Do not Confuse Activity with Accomplishment

Mindless managerial duties and conformity are major traps for mediocre managers and the casualties are the dealership’s personnel. The time has come to shed the “old-school” bureaucratic manager and move this business model into the 21st-century people development arena in order to not only stay in business but to grow the business.  For way too long the automobile industry has accepted as a norm underestimating the outcome of tomorrow by the choices managers make today.

I was looking at a number of automobile job descriptions written by various dealers and organizations here in Virginia. Not one of these job descriptions for GM, GSM, service manager or sales manager contained the single most critical element of any of these powerful jobs; Growing people! Sure, they all contained numbers and job functions and the assorted requirements, but not one spoke about the number one task of a leader–to grow people.  Maybe that is why they don’t call it general leader or general sales leader, service leader or sales leader. Because we have forgotten that this industry, in order to sustain itself, has to develop and grow talented and professional individuals in order to turn things back around to being the professional occupation it once was.

There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom. I didn’t coin the following phrase but I use it often; The enemy of great is good. The primary reason so few managers or organizations ever become great is because they get good for a while and they stop improving. They stop personally growing, learning, risking, changing and growing their people. They use their track record or prior successes as evidence that they are the king. Believing their own headlines, the leaders in these dealerships are ready to write it down, build the manual and document the formula as to how they became successful without adjustments for varying economic climates or personnel and customer behavioral profiles. And, they are not shy about beating their chests in front of the employees and making them feel small. This mentality shifts the dealership’s business from a growth to maintenance mindset and everyone remains in a season of obscurity.

Here is one simple formula; Attrition = Managers Not Developing People!  Now is the perfect time to focus on the new measures and performance indicators that reflect the importance of the new people rules of the game. What got you to this point will not keep you here. When your team is motivated because you encourage them, continually train them, support them, acknowledge their accomplishments, respect them, provide them with tools, assist them with their shortcomings, tell them they are important and then reward them you will be presented with a galaxy of intriguing growth possibilities. Among these for sure are fostering better customer relations, enhancement of your sales and service processes, morale of the store, and a strongly woven team fabric tat is unshakable in any climate. Then, guess what happens? Business as usual turns into unusual business gains.

Ask yourself this question; would I want to work for me? Ego may lie to you but others will not. This entire article was created due to me witnessing the management (notice I did not say leadership) of several stores and the way they treated their sales team. In one instance, a manager was promoted and hired his replacement. Every day he had to tell the newly placed manager that he is not as good as he was as manager or as good as he was as a salesman. In fact, he gloats by letting everyone know he was the best sales manager ever anywhere. Of course he won’t add that the team was rocking when things were quite different economically and he had not much to do but desk deals. He certainly did not develop his team. His team developed him. Yet he remains staunch on the fabricated notion that the success was totally attributed to him leaving one with the notion that he was the only person showing up for work.

Meanwhile, let the true record reflect that under his last most recent direction the dealership had attrition through the roof, units were down, gross was down and every day the employees walked in wondering if they were going to be fired or just give it up due to the continuous harassment and belittling by this manager.

He is living in the past and hanging his “past” success hat on his new position. Instead of recognizing that past successes are merely stepping stones for improvement he is using them as his soapbox for his “hey look at me” speeches. This style of management is DEAD and gives many industry analysts the fuel to associate the automobile business with operating in mediocrity and complacency. These are two of the biggest silent business killers known to man– Kodak, Blockbuster, Circuit City, Nokia to name a few biggies fell from grace because of them. Then there are the thousands of small businesses that close down every year. Complacency will erase greatness.

Meanwhile, the new manager is developing individuals and the team like never before. He has tripled unit sales and gross profits, the team’s morale is at an all-time high and this store is getting recognized by the manufacturer as a dealership on the move. Yet, as well as this new manager is dramatically improving things, the newly promoted manager constantly cherishes finding fault with him in the most insignificant areas without any accolades or recognition of all the good things he is doing for the store. Majoring in minors we like to say. Why would a guy do this when he could be growing and encouraging the new guy which in turn helps everyone including the promoted manager?

