Tal Shnall did not realize that he was missing a lot of manager and leadership skills.

Tal Shnall Show Notes Page

Tal Shnall was promoted to managing a staff that was more than double the size of his previous role. But Tal did not realize that he was missing a lot of manager and leadership skills that would allow him to be successful. Tal struggled and paid the price. Eventually he found his way forward and now helps others from repeating his experience.

Tal Shnall was born and raised in a small town called Rehovot in Israel. He is the oldest son of three boys. He moved to the United States when he was 17 years old. He learned his core values from his mother and father who always lead by their own example. They gave him the values and virtues of moral character to live the right way.

Growing up Tal usually could be found with friends playing sports or occasionally reading an inspiring book. He would also take special notes when his mother was preparing their home and making great effort to welcome visitors.

After obtaining a hotel degree from the University of North Texas Tal started out in the hospitality field, in small restaurants and moved to the hotel industry.

Tal is now a Customer Experience (CX) speaker and trainer, with more than 20 years’ experience as a lead Brand Trainer and in hotel operations. He has worked for the top hotel brands such as Marriott, Hilton, Starwood and Intercontinental Hotel Group, to develop Customer Service Training, Leadership Development, Corporate Training, and Executive Coaching.

Today, he still loves what he does, training and developing people in the hotel industry and helping leaders and frontline people to provide excellent customer service. It’s all about serving and adding value to people from all walks of life.

He is continually adding value to create sustainable measurable results that improve customer satisfaction, profitability, and organizational culture.

Tal is also a leadership blogger and influencer. He was one of the top contributing bloggers on http://www.linked2leadership.com/ in 2014 and he is a LeadChange Group guest blogger.

Tal currently lives in Dallas, Texas where he loves to stay active and keep physically fit, seek out great dance music and enjoy the natural areas of White Rock Lake.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @tshnall to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Customer Service or Customer Experience begins at home.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“External customer experience is the result of internal customer experience.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“There’s nothing more rewarding than when a customer writes a letter to praise something you’ve done.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“You train for the skill and you hire the smile or attitude.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“What’s really going to make the difference is if someone on your team is really making the positive difference.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“Bring on the right personalities and continuously development them.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“In order to be an engaged leader, you have to see what they’re doing.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“There has to be failure before you become success.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“If your employees are successful they’ll deliver a better experience for your customers.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“I’ve never had a toxic culture create a positive customer experience.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

“Develop yourself, because you can’t give what you don’t have.” -Tal Shnall Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Self-awareness is the ultimate test for every leader that wants to grow into a greater leader.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Working on relationships. Re-energizing old relationships.

Best Leadership Advice

Giving is better than receiving.

Secret to Success

Personal development. Develop yourself, because you can’t give what you don’t have.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Coaching people.

Contacting Tal Shnall

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tshnall

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tal-shnall-89b66763/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

165: Tal Shnall: I fell on my face taking that position

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotion. So move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who’s really going to help us with the customer experience where those moments of truth actually happen. Tal Shnall was born and raised in a small town called Rehovot in Israel. He is the oldest son of three boys. He moved to the United States when he was 17 years old. He learned his core values from his mother and father who always led by their own example. They gave him the values and virtues of moral character to live the right way. Growing up Tal usually could be found with friends playing sports or occasionally reading an inspiring book. He would also take special notes when his mother was preparing their home and making great effort to welcome visitors.

After obtaining a hotel degree from the University of North Texas Tal started out in the hospitality field in small restaurants and moved to the hotel industry. Tal is now a customer experience speaker and trainer with more than 20 years’ experience as a lead brand trainer and in hotel operations. He’s worked for the top hotel brands such as Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, Intercontinental Hotel Group to develop their customer service training, leadership development, corporate training and executive coaching. Today he still loves what he does training and developing people in the hotel industry and helping leaders and frontline people to provide excellent service. It’s all about serving and adding value to the people from all walks of life and he’s continually adding value to create sustainable measurable results that improve customer satisfaction, profitability and organizational culture.

Tal is also a leadership blogger and influencer and he’s one of the top contributing bloggers on Link to Leadership in 2014 and he is a lead change group guest blogger. Tal currently lives in Dallas, Texas where he loves to stay active and keep physically fit seeking out great dance music and enjoying the natural areas of White Rock Lake. Tal Shnall, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Tal Shnall: Absolutely. Glad to connect with you Jim, and happy birthday to you, sir.

Jim Rembach: I appreciate that. I’ve given our Legion a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Tal Shnall: Absolutely. My current passion is adding value to frontlines and leaders and the customer service world and to coach and train people to inspire them to another level of greatness.

