All entries for Friday 26 February 2016
February 26, 2016
Choice of words
Words are a powerful tool. I'm sure many have heard the saying that the tongue is the most powerful weapon. Should one say " You do this" instead of "Let's do this", the former gives a very authoritative and dictatorship feeling which may not be welcomed by many while the latter gives a more supportive and encouraging feeling.
Saying things such as " I completely understand how you feel" may cause one to lack credibility in the eyes of another as no one can really understand the other person completely.
Asking "Why" can come off as being too interrogative. Instead, alternative questions could be like " What do you think can be improved" which may come off as more positive and in a lighter tone.
Phrasing and choice of words are important as saying the wrong things may offend people or cause one to lose one's credibility.
One should think before one speaks
Learning from the failures of Ta yen
The question of how to make workers loyal to the firm and not only to the managers have been bothering me for quite some time. As a child growing up, I watched my favourite Chinese restaurant called Ta Yen in Indonesia closing down due to Yen yen.
Let me give you some background story. Ta yen was extremely popular from the day it opened. It sold extremely delicious and savoury chinese food that leaves one begging for more. It was the taste of perfection.Ta yen was the original restaurant set up by two cousins.The two cousins had a disagreement and 1 cousin left, setting up his own restaurant called Yen yen, directly opposite Ta yen. Within a few months, Yen yen had managed to recruit all Ta yen's former employees, causing Ta yen to struggle to keep up with its standards while Yen yen's standards flourished drastically. In no time, lesser customers visited Ta yen and started going to yen yen instead. Soon, Ta yen went out of business.
This incident has been deeply etched in my mind and I am happy to say that I no longer fear this problem as the seminar has given be ways and ideas and enlightened me like never before. I come to the conclusion that a company cannot and should not retain its staff forever. Loyalty can be defined as a staff member ensuring he/she gives his best to the company in the 2 or 3 years he/she works there. New staff members coming in is not a bad thing as bringing in fresh blood means more new ideas and new talents. Thus, I should not be afraid of turnovers should I run a business.
A person will also be loyal to the company should his/her personal goals be aligned with the company goals. Many other factors also produce loyalty such as job rotation, company culture that promotes team building, knowing that one can get promoted and be able to climb the corporate ladder and more.
At the end of the day, a business owner needs to ensure that skills learnt by one staff are transferable to another staff and thus should a staff leaves the firm, the skills could be easily passed on to a new staff. Linking back to the case of Ta yen, should Ta yen had made the skills of its staff transferable, it would have no problem in training its new batch of staff. The failure of Ta yen lies in the lack of structure of the business which causes its downfall.