Psychologists would most likely describe him as insecure, having low self-esteem, fearful of exposing his real lack of skills, afraid of change, and totally paranoid that there is actually someone in his store who is better than him. An egotist thinks too much of himself and too little of others. Real leaders recognize the importance of developing people to a level higher than themselves because they understand that by doing so, it raises the quality bar across the dealership.  Others like this guy love keeping everyone down below themselves and manage with continuing belittlement of the people to keep everyone unbalanced. Here is a memo from a company president to a personnel manager:  “Search the organization for an alert, aggressive young man who could step into my shoes – and when you find him, fire him.” Sound familiar? If anyone is insecure about somebody taking their job, probably someone should take their job.

What would your direct reports say about you in a confidential interview when asked a series of questions about your character, ability to lead, empathy for others, disciplined work ethic, loyalty, understanding, development of the team and trustworthiness?

Speaking of Ego – Did you know that Adolph Hitler interviewed 30 candidates to be his personal chauffeur; and his qualification for whoever that personal chauffeur would be was that he would pick the shortest man so that he would always look tall when he was with him. In fact, the guy that he picked was so short they literally had to build a special seat for him and put blocks under it so he could see to drive. But Adolph Hitler, because of his ego, always wanted to keep small people around him. Of course, this is in physical stature; but if you’ve got a manager with a big ego the staff that they hire won’t be able to help you because they will only hire people that aren’t very capable of doing anything too well because they are afraid they’ll steal some of the limelight, so whoever they hire can’t help do the job towards greatness.  They will most likely be average which translates to you being an average dealership. You can’t expand your market share when everyone else is doing well. You’ve got a chance when everyone is struggling, but it will require solid leadership, good processes and the continual development of your people.

Charismatic people can draw people to them, but it gives people no reason to trust them. With character, you build trust with others each time you choose integrity over image, truth over convenience, or honor over personal gain. A quote from a CEO of a major corporation explains, “You don’t build trust by talking about it. You build it by achieving results, always with integrity and in a manner that shows real personal regard for the people with whom you work.” Character makes trust possible. And trust is the foundation of leadership.

Here are a few simple yet profound quotes I particularly like relating to what this is all about:

“A great manager has the knack for making ballplayers think they are better than they think they are. He forces you to have a good opinion of yourself. He lets you know he believes in you. He makes you get more out of yourself. And once you learn how good you really are, you never settle for playing anything less than your very best.”

— Reggie Jackson

“If you recruit good players and they play well, you’re a genius. So for a year or two, you’ll be called a genius. Sometimes a ‘genius manager’ will recruit bad players who play poorly, which will make people wonder how come a genius got so dumb so fast.”

— Whitley Herzog

“I have long been profoundly convinced that in the very nature of things, Employers and employees are partners, not enemies; that their interests are common, not opposed; that in the long run, the success of each is dependent upon the success of the other.”

— John D. Rockefeller Jr.

In order to possess a total rock solid Customer Relationship Management initiative, you must first have in place Employee Relationship Management. CRM=ERM! If you are a manager you must do something daily to first grow yourself, encourage your team to do the same then do something daily to grow your team members.  Without this formula you will be constantly fighting an uphill battle and tomorrow will simply be today except one day later. Begin today to enrich and honor your people and they will go into battle with you willingly. If you don’t, you will one day look around and find no one standing alongside of you and then it gets lonely and the job becomes very difficult. Remember, the gates of change only open from the inside.

Implement these positive growth changes in your store and you will have a distinct advantage over your competitors because most of them just don’t get it and never will. Your team and your customers will respond in very positive and surprising ways when you step into this way of thinking.

If you are interested in knowing the early warning signs of complacency in your workplace and what to watch out for, email [email protected] and I will get them out to you.  Also, if you have a similar story or comments, I would love to hear about it.