Jim Rembach: You say that so easily. When I start thinking about the whole people side of it as well as people serving people when you throw that whole mix into it and then all of the raising customer expectations component I started thinking about a whole lot of squeaky wheels and difficulties just looking at the long-term nature of continually serving when you look at the work that you’re doing where do you find you’re spending most of your effort and time?

Tal Shnall: It’s a great question and I think obviously it took me 20 years to connect to my passion and purpose as we go through them to the experiences that builds our character in the industry. I think that the biggest challenge for us is to continuously work with the talent in our industries because the talent delivers the customer experience and I think many organizations seem to understand that intellectually but not in performing in a way that really delivers results for their customers. I say this because customer service or customer experience begins at home just like it started with my mother and father. Our home is our business organization customer experience is the result of internal customer experience, if your employees are taken care of they’ll take care of the customer.

Jim Rembach: You bring up a really interesting point too when you start talking about that frontline component and things starting in the home so when you start looking at the dynamics associated with the modern-day workforce, let’s go back to when you first started in hospitality to where it is now when you think about the worker who’s coming to apply and seeking

Employment, how are they different?

Tal Shnall: Such a great question because we talk about this every day. When I started out in the business it was definitely a career. You were building yourself up you were going through experience that they would mold you as a as a professional as someone in the hospitality career or customer service career the great difference that I’ve learned and I didn’t appreciate that early on was I was surrounded by people that really inspired leadership in me to become what they were at the time, they were the top leadership in our hotel, I think that we need to do a better job in inspiring others to be the same. My greatest joy is always—and I’ve had this in my experience was when someone got promoted to take my job or to take, it’s not even something better than what my job is, I think the challenge for us is to continuously develop our talent to continuously get the excitement and the energy about service. I know you’ve talked about the challenges but at the same time I flipped that around as—when was the last time you made somebody’s day and you went home and told your family or your friends how you wowed someone? I received a letter the other day from my GL manager and out of all everything else you can combine there’s nothing more rewarding to know that a customer wrote a letter to someone in your organization to praise what you’ve done for them, you added value to their life.

Jim Rembach: That’s a really interesting point, how often do customers actually go to that level these days and write. When you start thinking about—going back to that frontline worker and how they’re different today—you talked about brand and the importance of brand and many of the hotels that you worked for brand is really key for them and really important and core, I have a worker that maybe didn’t learn all of those hospitality things in the home didn’t learn the customer service components didn’t learn about serving others, how are they able to be successful and be able to deliver to a brand that is so important?

Tal Shnall: That’s a great question. First of all, I think you got to start with the hiring process. Being a selective hiring organization you’re going to look for that friendliness, your attitude. There’s an old saying that, you train for the skill and you hire the smile or you hire the attitude and I think if you’re looking at the great brands including the brand that I work for which is Marriott, Renaissance, we’re hire for personalities we’re hire four friendliness the rest of the stuff can be trained. And so we dedicate a lot of time on who is the right person to take care of our guests that’s number one. Number two is to continuously developing and training people about the type of brand culture that we’re trying to instill and engage with our guests and customers. It is more competitive than ever nowadays as you talk about branding and someone’s standing out, why would they go over to your staff publish man rather than someone else. Many places have become a commodity but what’s really going to make the difference if someone on your team is really making the positive difference. So, we’ve got to do two things, we’ve got to select the right people bring the personalities and also continuously developing, training them creating an environment for them to grow so they can provide the level of service that we would like our customers would like.

Jim Rembach: When I’m thinking about that frontline and those moments of truth and really developing those frontline people reality is we all know that what we learn and what we’re exposed to in the classroom it doesn’t translate to an actual job behavior. That’s not just the way it works because if that was the case all the classes we take we would be good to go but it just doesn’t work that way you have to implement and put things in practice. And so to help people to do that there has to be a framework and little tricks and tips in order for them to be successful. When you’re working with the frontline specifically in order to have them develop and create those wow experiences, what kind of tips or tools or tricks or frameworks are you giving them so that it’s top of mind it’s easy to deliver?

Tal Shnall: We use a of couple things. One is a huddle, which has a 15 to 20 minute huddle and we are going over those what we call reinforcement topics. You’re right, someone can go to class but how will they apply it and be very intentional about it? We’re consistently doing what we call pre shift huddle and that is a 15 minute huddle to go over and get feedback, coaching opportunities with our team and also keep reminding them why they’re there, their purpose and what are the most important things that we need to bring out in those experiences what does a Marriott Renaissance experience looks like. So, the more we can engage with them the better they can apply those in each and every moment with that customer. Continuously being there as a leader you need to be on the frontline with them so you can see what works what doesn’t work, what do I need to give, where do I need to coach where do I need to do something different and so you’re there being an engaged leader you’ve got to see what they’re doing and reinforce, reinforce, and reinforce—communication is the key.

