Effective Communication Training at Berjaya Redang Resort

I had just completed a fantastic and vibrant two days of Effective Communication Training at Berjaya Redang Resort (BRR). This fourth module is part of our Management Development Program which was designed, developed and is currently  facilitated by myself in our six hotels and resorts which is aimed at developing the Management and Leadership competencies of our Managers.

The session in BRR was attended by 16 Heads of Department, their assistants and selected line managers. The Management team in BRR was in their usual self, i.e energetic, participative and motivated towards learning new concepts and skills. This made the training all the more exciting.

When in the instructional design stage of this module i had a two options:

1. To focus on the elements of communication theories, its functionality and work place application. This will be of course very pedagogical in nature and my target participants, i.e Hospitality Managers may not be able to apply it in the work place fully.

2. To focus on Public Speaking which comprises of the 3V's, Vocal, Visual and Verbal, pratice of effective and active Listening and the what, why and how's  of other communication resources, i.e, telephone, newsletters, e-mails and social media.

After much thought given on work place relevancy and application i decided that if i follow the No.2 route the Managers will be to apply the functional and behavioral competencies almost immediately with the 3P's of course, i.e Practice, Practice and Practice. This will ensure a more focused Level 3 Behavioural evaluation to be done by their Superiors.

I started the training in Berjaya Tioman and eventually to Berjaya Langkawi and Berjaya Redang recently. In all these resorts participants seemed to relate to the importance communication in their daily job whether speaking to a guest, fellow collegues, superiors, conducting training and briefings and attending meeting. The idea of coming out and speaking to a group of 15 to 20 actually gave them the scare in the beginning, as all of were required to present three speeches with focus on Vocal, Visual and Verbal aspect of communication.

I faintly remember a saying i read many many years ago which goes like this (correct me if anyone is familiar);

There was once this sculpture artist who carves life like statues from blocks of stones. The villagers looked with awe on the final product. They told him; "You have been blessed with god given skills to be able to do this.". The sculpture said, "The statue was already inside the stone, what i merely did was just to remove the unwanted chips and blocks away".  The villagers were taken aback by his humility.

I would like to use the above story as an analogy to effective communication. Our Managers speak to guest, collegues, superiors and whatnots everyday which is part of their job routine. They are all good at public speaking i would say. The Effective Coomunication training just chipped off the unwanted blocks such as, wrong gestures, lack of silent pauses and vocal variety, to many unappropriate vocalised pauses, distracting mannerisms, facial expressions and lack of eye contact. They were initially using these which was signaled as nervous tension being channeled out or pure stage fright.

In the first speech which focused on Vocal Variety most of the Managers showed the above signs. However when they were made aware of the do's and dont's repeatedly though dynamic and constructive evaluations from me and the participants, the second speech with focus on Visual aka Body Language (day two of training), improved dramatically. Their body language became more natural, spontaneous and conversational.  This was noticed especially in the BRR group where self confidence was high as they were well prepared.

I was amazed with content of the speech which had a good opening, body which examplifies the opening and a "bang" closing. Due to this i even skipped the Verbal aspect which was the third speech they had to do, In conclusion the Managers realised that commnication is 38% Vocal, 55% Visual and only 7 % verbal.  Practise, Practise and Practise was mantra of the day.

I finished of with importance of "Active Listening", as we all know that we only retain 10 percent of what we learn if we sit passively, 40% if get involved physically and 85% if we start to get involved actively by para phrasing, asking questions and etc.

I  finished off with the importance of other communication channels, i.e company newsletters, telephone, e-mails and particularly the evolution of social media in shaping modern communication.

Thank you the great Management team of Berjaya Redang and will see you all again next year after the monsoon season closure.

Keep up the good work guys.