Loyalty

Due to the natural of my role, I get to involve with many recruitment activities. Through these activities, I recognized that “LOYALTY” is one of the key considerations during talent selection, which in fact I totally disagree.

If the candidate were so loyal to his current company, then why would he seek to join another organization?

Interviewers would often show great interest to enquire the reasons for those short period experiences, but none would take those reasons. Interviewer won’t accept someone who speaks the downfall of another company, because they afraid the person will do the same in the future. Interviewer won’t accept any make up story, because they knew those were stories. These people will simply be labeled as low loyalty people, which is totally bias.

An internal customer should be recognized equally as an external customer in defining “LOYALTY”. An external customer who often visits a specific shop does not represent any form of loyalty to the shop at all. There could be many reasons behind such guest’s visit, such as price, location, product and even unforeseen force.

The “LOYALTY” would only be form when there is an engagement. On the other hand, engagement would often be form when there is a challenge.

A personal example would be well enough to explain the above statement.

Last year, I have a chance to visited Bali for a short vacation. I made a choice of hotel to stay base on the location and price. The hotel I stayed was nice and the staff was friendly, and I knew I might probably choose the same hotel again for my next visit, if the price is right.

At the last day of my vacation, I encountered a huge challenge. While I conducted currency exchange with one of the local store, I was cheated and lost quite a big amount of money. The staff in hotel over heard my conversation with friends regard to such incident, and supportively offered assistant. My money was back with the help of hotel.

After this incident, my loyalty to this hotel was formed. I will definitely choose to stay with this hotel for my next visit to Bali. Furthermore, I will preferably choose to stay with such hotel brand whenever I travel. Of course, I have also recommended the brand to others.

The above story shows how an engaging experience assist in forming loyalty. The same would apply to the working environment. Those with short period service may encounter challenges, and their previous employers just never take the effort to help or even just show some care. Therefore, the person decided to leave.

There is nothing wrong for a person to leave an establishment if there is no mutual goal in between.

Through my experience, I have also encountered people who spend years in an organization, but express no loyalty at all. These people complain about their company in public everyday, and never recommended anyone to join. The only reason that keeps them there was money, or they just could not find another opportunity anymore.

I would strongly recommend those who involve in recruitment activities to focus only on talents and personality. The years of service should only be a small factor while hiring. The leaders through engagement and care will develop loyalty of the employee.

How to - Apology

I have attended many training and seminar regard to handle guest complain. Most of the training provides me similar content; especially the steps of handling guest complain. I am sure, many of you can simply name me the step that was commonly share, such as listen, apologize, empathy, ownership, resolve and follow up. They are not wrong. In fact, these are the most effective way to assist a guest while in situation of complain.

However, today we will be focusing on “APOLOGIZE” & “Empathy”.

Most of the training I have attended provides me some phrase to use to express my regret and empathy; “If I was in the same situation, I will also feel uncomfortable”, “I am really sorry for the condition, and I truly understand how you feel”, and etc. I am sure, they sound very familiar.

Anyway, don’t use them, PLEASE.

One will never truly understand how one another feel, due the difference between man to man. By using words to express your empathy would not work in any scenario, particularly when guest complain. Because no guest believes you are truly sorry for your company for the things happen to them. Therefore, by saying you understand or feel how they feel, it normally will only make things worst.

“Apology”, is definitely the answer to calm a guest when in difficult situation. Though many of people do not know how to apologize to one another. “Sorry” is just a word without any meaning. Person you apologize would actually want to know the “Reason” behind your “Sorry”.

“I am sorry for the inconvenience caused by the faulty air condition in the room”, “I am sorry to know that your purchased computer did not meet your expectation”, “I am sorry for the inconvenience resulted by our return policy”, and etc. Above are some examples to perform a proper apology to your guest.

It works much better than pretending responsiveness by saying you understand how one feel in the situation given, and of course better than just “Sorry”. Most of guest knew that you are not the cause of their problem, and they were actually mad at the situation or at your company. In such case, apologize to the cause would identify your understanding to the guest feeling. It will also assist one to portrait an image that “I” stand on guest’s side in such situation.

Next time before you say sorry to someone, don’t forget to understand the cause of it and apologize to the cause. Let me know if this helps you.

Listening Skill

Listening skill is one skill that majority of people will ignore, or I should re-phrase myself, as majority of people do not find themselves with problem to perform such skill. But in fact, most of people have poor listening skill.

People often believe that they have fine listening skill as they have been practicing it since they were born. The 1st skill that one obtained right after birth is “Listening Skill”. Then through age, one then learns to speak, read and write. Therefore, one would attend writing class as it was found most difficult, and in school one was graded mostly base on the writing skill.
However one can find many books or training program provide tips and knowledge to improve one’s writing, reading or even speaking skill effectively, but never a book focusing only on listening skill. It was due to the nature of the brain. Listening skill is not something can be taught, because it require personal discipline.

