August was for me a refreshing break from all of the traveling for several reasons. One is that the hotel training business tends to slow down for a brief interlude this time of year, and the other being that I had scheduled myself to be in the office for several weeks of project work for the launch of Kennedy Training Network’s ResSTAR reports, which is our exciting new alternative to traditional mystery shopping. This break provided time for me to train my own staff for a change and to invest time in planning marketing and sales strategies. Best of all, I was able to be there for the kid’s first day of school. Here’s our annual first day picture:
A second major goal was to develop KTN’s new hospitality/guest services training which we have now aptly named “Hostmasters.” It’s always engaging and fun to create new training, but during the instructional design phase we were really trying to do something special and this took a lot of energy. In the end, I was very pleased at the results of this module, which is probably the most hands-on and interactive program I’ve ever written. It was “training” in its truest sense, aimed at changing behaviors/habits vs. just educating. During the design phase I drew heavily on my experiences with Toastmasters International, including peer feedback and evaluation as key components.
Before I knew it I was off to Charleston, SC to deliver this new module and I was glad to have the comfort level of delivering it to a long-term client - Gateway Hospitality – which owns and operates five or six hotels in that area. What a great day it was, and I actually found it much easier to deliver this pure “training,” as the day was filled with activities, role playing, and training games that focused more on the participants than on me as the trainer. Here’s a picture of me with one of the groups that day:
