The culture of Hawaii holds a profound leadership lesson about care, high performance and retention.

The Financial Times ran a cover story recently above the fold with a headline that read: “Can You Make Staff Care About Their Jobs?” What company do you know that doesn’t have an issue with turnover, work ethic or performance in general?

There are exceptions, however. Amazing companies do exist that – regardless of concept, location, transaction time or check average – have figured out how to accomplish high retention (28 percent or less annual turnover), and subsequently rip sales at the top line and drive profit to the bottom.

What’s the secret to amazing companies? How do you get the staff to care enough to work toward becoming one? In this column, I outline two stories about how the derivation of language can guide us to better leadership.

Aloha Spirit
The culture of Hawaii holds a profound leadership lesson about care, high performance and retention. No, I’m not suggesting a vacation for you – at least not at the moment. The lesson is about the way you and I can choose to be at work or on vacation. The Hawaiian language holds one clue for us.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone reading this column has not heard the word, “Aloha.” This simple Hawaiian word is the mainland equivalent of “hello, greetings, and goodbye!” Aloha also translates to “love” and “care.”

Haole (how-oh-lee) is another often-heard word on the island. But this word often has a very different impact. It translates to “white person/Caucasian/non-Portuguese.”

As a big white kid growing up in Hawaii, I guarantee you that depending on the tone of voice of the speaker, Haole can be derogatory and offensive. Equally dependent on tone, the term haole can simply be a data-based descriptor, as in: “Rudy is a haole boy.”

Just like most languages, Hawaiian has evolved. “Ha” literally translates to “breath.” Aloha literally translates to “one with breath.” Haole literally translates to “one without breath.”

Now consider a little background: Hawaiians lived off the land (in general) in paradise for a long time. Water, air, flowers, food, land, love, laughter and dance were abundant. A case could be made that these were a people in balance with nature. Then, along came white missionaries, dressed head-to-toe in wool year-round.

Missionaries told Hawaiians that their culture was wrong. No more hula, no more surfing, no more sun on the skin, open celebration or anything else that was seen by the missionaries as indolence.

As obvious as the contradiction is now, a sad irony occurred when the Hawaiians gave away their land to the missionaries. Certainly this action would shift these people from haole to aloha.

The missionaries didn’t shift, but did accept the land, and, from a place of haole, simply wanted more. The Hawaiians stopped dancing the hula, hoping the missionaries would then understand the opportunity of aloha. They didn’t; they actually gained more power, outlawed hula and stayed haole.

Thus, the evolution of language brings us to haole meaning white person and aloha meaning love, hello, and goodbye.

At least now you know why this is the case. Three hundred years later, it’s my hope that reading this story you can appreciate the root translation of aloha and the dream of working in a job you have passion for, purposefully, joyfully, of being connected. I see my job as a leader to model breathing service, hospitality and passion for what I do. It’s my hope you do, too.

‘Be Restored’
What’s our next clue from language? Do you know the root definition of restaurant? When you look it up, you’ll find it translates from Latin to French, “A place one goes to be restored.”

Restaurateur literally translates to “restorer of soul.” Whether you’re in the restaurant business or not – if you’re reading this column – you are in some way or another in the service industry, providing an experience through your brand.

Through your brand experience – in your service delivery, production, etc. – are you restoring people? Are you sharing the deeper purpose of what you do, what your team does on a daily basis, or are you simply making whatever you make, selling whatever you sell to take the money and run? If you’ve chosen the later, my bet is you’re not likely to have much care or retention in your staff.

Leadership Responsibilities
I want my people to care, and I want retention on my team. Both drive my top- and bottom-line performance. You can read similar ideas in many leadership texts, but theory be damned.

What I’m sharing isn’t theory; as a leader, this is my job! Let’s look at six leadership responsibilities:
1. If you work here, you’re not doing a dead-end job. You can make a difference. Just name the job. Without that job, other jobs don’t get done. Every job is critical to the experience of both my customers and my team. Subsequently, you are important – really important. Be an artist on the line instead of a burger flipper.

2. Define excellence,every step of the way. Just because I’m the boss, doesn’t mean you can read my mind. Get specific; share the details you expect in order to achieve the overall outcome that must occur.

3. Keep communication lines open. Appreciate questions and challenges. Explain why every job is important.

4. Keep interviewing even if you think you don’t need people. An urgent replacement, hiring a “pulse” because I need someone, undercuts excellence. Once excellence is defined, have applicants demonstrate how their definitions of excellence compare to yours. If the comparison isn’t close, keep interviewing. If you think you’ve got a good hire and you realize you don’t, cut your losses now – not later. Instead of a “help wanted” sign, post a “we’re always hiring A+ players” sign. When you find someone and celebrate them, you’ll find more. This is not theory, it’s reality.

5. Be an inspiring coach instead of a cop. Have systems that anticipate costs, in place to control production. That is part of excellence. Coach to the positive and course correct the negative. Keep your eyes on excellence, work to become clearer and clearer about your expectations.

6. Be kind instead of trying to be nice. Define excellence, be direct from a place of care and you’ll find you’ll get effort and care back.

Keep the Vision Alive
From what is now close to 30 years in our industry, here’s what I know from experience: We hear a lot more moaning than we do celebration about staff attitude. Can I make people care about their jobs? Can I actually build retention? Yes, but remember, care and retention don’t happen by accident. Share the vision of aloha, and be connected to the reality that this work is important and that your team is likewise important.

Be committed to the concept: “I can restore my guest’s attitude, energy and/or connection with family or self. I need to not be scared that people will think this is corny.” Instead, breathe evenly, fully and celebrate the importance of the work your people do.

Rudy M. Miick, FCSI, president of Miick & Associates, can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text40230 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 720-641-7565.