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Hawai‘i Island’s Community Magazine
The Life
The Aloha Spirit in Business
KeOlaMagazine.com | November-December 2019
By Rosa Say
56
Carved Signs • Sculptures • Cabinets • Doors • Tables • Urns Rocking Chairs • Benches • Koa Boxes • Cutting Boards Our products are on sale at many galleries around the Island!
Accepting custom orders from designers, contractors, homeowners & galleries.
Visit us at rkwoodshawaii.com In Business since 1974
Ray Kobayashi, Owner
(808) 959-4060
Infusing the Aloha Spirit into the world of business starts at the beginning. The earliest germination of what would become Managing with Aloha as a workplace philosophy, began with my personal quest to infuse the Aloha Spirit into making one’s livelihood in the world of business. I was fresh out of college, yet I instinctively felt that was where I had to start were I to establish my working life in Hawai‘i. Business intrigued me, and I wanted to work within it; however, I didn’t feel that great about how it usually happened. I’d find I wasn’t alone in my struggle to blend my chosen career with my life. Back then, working in any field of business largely meant business aligned with Western values—if it was valuealigned at all. Whether written or spoken, “value” or “values” commonly meant monetary value. The Hawaiian Renaissance of the past few decades was nascent, and as I wrote in Managing with Aloha, “‘Business as usual’ does not mean ‘business colored with the spirit of Aloha,’ yet it should.” Can we say that’s no longer the case, and that Aloha and Hawaiian values permeate Hawai‘i’s workplaces today? I do believe we have made significant progress; however, the truth of the matter is that we need to work on infusing business with the Aloha Spirit constantly and more consistently. How does that happen? Start at the beginning. Strategically, this is a pretty easy thing to do. We have several ‘beginnings’ in business. Recruitment. Hiring. Orientation. An employee’s first day in a new job, or with a new boss. A promotion or transfer into a new department. That first performance appraisal. A customer’s first impression on the web or phone, and their first walk through our doors. A first marketing pitch or advertising launch. A first tangible step in each strategic plan. A first conversation with a new partner or supplier. A first focus group before branching into a new community. A first failure. A first success…when you really think about it, businesses begin anew all the time. If each of these firsts begin with a healthy infusion of the Aloha Spirit, they can begin in the best possible way. This is the real, in-the-trenches, every day way we bring the Aloha Spirit to business. We sweat the details, and we pull