“The reason businesses struggle to create loyal and dedicated teams is because it’s so easy to not be intentional about it. They just let it slide. So many companies believe that loyalty is ambiguous and not tangible. But as you create a focus of intentionality, you begin to discover just how palpable loyalty is when team-members do all they can to take care of the company and its customers.” (Why Happiness At Work Is Vital. )

I haven’t even listened to the podcast yet, but I loved the ideas in this paragraph.  Loyal and dedicated teams don’t just happen. You have to intentionally create them and then work hard to not de-motivate them.

Don’t worry about motivating good ppl. Worry about de-motivating them. #leadership

— Dan Rockwell (@Leadershipfreak) March 13, 2012

When you have loyal people, when they know you’re looking out for them, they’ll look out for you too.

Just read an interesting post via Seth Goddin: Upstream and Downstream. The summary: By spending more time and money on pre and post contact with our clients, work results could be improved.

We see Upstream or prework a lot these days in the health industry. Greater focus on prevention results in lower costs in the present and future. (The doc’s office (box – see the article.) work is made a lot easier if he/she is able to deal with healthier patients due to effective pre contact work. And patients will experience better results if maybe the doc is able to followup on how well their patients follow through with their prescriptions and medications.

What could this look like in ESL?

Pre-contact: Teachers and schools should spend more time preparing students BEFORE the actual course begins. Teachers could invest time in teaching potential students about habits successful English students should cultivate. (A habit could be increasing contact with English on student’s initiative: watching movies, listening to music, reading in English – purposeful interaction  on your own.)

Another pre-contact action could be to interview prospect students and discover what their previous English learning experiences were like, what was positive and negative about those experiences and why. Wouldn’t this info be helpful for informing the next classroom experience? (Paying attention to what worked for the student before, etc.)

Post Contact: Teachers/schools could come up with a ongoing contact scheme with graduates or ex students. Email newsletters with tips etc. on how to continue practice without the teacher. Ongoing encouragement to continue self directed contact with English, etc.

In ESL, both the Pre and Post contact areas are valuable, but the Post sure has a lot of importance for the student as ongoing and continuous practice with a second language is vital to keep it active and useable over the long term.

What do you think? What could Teachers or language schools do to improve the Pre/Post contact experience of their students?

Teacher benefits:

1) No commute. 2) No lost time in traffic. 3) Lower costs as you don’t need to pay for busses or gas. 4) More time to do other things, as when you’re done your class, you’re already home. 5) Potential to increase your student base. (You can get clients anywhere.) 6) Possible for greater Teacher/student attention and personal coaching. (Email, social media like twitter or facebook, mp3 recordings of your students practicing pronunciation and dialogues. Teacher would have great opportunities to interact with students in realistic settings. Maybe your student  already hangs out in Twitter or Facebook – what a better spot to begin practicing English using platforms they already love?  7) Potential for Green: you don’t need to rely on textbooks. If you are creative, you can bring in plenty of content from around the web for class work. No paper = Less pollution. And likely many more that I can’t think of at the moment, but there are for sure  lots of benefits.

Over the last year, I have actually been able to provide virtual classes to a few clients, and love the results. Aside from the ones mentioned above, I would also say having to telecommute has improved my teaching, as I’ve had to do more prep work, and think about alternative lesson plans if (and when) tech glitches slow things down.  Teaching from a Distance via Videoconferencing echoes this mindset of an improvement in teaching methods. You really do need to be a little more prepared in a virtual class vs. a face to face session.

Business Trend Should Equal a Teaching Trend

We’re here to meet our student’s needs, aren’t we? Companies everywhere have been forced to make budget cuts, and business travel is one of the hardest hit. One of our clients has seen a steady decrease in their business travel, and a massive increase in the amount of video conferencing they do each day. Mostly in English. Out of their 200+ employees, only about 15% can carry on an English conversation at native speaker level without difficulty. The rest must suffer through those conference calls that sometimes last hours.

Service Opportunity: Classes should mirror student need. Activities should have direct relevance to what your students do each day on the job, so that means that video conferencing should become a regular part of the corporate ESL classroom.

