Are you diversifying where you are learning your OD practices from? Can OD tap more into local communities and cultures without being by the book? This October, Organisational Culture Expert and CEO of People Strategies Hawaiʻi, Ku’ulani Keohokalole will be talking at Roffey Park about how indigenous values and wisdom resonate with the practice of organisation development and how we, as organisational development practitioners, can apply these cultural values and knowledge in the work we do and – in line with the overarching theme of the conference – to the communities around us.
Native Hawaiian, Ku’ulani, will be drawing upon her own lived experiences to bring you examples of real organisational change done in ‘non-traditional ways’ informed by cultural values. Are you ready for your assumptions and perhaps euro-centric attitudes towards OD to be challenged?
Ku’ulani’s journey
It is unsurprising to understand the level of compassion, care and attention that Ku’ulani has for people and the value that surrounds focusing on people in organisations. Her mother and grandmother both worked with the community as social outreach workers with her mother going on to work with homeless people around Hawaii. Ku’ulani told us, “When I was little, my mum and grandma would have conversations at the dinner table about all the people they were working with and the changes that they wanted to see in the community. I was really inspired by that and wanted to do that kind of work too.”
Fast forward and Ku’ulani began her career working for Not-for-Profit Organisations around increasing education for communities that do not have good enough access to it. A moment of realisation hit Ku’ulani and the organisation she was with at the time, Liliʻuokalani Trust. They were seeing the grandchildren of the clients that they saw generations before them and so asked themselves if they were solving the communities’ issues or adding to the problem. Subsequently, Ku’ulani was invited to shift her job purpose to focus on the employees of the organisation, mindset and perspective and as a result more externally on real change in the community. In 2015, Ku’ulani became the director of OD.
As time passed, Ku’ulani joined the Bank of Hawaii – the largest bank in the area. She told us, “They saw what I was doing as director of OD and wanted me to do similar work for them. I had never worked in anything other than NPOs, so I was interested in trying something new.” Here, Ku’ulani worked within HR and would be deployed to different areas of the bank to work on the people side of things. She knew that by diversifying her industry experience, she could grow the skillset and confidence to go out on her own.
In 2019 Ku’ulani founded her consulting practice, People Strategies, Hawaii. She explained, “Part of the inspiration for starting my practice came from when I was an employee working in various settings, a lot of the time I did not have the best managers. Sometimes leaders get into positions of authority because they are good at what they do but they do not understand how to lead people. Therefore, my vision is to create more good leaders in managerial roles such that it is the norm over the exception.”
Ku’ulani and OD
Inspired by her mother and grandmother, Ku’ulani’s practice is grounded in really thinking about mindsets and a truly caring approach to people and organisations. She told us, “My motto is to people first, which is why I put people in the first word of my organisation, because I want to emphasise that it is about people. It is also about processes and other things but if we don’t focus on the people, we will not be as effective.”
A lot of Ku’ulani’s beliefs and approaches come from her proud background and native Hawaiian heritage. She explained, “I think we can learn a lot from indigenous cultures. For example, there is a cultural value in Hawaii that is still relevant today is the concept of waiting for the moment. Sometimes our dominant way of being, especially in the corporate world, is to fill any given moment with words or actions rather than waiting for the right moment.”
It can seem simple but these skills and concepts can allow us to tap back into the cultures that served us well for so long. In this example, waiting for the moment is not about doing, it is about being, about existing and being present, listening to each other, reflecting and not having to fill the space for the sake of it. The ability to breathe, pause and reflect is one that is starting to phase out of modern organisations.
If there is one thing that Ku’ulani would like to hone in on during her talk at the Roffey Park OD Conference, is that there is wisdom that we can all elevate through OD work. Ku’ulani explained, “OD work does not have to be generic; we can bring forward these deeper cultural values and concepts and use them in practice. I was talking to a group recently about setting purpose, vision and strategy and we used the metaphor of long-distance sailing and navigating your way using the stars instead of GPS. Sailing is a huge part of Hawaiian culture and tapping into that, into something that is deeper and meaningful for people can be more powerful than standard practice.”
Join the exciting Ku’ulani at our upcoming OD Conference and find out how you can connect with the deeper-rooted cultures in your community through the power of OD work within organisations.
