Establishing Credibility

Kindly take a deep breather and a short detour with your magic carpet and join me into a less emotional journey into the professional arena…

All that happened in the previous entries happened at the same time while I was required to set up the Training department for my new role as Training Manager, with a customer experience based solutions provider based in Dubai. In addition to my roles as Trainer and Training Manager, I had a business development role in the Levant region, mind you, both being roles are new to me. 

Within the company I work, I am the only one currently in Lebanon with minimal guidance - functioning as an entrepreneur. I knew I had to have Intrinsic Motivation and Exercise Optimism to find a way to achieve my objectives & targets. I started asking myself questions and debated potential creative solutions to set our company apart.

After much thought, I finally conjured up creative methods and established a Training structure, set up the Training topics and proposed it to my management. It was an exciting challenge and one that gave my manager and the owner seeds to roll with my ideas further. 

My most recent challenge was receiving a request to help leverage the performance of our Mystery Shopping team. Since we are a customer experience solutions provider training clients on how to develop unparalleled client satisfaction, to create loyalty and trust, we also need to provide the evaluative part which is Mystery Shopping, competitive intelligence - in effect, the evaluative part of measuring the customer experience. We cater to high-end brands and multinationals in the region, and as such, we need to develop our standards to help our clients do the same.
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I was asked by my manager and the Mystery Shopping team manager to identify where the team's gaps were and help find a way to alleviate their struggles blocking their progress. There was my chance to adopt my newly learned EQ methods. I was happy to have arranged for a Skype call with the Mystery Shopping team and guided them through open-ended questions, listened to them in order to understand the process: how they conducted their business, how they contact shoppers, how they relay the information, if they seek the buy-in of the potential shoppers, how they check whether the shoppers are eligible for the project before briefing the shoppers and so on so forth, until I gradually arrived to the ripe moment to tackle their concerns and challenges.

Through this challenging experience over Skype, I was able to coach them using EQ on how to deal with challenging shoppers, also design a structure, process and checklist for them to use. This guiding process seemed to relieve them immensely.

The Administration Manager happened to be within earshot of the call and chose to inform me what a spectacular way I had conducted the coaching session and how she found my solutions extremely insightful. She stated and I quote, "This is exactly what they needed and you have certainly put them on the right track! They are sure to do a great job now!" She expressed enthusiastically. As for the company director and the team members' manager, they were both impressed. The company director who also happens to be the owner and my manager said, "Maya, this is exactly what I am looking for!" 

Adopting EQ techniques created pivotal shifts!

My approach required active listening, connection, and Empathy. I also had to tap into my inner wisdom (Wisdom Lives Within) to identify how to start off with the facts and gradually progress to help them perform a mind-body scan, and then shift into a process-oriented approach (The Process is the Content). After this, I started being approached for several solution-oriented services, through the company and the client.
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EQ has helped me and is constantly helping me on my journey to reap fruits and instill change, only because I have made a conscious choice to purposefully apply the methods, tools and techniques.

​I have found that confidence is the ability to showcase our insights properly and this enhances credibility. It is wonderful to be able to make a positive difference and to be approached to do the same. EQ not only helped me be brave and break my chains, but it also helped me support others in breaking theirs.