Lead or Get Out of the Way!
by: Jack Fitzpatrick
One of the most common mistakes that managers of any department make today is the fact that they confuse their daily management tasks with leading their staff.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
What do we manage on a daily basis?
- Paper work
- Numbers
- Budget
- Inventory
- Supplies
One of the most common things stated by the managers when asked (that I purposely left off the list) was people! We manage tasks, but we should be leading people.
This should always be done by example, not by “saber rattling”.
I remember one time while talking to one of my dealers and the management staff in an initial meeting about the process and procedure in the store before I began my evaluation. One of the biggest concerns of the Service Manager was that he was very frustrated because he could not get a handful of his techs to show up on time. Start time was 8:00 am, and they would saunter in about 8:20 – 8:30 am and get their coffee, chit-chat a bit and then go looking for some work, and naturally, if it wasn’t a nice fat piece of “gravy” work, they were upset.
So I asked the manager: “Well, what do you say to them when they walk in so late?”
His hesitant answer was: “Well, I don’t get here until about 9:00 am or so”.
HOUSTON!........ WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
At that point, both the General Manager and Dealer’s head snapped right over to me and gave me that “Well, I guess that might be a problem to look into”.
This was a family operation which made the entire process all the harder.
My point here is that the “Manager” had no idea what was going on from a "people" perspective in his shop. Think about it. We manage reports, we manage numbers, we manage invoices, we manage service policy, and the list goes on and on! WE LEAD PEOPLE... preferably by example.
There is a significant amount of power when you walk around your shop and chat with your people to see how their day is going. Take a second to coach, and counsel, if needed. And hey, how about asking “Jimmy” how his kid did in the baseball game last night? Jimmy might be shocked that you,
#1, remembered that he had a kid, and
#2, played baseball for that matter.
At this point, all Jimmy thought you cared about is the “numbers”. To a certain extent he is right, but we still have to show care and compassion for our people. That, in my opinion, is the difference between a Manager and a leader.
I would make it a point to get my butt out of the office on a daily basis and talk with some of the Ladies and Gentleman of my staff just to have a short, but, sweet conversation; and not necessarily about work.
It could be about anything. Just the fact that I was there and showed some interest in them was important.
To put a funny, and obviously a theatrical spin on this theory, I think we need to “pat the people on the back” twice as often as we think, because when we have to “smack them in the back of the head” (take corrective action) the psychological impact from a negative standpoint is twice what the pat on the back provides.
Doesn’t that make sense?
The paperwork will always be there, but your people might not. And if we have some good ones, we want to make sure that the wheels on those tool boxes get old and rusty, and we have to buy our Service Advisors new chairs because they wore them out!
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