Benefits for your Students:

1) Realistic Practice: If your student does any kind of teleconferencing at work, he or she would likely LOVE to have the chance to practice. Remember: talking over the phone or internet with someone not physically in the same room with you is a whole other ballgame. When you can’t see the other person, you loose  a great deal of communicative help like facial expressions, gestures, and body languages. (Some say that 90% of communication is taken from visual cues from the other person.) The more you can help your student be in that difficult space with a friendly coach like yourself, the easier facing the real monster will be. (My students have told me that anyway.)

2) Employee success: Helping your students become English teleconference rockstars will help them professionally. Managers, bosses,  supervisors  and foreign coworkers are always watching. When they see someone who can communicate well, and whose first language is not English – you can bet they’ll notice. Great ESL teachers don’t just teach English. They become active participants in the success of their students.

What do you think? Should ESL classrooms have virtual options?

(And in a different, but related vein: Telecommuting saves companies $10K per employee yearly. )

1) Sider explains how valuable language training is for retention purposes. (In Company setting, working with non English speaking workers.) In today’s economic environment, where companies are looking for ways to stimulate employees and keep them on board without spending too much cash, then providing ESL training is a great option.

I think it’s so fascinating how non monetary incentives seem to work better than throwing cash at people. I’ve read lots about this, have heard and seen lots about this – with Dan Pink’s work being the most recent.

So if you’re looking for great ways to increase employee retention rates, look into ESL training.  The other part to this that I thought was interesting, and a point which also helps in the recruitment/retention side of work: is that when outsiders see that you do provide training in English (or other languages that you require) they tend to want to work with you. They see that you take care of your employees, and they want to be a part of it.

2)Sider mentions a point which is, in my opinion, of extreme importance: Companies make a mistake when they undervalue their non English speaker’s mother tongue.  We do business these days often in a global setting. Sooner or later, your employee’s mother tongue will come in really handy.

Likely a post that is off what I usually do, but I just watched the video and thought it was worth mentioning.

Value Added for TESOL:

When promoting courses are you using retention value as a USP? I know I’ll be.

Teachers, Language Training companies: Are you being a parasite for your client: (Just taking their cash, not purposefully adding value?) Or are you really stepping into the role Sider shares can be played: a valuable recruitment/retention building agent, A future value builder for employees to be able to function more productively in multi lingual environments?

Having and living out a strong mission and vision is such a vital part of life, don’t you think? And it doesn’t matter what your profession or position in that profession – we all need to have a sense of purpose. Or at least I think we do.

I totally agree with Hyatt’s post about Why Vision Matters as I am in the process of working through to reconnect with my own sense of vision and mission. 2009 was a challenging year, wasn’t it? I remember starting out, almost 365 days ago, with a great sense of excitement and uncertainty around what would happen during the year – namely: what would happen with our Economy.

Was I connected with my company mission and vision then? For sure. I was eager to go after it and build it up. But now? Almost a year later, I can honestly say that I feel like I’ve been bumped off track. My focus is not on my company’s mission and vision. It’s on paying the bills. Keeping cash flow – flowing. All of my attention has been sucked into this area of my company’s life, and I just know that it’s creating a hollowness inside me that really sucks.

This quote sort of sums it up:

“They don’t know why their efforts matter. They cannot connect their actions to a larger story. Their work becomes a matter of just going through the motions, living from weekend to weekend, paycheck to paycheck.

This is where great leadership makes all the difference. Leadership is more than influence. It is about reminding people of what it is we are trying to build—and why it matters.” (Why Vision Matters by Michelle Hyatt)

What a great insight about vision. And a great thing to think about for leaders (and everyone, for that matter.) We (leaders, managers, teachers, janitors, ALL OF US) from time to time, need to remind ourselves to connect with what makes our lives matter. The big picture – something beyond our normal every day activity. Or be prepared to get lost in scribbles.

What are you doing to connect with your sense of vision and mission?

“As far as I can tell, assigning a textbook to your college class is academic malpractice.”

And so begins a very strong anti-textbook post by Seth Godin.

