Clientul nostru - ma doare'n cur!

Tocmai m-am intors de la un training care s-a tinut la Motel Bucium. Un training foarte bun, am invatat despre comunicare, dar si despre cat de naspa pot sa fie serviciile. Despre comunicare am invatat de la trainer, despre "ma doare'n cur" am invatat de la personalul hotelului. Banuiesc ca traiesc din evenimente, ca din banii clientilor privati nu imi inchipui cum.
Acu sa marturisesc si ce am aflat.
Nu iti trebuie mai mult decat un sef idiot, care sa puna reguli aiurea. Cum sa impusti un client in picior cu un sef de sala? Simplu. Se ia una bucata de sala pentru micul dejun, asezata intr-un decor magnific. Se aeriseste bine, de preferinta in timpul micului dejun, astfel incat sa fluture parul clientului ca in filmele romantice. Ii zici chelnerului ca iti cauzeaza la sanatate si la pofta de mancare, sa nu fii dificil. Si primesti raspunsul "Sefa mi-a zis sa aerisesc, ca nu e bine sa miroase a spirtiera. Deci nu pot sa inchid nimic".
Zici ca e o intamplare, dar mai e de povestit. Intri in sala de mic dejun si te abordeaza chelnerul "Va rog sa imi dati tichetul". Te uiti la el si ii spui la ce camera stai, cum ai invatat ca e in toate hotelurile in care ai stat pana atunci. ASTEAPTA, aici avem INOVATIE! Se da un tichet de la receptie, care poate fi la alt etaj decat sala de luat micul dejun. Iar acolo sunt bilete inseriate, care sunt scrise separat cu numarul camerei. Big Brother e mic copil. Mai apoi am avut o epifanie. Patronul are o firma de transport public si probabil ca a facut bani cu bilete de autobuz. Un american a zis ca daca ai un ciocan in mana, toate lucrurile din jur ti se vor parea cuie. (“The man whose only tool is a hammer will see every problem as a nail.”Paul Watzlawick). Asa si astuia, toate lucrurile trebuie organizate ca un autobuz din anii '90: BILETELE si TAXATOAREA sunt elementele de baza. Obsesia ca vei fi furat, control si dorinta de a multumi pe seful. Pe client nu prea conteaza, seful vine si urla. Deci, ma doare'n cur ca am un client. Sa vedem ce vede seful.
In principiu, nu prea conteaza daca un client e multumit de servicii. Locatia e prea misto sa nu treci pe acolo din cand in cand.Se fac o multime de nunti, botezuri si alte paranghelii si traim noi din asta.
Daca discuti omeneste un contract la care plata se face la ceva zile dupa consumarea faptului, nu poti sa te bazezi. Primesti cu o zi inainte de eveniment un telefon si ti se zice ca vei primi o alte camere. In alt corp de cladire, care arata ca un internat. Si in care nu e foarte limpede pe unde trebuie sa intri. Deci, cel mai sigur e sa platesti tot inainte, ca la curve.

Daca ceri o favoare, n-o primesti. Nici chelnerul nu primeste bacsis. Probabil ca nu are voie, ori nu stie ca se poate.  De exemplu, usile se incuie pe diverse culoare la ora 12 noaptea. De catre un ninja mic de la fortele de ordine. Daca esti pe partea gresita de usa si ceri sa mai astepte 2 minute, sa nu mai urci si cobori 2 etaje, esti servit cu un gratios GHINION! Ca esti la ghiseul de la administratia financiara si nu la un hotel unde mai si platesti.
Cand vii cu un grup mare si devine un pic mai complicat cu comanda, sa nu indraznesti o discutie despre optimizare. Depasesti capacitatea de procesare a bucatariei si ti se propune faimosul PLATOUAS. "Nu va facem mai bine un platouas si alege fiecare?"

Deci va urez pofta buna si sedere placuta!
 La motel Bucium. Este exact ca la motel, doar ca au vopsit proaspat si lucios.

Read More...

[Team velocity 4] Exit points

Copyright:http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org

A key factor in designing the team according to Highway Theory.

