By F Kamaruddin

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives ~ Anthony Robbins

Two chickens stood on opposite sides of the road. One asked the other, “Hey! How do I get to the other side?” The other chicken replied: “What are you talking about? You already ARE on the other side!”

———-

Hi everyone,

We like that quote from Anthony Robbins because it helps to highlight the need to be aware of how people are experiencing our communications and to craft the right approach for positive results. We love that chicken story because it reminds us to consider the many different points of view and perceptions being communicated.  And because we welcome all chicken and egg questions.

One of my personal interests is observing how people send and receive messages as they communicate, not unlike watching a tennis match. Reading this blog post by Olivier Blanchard* really made me think of how applicable his points are in many (if not all) forms of communications and how important it is for us to be clear about our intention of communicating something, which is the answer to “What is the purpose of saying that” and/or “What do we mean when we say that?”

In his post, Olivier touched on the #PearlHarbor and  #PearlHarbour trending topics on Twitter, “hours after a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan and left hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent people dead” and how they represented the occasional ugliness of the social web.  Personally, I found many of those tweets and Facebook updates disturbing. They spread like wildfire. If they were meant to communicate hatred, I’d say they’ve succeeded. Putting my professional hat (or head) back on, I’m interested in the intention of making those statements. If I can relate it to internal organizational communications, it would be in the form of feedback received from focus group participants. I don’t find it unusual  to see emotions in descriptions of challenges and roadblocks employees face in their journey to become more effective. We look at how our participants describe issues relating to management, system, people, technology, environment (internal and external) and more. To get clarification, we ask questions like “What do you mean when you say ‘change management’? Do you mean there’s a need to get other people to become management team or do you mean there’s a need to manage changes? What kind of changes?” You get the picture, right?

I responded to several statements in the above post-earthquake trending topics. There were some unsavoury replies on how I would naturally side with one party based on my current location in the world. I didn’t get many responses other than those, though. I find that unfortunate because I believe questions are great tools to seek clarification. Yes, how we ask questions are important too. We’d be happy to discuss that in upcoming posts.

What stayed with me most is Olivier’s call for us to keep in mind that “100% of the social web’s potential is tied to human potential” and many things, both good and bad, can fuel that potential. Please let me share with you what I learned from the recent uproar:

We need to continuously ask ourselves: “WHAT DO I MEAN WHEN I SAY THIS?”

Finding the best starting point is a lifelong journey. That point in communication is a clear picture of our purpose i.e. identifying what is it that we want to achieve when we communicate. This helps us understand our own communication intentions and preferences. Understanding what my communication may say about me helps me get up, take a walk and have a rethink instead of immediately clicking the ‘send’ button to emails that would otherwise be listed as regrets.

In my work, we help our clients craft their communication plan. We also conduct workshops to identify what can help get the understanding of the key messages and the right channels to get the message across to everyone. Increasingly, those channels include Facebook pages, management blogs and Twitter. Things that were said in private before are becoming more public. Is there something we can do to survive and make these changes work for us?  There is. One thing we can do is get a clear picture of what we are communicating. This is one of the keys to add more meaning to action, including agreements to disagree. Ready to start now? Let’s go.

*Olivier is Principal and Senior Strategist at BrandBuilder Marketing, a Greenville-based Brand Consulting and Marketing Management firm. Feel free to read his blog and follow him on Twitter.

By M Nair

Too many times organizations expect training to provide the “one-size-fits-all” cure for their staff’s non-performance.

From our experience we have found that:

1. Training, in isolation, is not able to rectify performance problems.
2. A one-off event without a follow-up measurement program cannot sustain change.
3. Ensuring that there is a right fit for the job is fundamental for a successful training program. Recruitment is key.

In development of our programs we recommend three levels of measurement to ensure that learning has taken place and is sustained. The training evaluation model is composed of three levels of training evaluation. The illustration below summarizes the levels:

Training Evaluation Model

Level One: Reaction

Evaluating reactions is the same things as measuring customer satisfaction. If training is going to be effective, it’s important that participants react favorably to it. This measurement is taken directly after the program completes at the end of the day.

The guideline for Level One are as follows:

• Determine what you want to find out
• Design a form that will quantify the reactions
• Encourage written comments and suggestions
• Get honest responses
• Take appropriate action based on feedback
• Program acceptance needs to be above 80%

Level Two: Learning

Level Two is like a test to determine if the learning transfer occurred. It is important to measure learning because no change in behavior can be expected unless one or more of these learning objectives have been achieved. Measuring learning means determining one of more of the following:

• What knowledge was learned?
• What skills were developed or improved?
• What attitudes were changed?

Measuring learning can be done as either an assessment module as part of the program or on-the-job assessment.  The guideline for Level Two is as follows:

• Evaluate knowledge, skills and / or attitudes both before and after the program (if possible)
• Strive for 100% response
• Use the results to take corrective actions.

Level Three: Behavior

Level Three evaluates the job impact of training: “What happens when trainees leave the classroom and return to their jobs? How much transfer of knowledge, skill and attitude occurs?” In other words, what change in job behavior occurred because people attended a training program?

The guideline for Level Three is as below:

• Allow time for behavior change to take place
• Evaluate both before and after the program if practical
• Survey or interview trainees, supervisors, subordinates and others who observe their behavior
• Strive for 80% response
• Repeat the evaluation at appropriate times (should become part of your standards measurement process)

The easiest way for you to discover the right evaluation process for your organization is by having us reviewing your current Training Strategy and processes. We can show you how you can get the most out of investments in employee training.

Celebrate the Lunar Year of the Rabbit with Us!

Happy Lunar New Year!

By F Kamaruddin

Is your organization using I.T. in the right way to create great telephone experiences?

I was going through various items that I’ve earmarked for reading when I saw When you call anyone you want to talk to the person, not a machine. In it, B.K. Sidhu reflected on the negative impact of automated transactions and limited human resources on a customer’s experience. Unfortunately, many have experienced what the writer described in the article. Being in a long queue with the undesirable prospect of waiting a long time more, repeatedly dialing a number before being able to speak to a human being – these are not happy instances. You’ve probably experienced these yourself, haven’t you?

Many companies use technology with the intention of increasing their productivity. The most obvious methods involve automation of call distribution and computerization that minimizes the tasks performed by employees. Regardless of organization size, technology’s best role is as the enabler of the company’s processes. If a company has a poorly designed and understaffed call center, the experience with technology will be very bad.

So how can service providers troubleshoot, if not overcome, the dissatisfaction that customers face? Companies need to focus on these 2 fundamental areas:

1. The experience design: The steps callers go through to get their issues resolved over the phone.
2. The human resource planning: What kind of transactions do callers need live agents to resolve?

Both of these impact the design of the customer experience over the telephone. Strategic human resource planning is the best way to attract and retain the right people because the organization will have a clearer picture of the qualities of the agent that they want to hire and what kind of training will be needed to develop them.

The bottom line is this: When people call your organization, they need to feel that you’ve solved their problem. Relying on technology alone without a clear picture of how it supports your resource allocation is a sure way to create bottlenecks that hinder your customers from being happy with you. Think of technology as an enabler for your people to meet your customers, and you will be on your way to deliver the right brand experience to your customers and your employees too!

Selamat Hari Raya!