What I’m amazed about is that I am no longer 100% anti-textbook. I’ve complained about them – price, tendency to become out dated rather quickly, how impersonal they are, etc. But are they always bad? What do schools, teachers, and students do that make them bad? And what makes them good?

Bad Practice 1: Your book=Your English Level

Common language school malpractice is to equate a course book to a language level. If you’re a beginner student for example, your course book could be Market Leader Elementary. When you finish the book – you finish the level. Common practice, but totally not correct.

When you finish a course book, you’ve done just that: Finished a course book. Hopefully you’ve learned some new vocabulary, you’ve hopefully improved your reading, and listening skills – but have you actually mastered enough English to move up to an intermediate level?

Most course books in the ESL market boast content that averages between 60 to 120+ hours of course time. But is that enough time? According to Cambridge University, the average post beginner student (A2) needs at least 80 to 200 hours of class time to move up to the next level. (See Guided Learning Hours from Cambridge website.)

So equating your course book to your language level is NOT the best way to make use of your course book. Your course book should help make your course better – more interesting. It should support you through the learning process by giving you activities and lessons to review – but should never tell you when your ready to graduate to the next level.

Focus on customer. Those in the middle have long positioned change initiatives through the voices of their customers. Now is a perfect time to make the changes to products and processes that customers have been asking for. They too may have some time to consult with you; their businesses are impacted too. So use the down time wisely.

Frame This Crisis to Your Advantage – John Baldoni – HarvardBusiness.org

Times have been tough. In the month of March alone, we’ve had record breaking amounts of cancelled classes – thankfully nothing permanent. We’ve noticed that many of our clients are busier. Lots of running to keep worried head offices satisfied, and catering to VIP visits – just checking in on how things are going locally.

But I have noticed that the above quote is totally true. We’ve started working with a new client who has been doing a lot of talking with us about their specific development needs. These conversations have been like gold for me – as they have represented, in some cases, 180 degree changes in how we work.  Most interesting: they have been positive changes.

1. Tighter – smaller module based work. Goodbye to those 150+ hr courses that seem to float around in the clouds. Hello to 12 – 30 hour chuncks that are easy to see the beginning and end of.

2. Performance and Goal driven. Since stepping into the world of the CEFR, we’ve slowly started moving into a more performance based system of work – but now with our new client – it’s what’s conditioning forward development and growth. What has hit me  is – so why not roll this out with all our clients?

Kind of underlinesn the importance of this tip from an article I read this week:

“Tip #1: Guarantee Short-Term Benefits

Most consultants and firms talk about the features of their service. “Smart methods” are features, cost savings are benefits. Clients want to hear about benefits and they want to know that the benefits you bring will save them more than you cost.

In a recession a client’s view of benefits shortens to one year, not five years or even three, as they might not have a job then. You must deliver benefits this year. By the way, they would also like you to guarantee those benefits by making your fees contingent upon success. Build a contingent value proposition with a maximum one year ROI and you will prosper.” (8 Tips for Building a Value Proposition that Sells in a Recession, Collins.)

But goal driven and performance based not just to survive the recession – but to start stepping up and enhancing quality and service. It’s what will keep you moving today – and help push you forward through the coming upswing.

Reality is a must. We cannot hide from what is happening around us, nor can we pretend that nothing is happening at all. But we can, and must look forward. I have no idea how deep we are in this “crisis” and I have no idea how much longer it will last. What I do know is that if businesses only focus on the negative, they too will become a victim. We are what we think about: personally and collectively.

I came across this article over at Harvard Business.org and I agree with Baldoni’s message: “Now is the time to start planning for the upturn.”

“Market economies are cyclical. And just as companies regularly plan for the next downturn — say, being watchful of spending and debt load — the same applies to the upside of the cycle. If you wait too long, you will miss out on the upswing, putting your company at a disadvantage when the indicators swing northward.” ( Prepare Your People for the Upturn. Baldoni)

This has been my first downturn out on my own and managing a small business. What I’ve noticed is my own need to keep perspective: to remain aware of what is happening financially around me – but not focusing on it to the point of becoming paralyzed. Fear seems to rise very quickly if you’re not careful in times like these.