A well designed highway has the quality that you have a smooth exit, well signaled with kilometers ahead, for an easy transition. A well designed team has the quality that there is a smooth development of the team, as well as the smooth leave of a member. There is no wonder that some team member choose to leave for  various reasons. There are sophisticated reasons behind, that are hard to grasp, as well as easy to understand ones like "My wife wants to move to another city" or "I need to change the city, my kids go to college and I want to be close to them". It's hard to cope to objective reasons, even harder to cope with subjective ones. 

Doesn't matter now. The change will happen and it's always about how smooth the transition will be. As a manager, you will be measured according to this. As a team member, you will suffer the consequences, good or worse. The art of designing a smooth exit stays at manager, the art of implementation stays in the team.

For the knowledge workers, a critical aspect is to have a comprehensive knowledge transfer. Corporations are selling their know-how and pay the employees even to distribute their know-how within the organization. This is not a coincidence. The people are the keepers of the know-how, but it cannot be only one to have the knowledge. You need small communities, little circular relationships where people learn one from another. Thus, the knowledge transfer can be done continuously, having in mind the win-win principle. Putting two great guys and one novice in the community, you can stimulate the experienced ones to work together, as well as to foster the development of the beginner.
The other principle to have in mind is that knowledge is overlapping. The knowledge is nowadays like a niche. I am the expert in X or Y. This is not fun for the team member. Sorry to disappoint you again, the professional life cycle is about 40 years. The expertise is useful for about 15 to 20 years. Afterwards, the technology will change, maybe the niche will disappear, therefore it's highly appreciated when the team offers the opportunity to slightly extend your expertise. On one hand, the manager has the famous back-up solutions. On the other one, the employee intrinsic value on the market is increased. Everyone has something to win.
The overlapping of skills is not done by accident or just based on the interest of the team members. This shall be based on skill inventory for the team and the team's replacement strategy. In both cases, it's a little bit about strategy. To have the team skill inventory you need to understand almost perfectly the needs of the business and !!! the future of the business. You need some years to build the needed skills for the knowledge workers. You need some days to loose a key person. It is highly dependent on you the impact such a change (resignation, promotion) is having on your business. We will speak more about skills inventory, how this can be transformed in a powerful tool. But I will not speak about the future of your business. This is your job to understand and to deploy a meaningful replacement strategy. Overlapping knowledge, distributing tasks in such a way that you can share the work of the guy who leaves the team could be the secret of a smooth exit point.

The most powerful team is that where people feel free to remain. This should be no coincidence. When the team members can choose at any moment to leave or stay (and THEY STAY), this should be the best motivation strategy you ever imagined. Any exit point they will encounter will be skipped.

Stay tuned for the next ideas about exit points:
Communication of changes,, trusting in the people leaving the team, preparation of the future collaboration.


Read also

Team velocity [1] - the idea
Team velocity [2] - the relation between the mission of the team and its velocity
Team velocity [3] - The entry points on the highway
Team velocity [5] - The signs

Read More...

Campionii, Campionii!!! OLE, OLE, OLE

Cititi un reportaj tulburator despre succes, adaptabilitate, competitie, intoarcerea la parinti si prieteni...


"Cum mai sînt americanii? În realitate vreau să spun, nu în filme.
A: - Sînt crescuţi în spiritul acela de a şti că totul depind de tine, nu de ceilalţi. Dacă nu ai ajuns bine, eşti educat să pricepi că a fost vina ta, că societatea nu îţi datorează nimic."

- Ce continuă să nu vă placă în România?
- Sîntem obişnuiţi să aşteptăm, sîntem lipsiţi de speranţă. Văd oameni tineri convinşi că fără pile nu se poate. Cum au ajuns să-şi dea seama de asta la 20 şi ceva de ani?!


GAZETA SPORTURILOR

Read More...

I have a dream

Read More...

Adapt or die

Professional life changed dramatically compared to 50 years ago. It changed even compared to 15 years ago. As I like to say, change is the only constant of our life.
One says that having a great competency in a niche it ensures you a good income and a quiet life. I am a fan of this idea. The only thing I could add is that a niche is not lasting more than a period, being that 10, 15 or 25 years. Sorry to disappoint you! You have a a professional life of about 40 to 45 years, with some good chances to continue at small scale after retirement.

