft for you. Yet I can give you the guideline we share. Use this in your Key 4 reconstruction as goal-setting: Is this result what your JPD would achieve?

    “Managers must own workplace engagement and be comfortable with facilitating change, creative innovation, and development of the human asset. The ‘reconstruction’ we require in Managing with Aloha is so this expectation of the Alaka‘i Manager is both reasonable and possible, and so they can channel human energies as a company’s most important resource, they themselves having the time, energy, and support needed in doing so. Convention may work against us, where historically, people have become managers for reasons other than the right one: Managing people is their calling. A new role for managers must be explicitly valued by the entire organization as critically important to their better success: Managers can then have personal bandwidth for assuming a newly reinvented role, one which delivers better results both personally and professionally, and in their stewardship of the workplace culture.”

    Managers should be creative initiators, coaches and culture stewards. Realistically, they may become babysitters, stopgaps and emergency valves at times, but those become very rare and short-term conditions in reconstruction—even ‘temporary’ and ‘acting’ is unreasonable and unhealthy in workplace cultures managed with Aloha—correct course and/or fill your vacancies quickly.

    The role of the manager has become crucial in our time, when Human Resources is no longer the manager’s stopgap, emergency valve or resource, primarily focused as they are on laws, regulations, benefit costs and negotiation.

    I say, bring it on. I have the utmost faith in Alaka‘i Managers as those who can do ‘human resources’ better than it has ever been done before.

    We ho‘omau kākou.

    Ke Ola Series 3 to date:

    Quote sticking with me lately:

    “In the David-versus-Goliath battle between big and small businesses in America, COVID-19 is, contrary to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent assessment, no “great equalizer.” It’s a toxin for underdogs and a steroid for many giants.” —Derek Thompson sums up my fears in his article for The Atlantic: The Pandemic Will Change American Retail Forever, one of the best post-pandemic-projection commentaries I’ve read in both content (it’s not just about retail) and due to Thompson’s exceptional writing.

    “Because the pandemic pauses the present, it forces us to live in the future.”

    Have a great week, we Ho‘ohana Kākou, Rosa Say Leadership Coaching | Managing with Aloha | RosaSay.com

  • Test Your Protocols: Town Hall

    Disclaimer: Hi-SPA is not endorsing this product specifically but shares support to our members to feature opportunities that may benefit others.

    The Hawaii Spa Association Team would like to invite you to a Town Hall we are having on November 17th. Everyone is spending more time and money implementing sanitation plans throughout their facilities. How can you tell if your plan is working? ATP Tests are the benchmark that medical, food service and hospitality industries have used for years. This easy to use technology will let you know if your plan is working and possibly if you can spend less in time and on material.  

    Daniel Wing and Cheyenne Adams from Hygiena will be joining us to discuss this technology and best practices. Hygiena delivers rapid microbial detection, monitoring, and identification solutions to a wide range of industries, including food and beverage, health care, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, and personal care.

    Nov. 12, 2020