Interview questions...

Many, many years ago I was contacted by a business owner who had heard me speak at a business leader’s conference. He was clearly desperate. He implored me to tell him the two questions I had said were all you needed to ask to fully assess competency for any position. He was looking for an operations VP, and being a full-time executive recruiter at the time, I told him I would be happy to reveal my secret assessment technique, but we needed to meet in person and discuss the actual job first. He refused, demanding the questions on the spot. Sensing panic, I relented. Before proceeding though, I asked him what was so urgent that he needed the questions instantly. “The candidate is in the waiting room,” he quietly confessed. 

After getting some sense of his business and the position he was trying to fill, I told him to follow these  instructions without compromise, then call me as soon as the interview is over. 

1)   First, do not meet the candidate in the office. Take the candidate for a tour of the manufacturing facility, instead.

2)   As part of the tour, stop at work stations that best demonstrate some of the biggest operational problems the person taking the VP job would have to address immediiately. These turned out to be poor factory layout, too much scrap, outdated process control measures, and excess raw material inventory.

3)   At each work station, describe the problem for a few minutes, then ask the candidate “if you were to get this job, how would you fix it?” Then have a 10-15 minute give-and-take discussion around his ideas. Based on this, evaluate the candidate on his insight, the quality of the questions and the soundness of his approach for implementing a solution.

4)   When you’re done with this line of questioning, ask the candidate to describe something he’s already accomplished that’s most comparable to the problem needing fixing. Spend another 10-15 minutes on getting specific details about this, including names, dates, metrics, type of equipment used, how vendors were managed, how labor problems were solved, who was on the team, how these people were managed and the results achieved. Don’t be satisfied with superficial or general answers. I told him he must push to get actual details even if painful, and especially if he already thought the person was hirable.

5)   Then move on to the other work stations, describe each problem, and ask the same two questions   

6)   It should take at least 90 minutes to complete the tour. When done, tell the person you’re impressed with his background, and will get back to him in few days after seeing some other candidates. Then call me and we can discuss your reaction and figure out next steps. 

The call came three hours later. The owner’s insight was profound. He said the candidate aced the problem-solving questions, but didn’t have any evidence of achieving comparable results. He told me the candidate was assertive, insightful and clearly understood the problems that needed to be solved. However, the owner said the candidate’s answers to the comparable accomplishment questions were vague, shallow and short. He went on to say it was like talking to two different people. One was eloquent, animated and confident, describing how he’d solve the problems. The other was like a fish out of water, hesitant and unsure, lacking details, along with confidence. He concluded the candidate was probably a great consultant or staff person, but one who couldn’t be left alone in charge of a factory. This was rather insightful when you consider he only had a 10-minute course in interviewing under his belt. 

He then gave me the search assignment. We filled it in about a month. The person hired took the same tour, to the same spots and answered the same questions. The difference though was our candidate could not only tell the owner how he’d solve the problems, but he had also accomplished something comparable. Also critical to this true story, the person hired was not from the same industry, had different academic credentials than listed in the job-description, and had less overall experience. More important, not only did he successfully eliminate the initial four problems once on-the-job, but another half-dozen or so, too. 

Moral: If you know what you need done it only takes two questions to figure out if a candidate is competent and motivated to do it.

COURTESY : - http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121028234540-15454-guinness-record-for-the-shortest-interview-course-on-record

Customer care...

This article depicts the emotions of the dissatisfied customer, how deficiently the company failed to provide the satisfactory services to the customer. This customer, Michael, got so much disappointed that he published an article on the internet expressing severe grievances against the poor services rendered to him. He is satisfied with the quality of the product but yet services offered after the sale of the product failed to persuade him.

This article is the best example of how a dissatisfied customer can damage your goodwill and cause reduction in your company’s profits. Now, this article is available on the internet and can be accessed and reviewed by thousands of people resulting tangible and intangible loss to the Skype Company. It clearly shows that one dissatisfied customer can spread around a word and tells other 20 people not to pursue this product.