Therefore, it is very likely to make some changes over the years. The changes might not be sophisticated or outside of your original education, but there will be changes.
Let's take marketing for an example. Marketing is a sound profession, with millions of practitioners all over the world. It started as we know it today in '70s and it evolved in the 45 years in various formats. According to wikipedia, it started with Relationship marketing / Relationship management and evolved continously, with at least 4 different approaches up to Social Media Marketing and all nice tricks all bloggers should know. As long social media has not been mainstream, one could live happily with the old mix of techniques. Nowadays, if you are targeting a good job you must take this news into consideration. According to a latest study by Michael Stelzner, Founder of Social Media Examiner, about 83% dintre marketers consider social media as highly important for their business.  Looking back in 2002, while I have been student at Computer Science, the biggest step forward in social media has been instant messaging via Yahoo and sharing a mood. Now this is already obsolete and Facebook is already a classical. Enough about it, I think I made my point with marketing ;-).

Let's take another example. It is called education. According to a study of US Department of Education, the number of enrolled students increased from round about 3 millions in the 50's to more than 15 millions in the early 90's. That is three times more. Even more, the ratio female vs. male changed dramatically, to supra-unitary one in the late 90's. The structure of jobs is very much different now, with lots of the jobs in manufacturing from US and western  countries shifted to BRIC or CIVETS countries. Education industry has to supply now a supplementary set of skills, some even not completely identified. In EU, there are defined programs for Lifelong Learning. According to EU official site, Launched in 2000, Grundtvig aims to provide adults with more ways to improve their knowledge and skills, facilitate their personal development and boost their employment prospects. It also helps to tackle problems associated with Europe’s ageing population.  States recognized that education provided at the age of 20 is not enough to secure a decent employment perspective.

Changes are more often and they are driven by a higher competition for resources and food. We are now 7 billions and the expectation is that this number will grow to 8.9 billion in 2050, increasing therefore by 47 per cent (study of UN). The main drivers of increase will be less developed areas. My assumption is that this will happen as the will be more available, therefore the natural increase of population will remain not penalized by diseases and starvation. Even more,
 
With a perspective of only 2 percent population increase in developed countries, a population active now significantly higher than the next generation and a long lasting crisis, the people of today will face an enormous challenge: how to cope with the change of perspective they grown with. Our parents had a rather predictable life, they retired around 58 with a nice pension and they could think about other things. In 10 to 20 years, it will become usual to retire around 65, nevertheless with a perspective of living at least 75 in average in Europe.

Adaption to new technologies, approaches and working style is the key to a successful professional life and a great work-life balance.
Plan to study each year something new.
Read news, understand the industry trends or get a career coach to guide you.
Invest some of your earnings in the personal development.
Look for a job that secures the access to new technologies or personal development programs.

Photo by Novelo

Add any other ingredient. Be prepared for changes!

Read More...

Online Career Day - Iasi, 23 mai 2012

ODO organizeaza anual Online Career Day. Este un eveniment care isi propune sa deschida ochii celor care urmaresc sa faca o cariera in domeniu, cu vorbitori din comunitatea ieseana. Anul acesta se va organiza pe 23 mai, incepand cu ora 17, la Ateneul Tatarasi.

Anul acesta am privilegiul sa vorbesc despre cum devine un CV mai credibil in ochii angajatorului, la invitatia lui Cristi Lucan (Event manager). E o provocare sa ma limitez la cele 25 de minute, dupa ce sambata trecuta am avut ocazia sa petrec mai bine de 2 ore impreuna cu circa 30 de studenti la Poli, cu care am discutat despre ce poate influenta in mod pozitiv cariera. Nu sunt cel mai experimentat pe online (e un hobby ce s-a aprins de vreun an), dar sper ca experienta si ideile legate de recrutare ii vor ajuta pe cei ce asculta.

Recomand evenimentul, atat pentru informatiile pe care le puteti afla (mai multe despre program, aici), cat si pentru networking si ocazia de a pune intrebari.

Read More...