by Glenn Withiam When your employees are confident that their ideas, concerns, and interests will actually be heard, they are able to create a stronger service environment for their guests.
Rather than relying on arbitrary impressions or comments, it's possible for managers to determine how effective their listening skills really are, using the tools contained in a new report from the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research. The report, "Building Managers' Skills to Create Audience Environments," is part of the center's series, Instruments for the Hospitality Industry, which is available for free download at chr.cornell.edu.The assessment tools were created by Judi Brownell, professor of management organization at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, which are based on her research and her experience as a consultant and administrator.
As Brownell explains in the report, the case for effective listening begins with the importance of knowing what happens within the organization, this is more significant than proportions and reports, although these are also important. Excellent service depends in part on developing an organizational culture that supports it, because service is a team effort, so it is essential that all employees know that their feedback will be heard and understood.
A "listening environment" starts at the top, with a manager clearly listening to employees and responding appropriately. What Brownell has learned in his studies is that it's easier said than done, but it's not appropriate to talk before listening. The report outlines three activities for managers that contribute to a strong listening environment. Those encourage a smooth flow of information throughout the organization, modeling behavior that reflects interest to the individual employee and using symbols to stimulate listening and communication. In all three activities the essential point is that employees will follow and respond to the behavior established by the manager.
Having studied listening and communication for several years, Brownell is convinced that becoming an excellent listener is not easy. Part of the problem is that listening is not the same as understanding and people still disagree on a firm definition of what constitutes excellent listening. Good listeners could be bad at paying attention and people think they're not listening, also people may believe that you're not a good listener because you just don't agree with their point of view. Both situations demonstrate to the manager the skills at the time of listening, even if the result is not what the employees expected.
It is proven that strong listening is particularly difficult under the pressure of daily operations. Perhaps a manager nods his head to show that he knows what his employee is talking about, but that moment can be wrong for a current communication. When the employee finds that the manager really did not understand what was said, he thinks that the manager is not a good listener, when what happens is that the time for the conversation was not right. Regardless of the cause of communication failure, Brownell cautions that managers should never underestimate the importance of effective listening to an organization's quality of service.
Six steps to good listening
To help people learn to listen, Brownell developed a model that expresses the six elements of effective listening. Those elements are concentration, understanding (understanding), recall, interpretation (empathy), evaluation and response. The assessment tools found in the report are based on these six points. The first questionnaire is a self-assessment, which allows a manager to determine which of the six listening elements he needs the most for his job. So, as proof of reality, the second questionnaire is a review that allows to associate to offer the assessment of the manager's listening skills. Perfectly, the results of those two instruments must be concordant, otherwise the discrepancy of the results will point the way to more effective listening.
*Glenn Withiam is director of publications for the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research