Therefore, customers’ satisfaction should always be kept on TOP priority. Company should exert optimum efforts to satisfy its customers. Manufacturing or developing companies should bear in mind that there are three levels of a product which are -

1.    Core Product – Benefits

2.    Actual Product – Quality, Branding, Colour, Features, Style

3.    Augmented Product – Customer Care, Warranties, Delivery, Installation

Skype Company’s representative or the customer care unit failed to render the expected quality services resulting in the dissatisfaction to the customer. Customers are more concerned with the product and the services provided to them when they have paid for that product, the same incident experienced by Michael in this article. Therefore, to succeed in this global village, Skype needs to improve its services to generate more satisfied and contented customers. 

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:

 The customer satisfaction is defined as the degree to which customer expectations of a product or service are met or exceeded.

 Corporate and individual customers may have widely differing reasons for purchasing a product or service and therefore any measurement of satisfaction will need to be able to take into account such differences. The quality of after-sales service can also be a curial factor in influencing any purchasing decision. More and more companies are striving, not just for customer satisfaction, but for customer delight, that extra bit of added value that may lead to increased customer loyalty. Any extra added value, however, will need to be carefully coasted.

 The strong relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty is widely known, as are the dramatic financial benefits of keeping existing customers versus acquiring new ones. I am quoting the saying of Professor Claes Fornell, Director of the National Quality Research Center, University of Michigan and Chairman of CFI Group, “as long repeat business is important and as long as customers have choice, there are no shortcuts: you have to satisfy your customer or they will find someone else who will.” Therefore, companies have to pay significant attention on the customer satisfaction which leads to the customer retention.

There is a famous saying that “Customer is always Right.” In today’s competitive global market, companies have to provide the best quality product and other augmented services in order to satisfy the customers and also to retain them resulting increase in the profits.

If I compare the Skype product of Online Chatting Service Software with the MSN or Yahoo Online Chatting Service Software is almost the same or even the Skype product is slightly on the better edge but the thing which has made the major difference is the Customer Services rendered by the MSN and Yahoo Companies, is exemplary. They are achieving customers’ loyalty by providing them the satisfied services.

Following are the few suggestions for the Skype Company to excel in this highly competitive global marketplace –

1.    Skype Company should provide the relevant information readily available to its valued and esteemed customers for the ease of communication.

2.    Skype Company should initiate the training programs for the improvement and development of its staff members specially who are in direct customer contact.

3.    Skype Company should adopt the proactive approach of handling customers by calling and asking them the assistance, if needed any.

4.    Significant importance to be given to the customers.

5.    Customers’ feedback and suggestions should always be happily accepted and welcomed as it provides you the platform to understand the customer wants for further improvements.

In the last, I will sum up my review on the attached article by saying that it is far less costly to keep existing customers than to win new ones. Loyal customers buy more products and help in bring in more business by recommending your product to others. So if customer loyalty is the goal, then the company’s efforts should begin with the knowledge of what constitutes value to his customers and the market.

Company should always keep on improvising so as to achieve a greater profitability. This can be achieved by knowing the market well, i.e. understanding exactly what the customer needs. By discovering what the customer’s needs, the company can begin to understand how its products and the services provide value for its customers leading to the customer satisfaction and resulting in the retention of the customer.

CUSTOMER :- http://www.hozpitalityplus.com/profiles/blog/show?id=3268079%3ABlogPost%3A264568&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post

Tips to hold effective meetings...

We all have meetings every day. Meetings are supposed to be the best tool for you to communicate with your colleagues face-to-face and to come up with some great ideas. But in reality, team meetings actually cost more than you think such as wasted time. Effective meetings that produce results begins with meeting planning. Here are 9 meeting management tips that can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a meeting.

1.    Identify your company goal/ project goal/ meeting goal. 

     You should know what you expect to achieve by the end of the meeting. Will you have created a set of actions that the team can execute on afterwards to achieve the goal? Otherwise, team mates will just daydream about where to have lunch.

2.    Be on time, both starting time and ending time. 

     Once you have set a time limit, you will be more productive. Just imagine your laptop has only 1.5 hours battery left and you have to send 10 emails before the battery runs dead. You have to hurry up before the computer shuts down automatically, this way you will become highly productive in the following 90 minutes. Setting time limits actually creates a sense of urgency and lets the whole team complete the discussion in a timely manner.