Jim Rembach: Okay, you also mentioned something that to me I think is really important and that is that whole career pathing component. When you are working with organizations how much of your work actually goes into helping them create and then therefore communicate that whole career pathing process?

Tal Shnall: What we do is actually what we call personal development plan. We sit down with every individual on our team and we try to learn more about them who they are as a person and what their aspirations are and also the big thing is connecting our culture to their learning and development. So we start off with what this person is working on what are their aspirations like and then connecting the big purpose the big picture and the culture how their contribution and development can add value to our customers. So, it’s a process it’s a system in place we visit with the employee on a monthly basis and we’re creating development plans that they can be engaged with rather than something that came from corporate and here’s a document you need to do what you need to do, I don’t think that’s engaging. I think you continuously having those conversations and finding out what turns them on. Once you do that you create a path a road for them and through that you’re finding out that they have more aspirations you’re finding out what do I really want to spend my time on. We use strengths finder 2.0 which is another great resource. We may use the disc profile. All these little tools help our team to become more successful.

Jim Rembach: So when you look at a typical engagement for you what does that kind of look like?

Tal Shnall: Well it looks like the engagement that I worked with leaders and frontline leaders is hands-on training. It is developing the skill sets that creates a better engagement with their employees. It creates more cultural values and also creates performance systems and accountability for their teams and departments to deliver exceptional service. So, we have a system in place, a process that enables them to win better customer service and better internal customer service.

Jim Rembach: When you’re working with these groups I can imagine that there’s a whole lot of things that you have to focus in on and really give them that focus and help them with that purpose and really get to some points of clarity. One of the things that we do on the Fast Leaders show is look at quotes to kind of help us do that. Is there a quote or two that you can share?

Tal Shnall: Yes, absolutely. There’s one by Martin Luther King junior, Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?

Jim Rembach: I can only imagine why that that particular quote is so important to you it just like of leads to the whole hospitality feeling and why you’ve actually taken this path in your life. Talking about paths—your moving from Israel and coming here to the States, you’re a young man and going to college and going through the transition of working for organizations and now having your own practice there’s a lot of humps that we have to get over. Is there a time when you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share?

Tal Shnall: Sure. It actually happened in 2001 and I was moving from an hourly position to a supervisory position. I was a supervisor for a couple of years and then I wanted to venture out to become a manager a front office guest services manager at a bigger hotel. I made the leap without realizing that I was missing a lot of manager leadership skills in order for me to be successful and so I failed, I fell on my face the first couple of years and taking that position. There was really a gap going from where I was a supervisor to become a department manager, there was a gap, and so I paid the price and I fell on my face and it taught me that I should obviously take the proper steps along the ride to make myself successful and wherever I needed to be. It was a moment of humility for me because I knew that I wasn’t serving the people in the best way my competence wasn’t there the inspiration wasn’t there and so I was kind of lost in the woods if you say and I think that that created a situation where I wasn’t at my best in serving people at their best and it was a bigger hotel, much bigger than where I came from. I moved from supervising ten employees to almost 35 that’s where the gap was and I needed to learn more about how to really add value.

Jim Rembach: So when you start talking about a gap, what do mean “a gap”? You tell “I fall on your face” what caused you to fall on your face? When you talked about skills what kind of skills and how were you able to obtain those and get back up? You and I talked about something, before we started actually recording, about how you have to go down or you have to fall in order to get up? And so the falling piece is important and you have to do it and you have to use it as that point of humility like you were talking about and move forward, that’s one of the ways that we move forward faster.

Tal Shnall: I think that there has to be failure before you can become success. The skill set that I was lacking were leadership skills and management skills in order for me—it’s almost like moving from a small village to a big city. There are some things that you need to know and do in order to be success and in the bigger place and so it was almost going from a very small environment operationally smaller to something that is operationally buzzing and very busy and with a lot more employees a bigger brand. I thought that my skill level on the leadership part and the management part of skill set were enough and the reality taught me differently. It’s not enough you need to develop more leadership skills and more management skills in order to manage a group going from 10 people to 35 people there’s where the difference is.

Jim Rembach: So I can imagine there’s a multitude of different processes that you had to have when you have that larger group that’s the management side of it. And then the leadership side is all that emotional intelligence work that you have to do in order to have people focus on that purpose and give them an opportunity to where motivation actually grows. And so when you start thinking about those two different things what was the most important in your success going forward?

