What Golden Tree teaches us about listening
Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.(source)
The saga of the Golden Tree travel agency was a memorable lesson in my college marketing class. As was the Chevy "Nova"'s entry into Latin-American markets ("No Va" means "doesn't go in Spanish). And Vicks cough syrup in Germany (Vicks is a dirty word there).
The lesson is simple: listen.
How is it that companies put all the money and effort into building out a marketing strategy in a country and never think to talk to the people who live there and could easily warn them long before they created confusion (or offense)? It would be like a major movie studio taking a beloved video game character and creating a model of him that looked like a frumpy middle-aged resident of the deepest and most forgotten corner of the "uncanny valley" and then being surprised when there was severe public backlash.
It's honestly absurd and amateur to make these kinds of mistakes and each of them come from the same root cause: lack of a listening culture. You hire people because they're professionals at what they do so why wouldn't you listen to what they have to say? Why wouldn't you seek out their expertise before making a critical mistake that requires damage control from simple embarrassment to millions of dollars of wasted money?
Bottom line, companies are going to keep making these kinds of mistakes and we'll continue to laugh at them when they do, but if your goal is to be an effective and respected leader, not only hearing what your people are saying, but making proactive efforts to get their input is the basics of the basics. After all, how are you a leader if the only voice you hear is your own?
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