3.    Designate a moderator for the meeting. 

      It needs a moderator to guide it through any problems that might arise, for example if people stray off topic, derail, go over time on certain points. It also encourages those attending the meeting to be prepared. Without a leader, the meeting can meander and never reach its destination.

4.    Every participant should come to the meeting prepared.

     Some colleagues keep quiet during the whole meeting or fail to make valid points because they are unprepared. By being prepared, everyone can build a sense of understanding about the topic of the meeting and give valuable contribution in the meeting. There is no time wasted, explaining parts of the agenda.

5.    Always end meetings  with “Decision and actions”. 

      Don’t assume that ideas discussed during a meeting will be put into action or even remembered. Often people need a gentle nudge to remind them about completing an action. Leaders need to check to ensure that actions are taking place as agreed. Without actions, the time spent on meetings is totally wasted. All actions should have a designated owner so that the tasks have someone to drive it.

6.    Don’t blame or criticize. 

      To criticize is easy, but to do the job is not. Blaming camouflages the real problems. It keeps the focus away from appreciating what the team have done and what’s going right.

7.    Recognize others contributions and strengths.

      Recognizing the contributions that colleagues make to the team helps solidify the relationships and foster colleagues loyalty to the team.

8.    State problems with 3 minutes and start with recommendation and solutions.

       It is common that participants spend too much time on discussing the problems. In fact, the process of sorting out solutions is much more important than talking about problems. Don’t waste your time on something that already exists, spend your time wisely on how you can solve the issue.

 COURTESY :- http://www.hozpitalityplus.com/profiles/blog/showId=3268079%3ABlogPost%3A264583&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post

Issues with chinese hospitality...

Having worked in China for the last 5 years in hospitality I have witnessed all the joys of Chinese Logic. Below are some of my understanding of why it is all going wrong. Please feel free to comment and maybe together we can fix these problems:

1. If you build it they will come.....this means just build a hotel or restaurant and customers will come...UM this is totally wrong. Nearly every new place I go to manage has done ZERO Marketing....without telling people you are there how will they come????

2. I know many people (guanxi) so the business will do well.....you may know many people but not enough to keep a business doing well. Friends etc may come one or two times a week to your place if you are lucky.....again marketing is key here...you need more then just your friends to know.

3. The Manager should sit in the office all day and never lift a plate or pour a beer for a customer......this is old style management...nowadays people (customers) want to see the manager and the manager needs to get feedback from customers without it how can improvements be made. Also if the manager is in the office all day and night how can they train the staff and make sure the staff are doing a good job. The results of this style of management can be seen everywhere...staff just do nothing and know nothing

4. Hire as many people as possible....um no....you need well trained staff who can think for themselves and who can actually do their job...a million staff that no nothing looks bad

5. TEAMWORK....getting all the staff to work together and to think about the business is good. I do not understand why in China a Manager who tries to get opinions from staff is seen as bad. Incentives, Team building and getting staff to know their input counts is invaluable and money should be spent on this.

6. Structure and Training.....do these occur???

7. Owners just hire their girlfriends to run the place or friends.....Come on people! You cant put a secretary into a top managers job and expect the place to make money...You need experienced managers who have experience....why do you hire a manager...because they know what to do. So just because you opened a million dollar import export company...it doesnt mean you know how to run a hospitality business and your girlfriend also doesnt know......so listen to people that know.

8. Lazy Staff......well if you worked for a company that did not care about you and had a manager sitting in a office all day who did not check anything would not you give up and be lazy??? Staff are people...they think hey i have no incentives, no chance for promotion, no one cares so even if i work hard nothing happens.

My belief is China is at least 10 years away from solving these problems. Maybe even more. Until the education system changes and people stop using face as a excuse and people start using the new management system of Teamwork, Chinese hospitality will not rise up.

Courtesy :- http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1916785&type=member&item=167576946&qid=81d5aa6e-05bd-4164-9dce-dd99fc510210&trk=group_most_popular-0-b-ttl&goback=%2Egmp_1916785