Management book by Rosa Say. Ho’ohana Publishing.
This is a moving and important book. The author, a business coach, left the corporation she worked for as “vice president of operations, responsible for a budget in excess of $20 million.”
Rosa Say’s mission now is to bring to management some Hawaiian warmth and the Hawaiian sensibility for work. The five components of her management system:
n Aloha. Share with your staff the mood of aloha,genuine empathy, affection, kindness and a sense of welcome.
n Personal contact. Conduct final hiring interviews yourself. Convey the spirit of the organization personally, and make sure new hires connect with the group mission. Stay in touch.
n Quality. Make quality standards crystal clear, and set the bar high.
n Consequences. Make success celebrations first class. For those who are struggling, seek their best effort, but be honest. Some people just can’t do it.
n ‘Ohana. Sincerely make your work team your “family.” Ultimately, this is what keeps turnover down, and keeps customers coming back.
Say is very Hawaiian and clearly loves her culture. Her book is packed with concepts, though all are discussed using their Hawaiian names (making the provided glossary essential.) Plunging through the terminology can be difficult. And it’s sometimes hard to glean exactly how her corporate management specifics can be combined with her cultural concepts into one reasonably concise, learnable model.
Still, Say may well deserve a wider audience. The warmth and affection of the Hawaiian people fill every page of the book. With Enron and Arthur Andersen as tragic, cautionary tales, perhaps the time is ripe for the kind of values Say proposes.
,Steve Davidson
Davidson is a Newport Beach psychologist
