11/21/09 (
update)
I've lived on the Big Isle for 21 years and I've been a communication skills coach-consultant here in Hawaii for 32 years (see
about us) so it's natural for me to notice the way clerks treat us customers here in East Hawaiii.
For example: One can help but notice the different experience between shopping at Foodland (mainland owned and trained) and KTA (locally owned and trained). It's virtaully impossible to leave Safeway without having been made to feel welcome and valued.
What's fascinating is that we know that the content of all management training programs, employee motivation classes, and customer relationship training programs is virtually the same. We know that the employees of both companies have been told, "Be pleasant," "Make customers feel welcome," etc., yet, only one company's leadership seems to have caused communication to take place. The assumption being that when communication takes place it produces the desired result.
I believe it has to do with the communication skills of Foodland's in house trainers.
It's no secret that our UH Speech-Communication Department is experiencing the side effects of decades of in-breeding when it comes to teaching education majors to communicate subject matter. That is to say, UH professors mostly hire UH graduates who use the same decades-old communication model they were taught which produces more of the same. Fully 1/3 of all UH freshmen require remedial reading-comprehension classes because their teachers failed to communicate. If one is looking for a conspiracy you might ask, how is this possible? Whose job is it (who gets paid) to ensure that teachers know how to teach? The truth is it doesn't bother you or I enough to do anything about the problem. Our leadership-communication skills, especially our non verbal skills, are guaranteed to produce more of the same.
I am absolutely clear that KTA could lead the way in the Big Island business community. All it takes is two to make a significant positive difference.
Kerry