80% of time when someone is talking, listener’s brain will work simultaneously on the reply. The brain will formulate the reply base on experience and knowledge instead of the message from the speaker. In such respect, one is not actually listening to the message.

Although I mentioned earlier that “Listening Skill” cannot be taught, and require self-discipline. But there are still some tips that I would like to share to improve one’s listening skill.

1. Do not interrupt the speaker: Allowing speaker to finish the message is the key to effective listening. Many of time, one’s mind will obtain few key words base on the 1st or 2nd line of the message, and automatically generate the entire message with a reply. This will often cause interruption to the speaker, because one would consider that the message from the speaker is exactly as the message generated in mind, and can be replied even before speaker ends. This is a common cause of communication error.

2. Repeat in own words: After listen to the speaker, one can repeat the message in his/her own word to confirm understanding. It is difficult to stop the brain on formulating the message and reply base on the key words obtained, but at least one should check with the speaker if the message acknowledged is correct. Due to the tone and pace of the speaker, same message can be acquired with different meaning. Therefore, by repeating the message in one’s own word, one could then eliminate the chase of misunderstanding.

3. Be an active listener: It was mentioned ahead that effective listening involves self-discipline. In order to conduct good listening skill, one must 1st want to listen. Choice of location and timing become very important in this case. One should only perform communication at the right time at the right place, and this will happen only when there is a “WANT” from the listener.

Above 3 tips are some I have learned from some training and reading. It still requires daily practice to improve on such skill. I hope these tips can help some of you to enhance your “Listening Skill” and reduce the chance of communication problem.

Introduction

Most book always start with an introduction on the motive for the author to write such book or what core value does author wish to deliver from the book. Therefore I also decide to write a short introduction of my blog, so you who is reading will know why do I start this blog and what message do I wish to deliver.

I have actually done up a few blogs before, but unfortunately none of them last. Mainly due to the natural of those blogs I have done before were basically just for me to express my frustration of life. However this one is different, because I have been planning to do it for quite some times already, but just never really put my thought into action.

The thought of making this blog raise after I watched a movie name, “The Bucket List”. A movie cast by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The storyline is about 2 dying old men get to know each other in the hospital, and starts attending to those adventures they have always dream for in different stage or age of life. Anyway, I was not amaze by this part of the movie, but finally understand that both characters in the movie have gave up many things they want or desire for the cause of living (be it a luxury life or just a simple stable life).

After the movie, I started to question on myself. I asked “what exactly I wish to achieve?” and “Am I giving up my dream for just making a living?”. These 2 questions led me to this blog.

My answer to my 1^st question is to share my thought to people and influence some with the knowledge and experience I have. On the other hand, my answer for my 2^nd question is considered positive. Although I am a trainer of a company, and I do get to share my thought and experience with people, but I still work for the company, and to be honest sometimes I can only share things that I was told to. Furthermore, majority of the time I was conducting skill training, which is very different with what I really wish to share with those around me. In such respect, a blog that I can share my believed, knowledge and experience become a solution to my goal.

However, I did not put the above thought into action, because I don’t believe anyone would like to read from someone like me. I am not famous or rich. I am not an owner or important leader of a well-known company as well. Who is going to buy my words, and be influence by a small trainer like me?

Something changed my opinion about myself recently, which gives me the motive to start this project. One evening, I was surfing on the Internet as what I usually do after work. An eye catching E-advertisement caught up my attention, the advertisement mentioned “Free Internet Marketing Session”. Being a Chinese, I was attracted by the word “Free”, and in the next second I was in the website of such advertisement already. This website mailed me a few clips regard to the Internet Marketing, and of course at the end asked me to purchase more for further training clips, which apparently I did not go for. However something in these clips awaken me from looking down on myself as a small trainer. The speaker in one of the sent clips said “Image there are 10 thousand of people surfing through your website, and a 100 of them purchase your product at the price of 100 bucks You then have make 10 thousand already. Furthermore, these 100 people will tell another 100 people who may also need your product. In such case, your website is automatically starting to make money on its own already.”. Obviously, I understand to do up a “money generated” website is not that simple, and I have totally no interest to start one. However the idea of “10 thousand people surfing and 100 people purchased” does give me a different view on myself. I may not be famous or rich. Yes, I am only a trainer of a company. But if 10 thousand people surf through my web blog and a 100 of them decided to buy my words. Then I have influenced 100 people, and I have achieved what I want already.

Therefore this blog started. Anyway, I do wish to do something different compare to other bloggers. As a result, in this blog you will often get to obtain my audio podcast regard to my post. The audio will serve the same objective with each post I have done up, but with maybe a little bit more elements in them. Last but not least, Please accept my apology on my English writing skill. Although this is my most comfortable language in term of writing, but still I knew my grammar is very “Poor”. That’s one of the reason I decided to do audio as well.

I hope you guys will enjoy reading my blog, and please do not hesitate to leave me your comment to share your thought and opinion. Thank you.