What I have found helpful is learning about how successful companies have managed previous economic slumps, and I noticed a common denominator that I really liked: They were careful, but aggressively maintained forward motion. They continued marketing and advertising efforts – even increasing them. Their vision was on the future – to creating a future. (New clients eventually equal cash flow which is the life blood of any business.)

Businesses that survived also took care of their people. These days I often read or hear about companies letting go of employees by the thousands in an effort to cut expenses. Or in some situations, cutting their most experienced (read: well paid) employees in favor of newer ones (read: cheaper ones) . But isn’t this short term reactionary thinking? Saying goodbye to your best and most experienced people is like shooting yourself in the foot. When the upswing begins, will your newbies know what to do? Not likely.

Baldoni makes a valuable point in his post: down turns are great times to invest in your people. That’s something we’ve started to embrace in 2009. Investing in the people working with you creates commitment. It lets them know, as Baldoni points out, that you care and that you’re with them in the bad times. When the good times return you’re people will be more likely to stick with you.

But I think investing in people is more than just about keeping your employees. I think it helps to position you to serve your market – and the better you serve your market, the stronger your business will be and the easier it will be to retain current clients while bringing on new ones.

To continue the ideas touched upon yesterday, I found another article that relates to the concept of creating excellent customer experiences. Again: in the saturated ESL industry of Mexico City – developing an exceptional customer experience will be vital to gaining new clients and surviving the economic downturn.

But, like was mentioned yesterday – customer experience is not a one time event. It’s a way of being as a company.

Cohen steps into some really interesting ideas of how to build a great experience.

Design: Understand the experience your customer wants, recognizing that one size does not fit all, and design “service products” that fulfill these needs. (“Don’t Forget Your Customer.” Cohen)

What would be the experience my customers want? As mentioned yesterday, I know the HR folk are looking for quick but meaningful reports on a regular basis. So one design oriented question for us is how can we present more meaningful/useful info each month, and deliver it faster each time?

Students would want something similar. To know where and how they’re going with the course they are enrolled in. I also think an increase in asking for feedback would be helpful – how are they experiencing our services?

The conversation is open – how can we imrove our customer experience?

Just read Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business by Peter Merholz at  HarvardBusiness.org, and started thinking about the importance of becoming aware of my company’s touch points, processes, and service. Where and what are they? How are they? And how could they become better experiences?

I really like what Merholz has to say about developing customer experience -

“Customer experience is an organizational mindset. It’s not something a business buys, it’s something a business becomes.”

So where do I need to become? Some thoughts…

1. With my internal customers (teachers): I think the most obvious experience point for teachers would be in the pay scale they ride. I feel that this is perhaps one of my big areas of strength in that we strive to pay above market wages to our employees. We also strive to schedule regular increases according to inflation and performance.

A potential area of opportunity would come from one of our differentiation points: we adapt course content to client needs. While this offers a strong advantage in the sales process, it also creates a potential weakness in that we do not always follow text books. This could likely mar our experience with our internal clients. (“I don’t have the material I need.”)

Solution: We are currently working hard to create a “living textbook” online that would easily allow teachers to find and use client centric content. However,  ongoing training will be essential to help make this a great experience. (Databank info as well as content development ideas should be included in a welcome pack to new hires. Online options could also be made available.)

2. Reporting – a great deal of attention should be placed in how we report to our clients. Information that is valuable to clients should be identified and krafted into a regular reporting process. This process must also be streamlined and designed to deliver within 3 business days after each month ends. Our goal should be to provide timely and valuable information to our client that will help them – not suck time away from their review process.

(And what if the reporting process no longer had to be paper based? What if there were online options available that the client could access at any time and any place? This would reduce paper usage, storage issues, and increase our reporting speed.)

Customer Experience is something that businesses – especially service oriented ones – must think and act about on a regular basis. With the economy the way it is today, a delightful customer experience could mean the difference between you being a defined as a cost to be cut, or an indispensible added value.