Training Industry Quarterly - Spring 2008 - (Page 41)

10 QUESTIONS WITH CHRISTINA CERNUCH 1 What’s most important to a learning professional — classroom/training experience or business experience? 5 What are the most pressing issues on your professional plate now? Business experience. Our profession is about, in my opinion, identifying performance gaps or performance opportunities and developing strong solutions to sustain change. To me you really get that through business experience, not necessarily being in a classroom or through delivering classroom training. While I think those things are extremely important, at our level, it really is about setting up your team with the priorities that will enable them to make change happen. I think in our business we have multiple tasks that have to be completed every day. If you're a General Manager of a hotel, you have about 144 things you have to get done every week. I think the most pressing issue is how to help prioritize 144 tasks into three little buckets (Taking care of our guests, Taking care of our employees and Keeping the hotels spotlessly clean)and get them all done. That's hard. 2 What’s your favorite training methodology? 6 7 8 9 What’s the most challenging aspect of your job? We believe in practical solutions, in practical applications. Really what it boils down to is we're a gap analysis and performance support based team. We're really more of a performance consulting organization. We don't spend a lot of time discussing what methodologies to use and instead just focus on the task at hand. We've just taking over responsibility for training employees at our outsourced call center. I don't know that it's challenging, but it's new to me. The call center environment is much different than a hotel. What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job? 3 What’s your most memorable training experience, good or bad? I get to work with really smart people. When I was in consulting I was always concerned that if I went into industry I wouldn't have exposure to as great a talent as I did in consulting. At least at La Quinta I was wrong. It's a great group here. To improve our competitive position within the hotel industry, our leaders challenged us to transform the way Front Desk Service Representatives (FDSRs) sold our hotel rooms, the importance of providing excellent guest service, and selling customers on the value of our hotels. We partnered with Applied Learning to develop BUDDY'S VIEW…Sales and Service, which features a wake up on the bright side Knowledge Map. The 5 x 7 foot Map is used to engage FDSRs in a discussion about the impact the sales and service philosophies have on the business. In the end, the Knowledge Map experience emphasized the importance of each FDSR aligning his or her behaviors to ensure we are (1) Selling the Best Available Rate, (2) Living the "Whatever It Takes" Service Philosophy, and (3) Using Problem Solving to Apply Sales and Service Strategies. Do you find the time to continue your own professional development? Not formally, but informally through webinars, books, etc. We do go to multiple symposiums and conferences throughout the year. Any recommendations for folks out there – books, partners, resources, etc.? 4 Who would you consider your most valuable role model? There's a great group locally we work with, MLink Technologies. They offer e-learning services and technical writing services. They're fantastic. Also, Training Pros helps us when we are looking for great training talent. Steve Kapaun is our contact at Training Pros.. Finally, Andrew Leong-Fern at Applied Learning supported us as we got into the business of delivering experiential design solutions. If I give any cards out, it's those three, everywhere I go. Her name is Mary VonAhnen, she's at Fossil here in Dallas. I met her when I worked at Arthur Andersen. My first week, she asked me if I could develop a computer-based training solution for a client. Upon my word, she let me deliver the first computer based training solution for Arthur Andersen in Dallas. I've followed her lead ever since as she is an extremely intelligent, thought-provoking and kind individual. 10 If someone wants to follow in my professional footsteps, I’d tell them to be sure to… Listen more and talk less. I think a lot of times when you meet with learning professionals there's a lot of conversation about methodology and technique and things like that. For people who don't understand those concepts or don't care to, it's really about changing your style to meet the needs of the business. At the end of the day, if you go somewhere and you make a difference, if you positively impact the operations of the business, that's enough. 41 Training Industry Quarterly, Spring 2008 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Spring 2008

Training Industry Quarterly - Spring 2008 At the Editor’s Desk Contents Winning Organizations Through People Before You Buy… Learning Technologies Take Your ROI to Level 6 LCMS: A Critical Link to Learning Success Establishing Best Practices for Learning Governance Training’s Role in Continuous Improvement Meet Jim Mitnick Meet Karen Kocher Meet Christina Cernuch The Personal Side of Personnel Training Closing Arguments

Training Industry Quarterly - Spring 2008

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