Mike Hohnen

Coaching for personal growth, change and development

General

Do you have a source of renewable energy…

By

Tony Schwartz in his blog asks these three questions:

“How many of you would say that demand in your lives has increased significantly during the past several years?”

“How many of you, expect that demand in your lives is going to get even greater during the next several years?”

“OK, so here’s the $64,000 question: How many of you expect your capacity to rise right along with demand?”

And it is a really god point.

What do we do to ensure that we are renewing our own energy supplies. The pressure mounts for all of us virtually on a daily basis – but the only energy that will last is the the energy that gets renewed – so what are you doing on a daily basis to preserve and renew your energy sources?

Read the full blog post from Tony Schwartz here

New survey: Customer Experience Management

By

New research shows that organisations can differentiate themselves especially in terms of the emotional element of the experience. Up to 60% of customer loyalty is created by the customer’s emotional experience, according to Professor Lars Grønholt, CBS.

The study’s main conclusions are:

  • Strong relationship between Customer Experience Management ability and financial performance Customer Experience Management generates increased differentiation. High differentiation improves the companies? ability to create high market performance and financial performance.
  • Customer Experience Management contribute to create significant financial performance If Customer Experience Management is improved by 10% differentiation capabilities will increase by 9%, that subsequently will improve financial performance by 5%.
  • ?Top management involvement and implementation of customer focus in all customer touch points are the most important Customer Experience Management dimensions The two dimensions account for more than 40% of the companies? ability to differentiate from competitors and are the starting point for better market performance and financial performance.
  • A balanced emotional and rational customer experience creates better results
    Overall, top performing companies balance rational and emotional elements when creating customer experiences.

You can request the full study from Stig Jorgensen & Partners here

This all fits very well with our own experience working with The Service Profit Chain

Read more about our approach to the Service Profit Chain here

Finance is fun

By

We kicked of the ‘dreaded’ finance module for our Service Management students this week.

Finance is clearly not a favorite subject. But by using the HOTS (Hotel Operation Tactics and Strategy) simulation it all became much clearer, and in the end they had to admit that finance can be fun – well almost.

I find that using the simulation creates a lot of frustration upfront as they get upset at what they can’t do and why it won’t do what they thought it would do – but as they then slowly start the discovery process and see how the quality of their decision from month to month actually improve and thereby improves the the bottom line… well the the smiles come back on their faces.

HOTS is internet based and you can learn more about it here

The best time management & productivity advice ever…

By

From HBR by Tony Schwartz – president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working”

A 90-Minute Plan for Personal Effectiveness

For nearly a decade now, I’ve begun my workdays by focusing for 90 minutes, uninterrupted, on the task I decide the night before is the most important one I’ll face the following day. After 90 minutes, I take a break.

Read the full article here

Focus Executive Development on Real Business Issues

By

This is the approach that is at the core of all our training and development.
Great to see it here as part of what is needed for the future…

From the HBR blog in the series on “Imagining the Future of Leadership”:

…the concept of action-learning programs has been gaining momentum since the 1980s — but it’s never been so vital as it is today. Leaders confronting constant change and great complexity need marketplace experience with the intensity and speed of strategic and organizational change. Leadership development interventions should support these drivers — they’re likely to have the greatest payoff, and they are likely to be the easiest to sell to any CEO contemplating an investment in executive education. Educational initiatives have to become far more customized and tightly integrated with the organization’s strategic agenda; their aim will be to build leadership capabilities while simultaneously facilitating progress towards critical strategic objectives.

Read the full article here

Customer Engagement

By

The term ‘Customer engagement’ seems to be popping up in all sorts of places at the moment:

A major shift is underway in the business landscape. For evidence of this transition, one need only read the major papers, such as the New York Times, which recently ran a piece titled “But will it make you happy?” This article argued that consumers are no longer focusing on price, quality, or even service. Now they’re making buying decisions based on the purchasing experience – how the act of buying the product makes them feel. Like never before, customers’ emotions are at the center of business success. Companies who fully engage customers during the purchasing experience are seeing higher profits and better ROI. Joseph Pine is among those who predicted this conversion. This article examines his approach. A review of Pine’s concept of The Experience Economy will be followed by a discussion of which tools businesses need to thrive in this new era of experience-driven growth.

Read the full article here

Corporate University for smaller chains…

By

In creating its corporate university in 1985, Accor was the first service company in Europe to set up an integrated training center.
Twenty-five years later, Accor Academy locally trains 135,000 students a year through a catalogue of 120 different courses delivered in 16 Academies around the world.

However – you don’t need to be a giant like Accor to have your own corporate University!

If you belong to a smaller chain or association of independent hotels you can partner with us. We deliver custom made service management training at university level. This is what the association of Danish Conference Centers has done with result of now having educated more than 150 managers since 2004

Courses can be designed according to student levels on bachelor or masters level and with or without official accreditation. Also students can get certificates at both levels or go for full degrees. Programmes are accredited by the University of Chester(UK).

All GROW programmes are based on action learning. This means that students stay on their job while studying and have as their main focus to add value to their organisation and work towards solutions to real worklife challenges.

For more information drop me a note.