Tal Shnall: The most important part is my own personal development, you can’t give what you don’t have. So I realize as I actually, for the longest time one of the reasons I didn’t like school was reading a lot but I don’t remember the exact time and I started reading personal development books, John Maxwell, Steven Covey, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy and all the great guys that gives us inspiration and development to hone our skills. I really was very, very, very intentional till today I’m very intentional about personal development and that’s what really changed my business life and my personal life is that I put a lot of resources in me in order to provide better leadership to just people around the family, community, and business.

Jim Rembach: When you started looking at making that transition for working for an organization and going into your own practice and working with clients across multiple different industries is that you’ve got a lot of things that happen with that process a lot of things that’s going on, so if you look at one of the things that you have right now as a goal, what would it be?

Tal Shnall: It would be to make a positive impact for people. I’ll share with you in the following way, when I was in my 20’s I had a different outlook I thought that the organization or the business that I’m at owes me the training and development and therefore this is how I’m going to succeed and others are going to succeed. I think that what happens in in several places that speaks to my heart is that there’s a lot of talk about training and development and they want results and they want better customer service, they want better customer experience. My question is what are you intentionally doing inside your organization to create that? What I’m talking about the first day of orientation we’re talking about high intention, daily engagement whether it’s training or development and continuously pushing people to where you can take them every day is what I was missing in in my early 20’s. People didn’t talk about culture they didn’t talk about a lot of these things all they wanted is they knew they wanted an outcome and they’ll train you a little bit maybe the first day but they didn’t really take you through that development to make their employees successful. I think if your employees are successful they’ll deliver a better experience for your customers.

Jim Rembach: I think you bring up a really interesting point when you start talking about the work so for me looking at change is that all the studies that have been done about change is—you can do the whole bottom-up top-down inside-out outside in all of those things but if you spend the effort and time in your frontline and there is no process by which the organization itself can actually encourage and nurture the change that individual is going to be stunted in their growth and their career opportunities. So, it’s like okay, we’ve done on this individual work and then we’ve thrown them into a system that isn’t a good forum.

Tal Shnall: Yeah. I think that as leaders we’re working in and I’ve worked with cross industries not just hospitality, everyone wants to achieve a greater customer experience. They’re not saying it but in engaging with them I can tell what they. Initially what they want is the employee experience. I’m the culture guys so when people hire me to develop a better culture and to create a culture of excellence organization this is what they want because ultimately the employee expanse will deliver the customer experience. I’ve never experienced in my years of having a negative culture or toxic culture to create a customer experience that’s positive, I’ve never seen that happen, so there’s a cause and effect. Most leaders, most managers understand that intellectually I like to highlight the word intellectually. What are you doing on a daily basis to be highly intentional about creating those? I remember a story about Southwest Airlines, a consultant ask them, I’m a little bit kind of taken aback about what you guys are doing all this love and culture and spirit, how come your competitor doesn’t do the same? And their CEO said that, apparently everybody thinks it’s beneath them. This is a very shallow way, we really need to be intentional about what we say what do we do there’s all these mantras, but are we actually doing something to create those moments?

Jim Rembach: Well that’s a great point. And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

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Jim Rembach: Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Tal, the hump day hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Tal Shnall, are you ready to hoedown?

Tal Shnall: Yes sir.

Jim Rembach: Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Tal Shnall: I think just working on relationships. Being highly intentional about those relationships and actually re-energizing all the relationships into what I do every day is something that I want to invest more and grow more on a daily basis.

Jim Rembach: What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Tal Shnall: Giving is better than receiving.

Jim Rembach: What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Tal Shnall: Personal development is the key to my success. I would highly recommend people to develop themselves because you can’t give what you don’t have.

Jim Rembach: What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Tal Shnall: I would say coaching people that’s probably my highlights in working with leaders across industries. They’ve always wanted that extra coaching sessions and development and working with their leaders for months after we do the training and setup, so I would say coaching is the best tool that I that I have.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, they can be from any genre?

Tal Shnall: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to www.fastleader.net/talshnall. Okay, Tal, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. What skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Tal Shnall: Definitely self-development, self-awareness, emotional intelligence skills, if I had those when I was younger I think that would be extremely beneficial to my career. No regrets but I think those awareness is really the ultimate test of every leader who wants to grow themselves to a greater leader.

Jim Rembach: Tal Shnall it was not her to spend time with you today can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Tal Shnall: They can definitely find me on LinkedIn by just typing my name talshnall. Definitely would love to connect with your audience and find out how I can add value to their life.

Jim Rembach: Tal Shnall, thank you for share your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

END OF AUDIO

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165: Tal Shnall: I fell on my face taking that position