EXCELLENCE IS… Series Part 2-1

Productivity

Most of us think of productivity on an individual scale; how can I be more productive? Yet most people work for organizations, and if the organization isn’t productive, how can you be productive?

This continues the series on Excellence is…, having started with Excellence is… a spirit and continued with Excellence is …intentional.

There are certain experiences in life which are just unforgettable, making invincible but indelible marks in one’s life. What follows is just one of them.

I was a student, and I had gone down south for a summer job. It was at a fast food restaurant, the famous KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). During the first week of employment, if I recall right, whenever I reported to work, I would announce myself to my supervisor and then go to a room which I now call the training room, although it was never referred to as such.

It was a small room; just big enough for a standard writing table, two chairs and a setup of an old vintage professional movie projector, as in the image below, (A).

There were several rolls of films placed on a side table next to the projector. (I learnt how to change the rolls at the start of the orientation/training.)

I was given a set of booklets; study guides (to be precise), about thirty or thirty –five in number! Each study guide represented related tasks. Samples of the study guide are presented in the image B.

Under the Sanitation series there were study guides with the following titles: Clean! Clean! Clean!, Tools of the Trade, Basic Cleaning, Window Washing, Cleaning Walls and Floors, Cleaning Upright Refrigerator and Freezer, Cleaning The Service Area and Equipment, The Packing Table, The Dining Area and Cleaning the Outside Area.  

Under the Customer Service series were titles such as Customer Service Guide, The Service System, and Asking for the Order, Suggestive Selling, Packing to Please and a few more other titles including Handling Complaints and Emergencies!

There was also a whole series of study guides on food preparation, presentation and packaging of KFC products!

A film accompanied each study guide! You read right, ‘a film accompanied each study guide!’ And I had to watch each film to answer questions in each of the study guides.

On the last sheet of each study guide was an evaluation form for the Manager to fill after my answers were checked!!

What has the above story to do with productivity?

Well, by the time you go through such a training you become KFC personified! (You are KFC)!

You are very confident about the company’s products, quality, service and cleanliness requirements. The details of procedures watched in the films and the knowledge you had acquired to reflect on, in the study guides, become a part of your being!  

To me, this is ‘operational excellence’ in a nutshell; where the quality of inputs provide outputs which have such impact on customers to cause them to come back again and again and which reflects significantly on the company’s bottom-line. Training was just one aspect of the company’s inputs.

The above exposure and a few training experiences I have had in the industry, no doubt have contributed to, and imparted on my passion for the industry and my motivation towards education and training in the hospitality and tourism industry.

This is to be continued in next week’s feature.

Last week we celebrated Ghana on the blog with ‘A SPECIAL FEATURE: CELEBRATING GHANA @ 65’. Below are two promises, I made.

First the brief on the drink, 🇬🇭 ngoor, the Independence Day Cocktail.

Mr. Nartey, a lecturer at Koforidua Technical University contributed to the special edition to celebrate Ghana on the blog with an Independence Day Cocktail and Food (Otor).

Ghana 🇬🇭 ngoor (which literally means “Ghana is sweet” in the Ga-Dangbe dialect) is more like a tropical virgin Pousse-Cafe (cocktails that are never stirred, instead the guest drinks the rainbow colours layer by layer, as neatly as possible).

“The ingredients are chosen for colour and density rather than for its complementary tastes” (Katsigris & Thomas 2007, p. 431). As indicated by Kastigris & Thomas (2007) density depends on the sugar content, but because there’s no sugar content indicated on the bottle, the proof or alcohol content can do the can be of great help.

You want to use the Refractometer?

Recipe
Green Grenadine syrup
Pineapple 🍍
Water melon 🍉
Unsalted rimmed with the lemon 🍋 rind 😉

Garnish: Wedge of pineapple (I guessed I saw some women in wedges 👠at the old Polo grounds dancing 💃 for freedom). Yeah that was the idea 💡 aside complementing the pineapple juice.

Use a black cocktail 🍹 umbrella if served in the afternoon .. black star abi?

Method
(Pusse- Cafés Family)

In this case, the arrangements were done in this manner. ie. Sweetest, (Green) Sweeter (Yellow) and Sweet (watermelon) with the help of a Barspoon. This should be done with utmost patience and care.

Now you see how Ghana 🇬🇭 is Sweet? 😆 …. you got it now.. 👌

Now for our patriotic song!

Lyrics and translation