By Herb Mast
(Published in Dealer Magazine – October 2018)
At the end of a coaching session with the management team of a large dealership, where the focus was teamwork, the Finance Director came up to me, thanked me for the materials I had shared, and captured the essence of why he feels so many dealerships struggle with teamwork, when he said, “we’re all mercenaries.”
I had been contemplating similar thoughts for some time, but he captured the essence of the issue in a simple, succinct, and insightful statement, “we’re all mercenaries.” Without realizing the profoundness of his statement, nor the response I was about to give, I said without hesitation, “then maybe we need to start hiring more Patriots!” And there it was, the way to become a more functional team—increase patriotic behavior.
According to Google, a patriotis: a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. Patriots are driven by internal factors—a cause, a mission, a vision…something beyond themselves, and something more significant than money. Sure Patriots want [and need] money. They have needs and wants like everybody else. In contrast to mercenaries, however, their main motivation is internal and they are not willing to sacrifice their values for a few extra dollars. Hence, once they are bought-in to the values of the organization they are loyal and protective of the culture.
In a previous article, The Chameleon Effect, I explain how an environment has a way of changing new hires to become more like the people already in the organization; a melting-pot of sorts. Hence, while hiring more patriots is a good step, at least in the short term, to truly have an impact the environment must also change to support patriotic efforts and so that the patriots don’t lose hope and morph into mercenaries. To have a lasting effect there must be a culture shift—to one that is more patriotic.
From Here to There
The good news is, when supported from the top, Patriots have a way of establishing boundaries that generally keep mercenaries in check and provides the structure necessary to appropriately channel mercenary behavior.
Ultimately, I believe that the majority of mercenaries will comply with the boundaries of a patriotic culture provided it is consistent, predictable, and doesn’t unreasonably stifle their livelihood. Even mercenaries find such an environment more enjoyable and fulfilling. Most hardcore mercenaries, however, will typically self-select and leave, preferring the ‘freedom’ of an unstructured, albeit dysfunctional, environment where they can do their own thing with little accountability and where they can get a greater advantage for themselves over others.
From Good to Great
I estimate that 10-20% of the industry gets-it and are actively practicing and reinforcing patriotic behaviors. These are generally stores that are in the top 10% along with those who fall just short of top 10% honors.
There is extensive research which validates how a patriotic environment increases teamwork, reduces dysfunction and staff turnover, and increases customer loyalty—which ultimately all serve to increase productivity and profits.
My hope is that this conversation will add perspective and context to something you have sensed for some time, but couldn’t explain, while providing solutions and courage to address dysfunctions that have been tolerated for far too long.
Vicious Cycle
It is a vicious cycle. Regardless of how we ended up here, I believe the car business continues to attract, breed, and reward mercenaries—and the result is a public stigma and a loss of trust in our industry.
Consider, the following elements which are often influenced by mercenaries: pay plans, spiffs, bonuses, un-priced vehicles on the lot, artificial sales, the negotiating process, stealing trades, hype-only filled sales meetings, paying birddogs, emphasis on numbers/daily docs instead of behaviors, pressure to up-sell, etc. These practices are not bad in and of themselves and in the right context, but in combination with each other, and without a strong commitment to organizational values, they create an environment in which mercenariesand dysfunction subsist.
Let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong with making money, even lots of it. I once heard a Dealer put business in great patriotic terms when he said, “make as much money as you can, but earn every penny of it.”
The distinguishing factor between mercenaries and patriots is whether they see money as the goal, and will sacrifice values in order to get just a little more, or whether they see money as the reward for a job well done and the byproduct of pursuing a transcending purpose.
Baseline
So, how do you move your culture towards a more patriotic one and glean the benefits that come along with it?
First, it is helpful to establish a base line, by identifying what kind of culture you currently have. To do so rate your team’s behaviors in the following four areas by assigning a score between 0 (never) and 5 (always):
____ Do your sales consultants willingly call customers after the transaction to say thanks and answer questions?
____ Do your service advisers ask permission to undertake a multipoint inspection and then take the time to review it with the customer from a vehicle health perspective rather than just a selling tool?
____ Do you have a good we-owe process in place that ensures you are following through on commitments?
____ Do your service advisers make every effort to keep customers informed of their vehicles repair status?
Add up your scores to these four questions. A score of less than 10 suggests you have a mercenary culture. As score above 15 suggests you have a more patriotic culture.
7 Actions that Lead to Better Teamwork
Here are seven actions that will help build a more patriotic, and team-oriented, culture.
Action 1: Make the decision to instill patriotic values into your dealership and formalize a list of values.
The most important step is always the first one. If you don’t take the first step the others won’t matter. So, decide what kind of culture you want and write a list of values which reflect that culture and which you want the team to aspire to and align around. If you don’t write them down it will be hard for the team to know what they are and to commit to them. Further, without a written list it will be hard for the team to hold each other accountable—and without accountability the values won’t become culture.
Action 2: Declare your values and don’t waver.
Once you have written a list of values announce them to the rest of the organization. Then hold everybody accountable to the same standard, including yourself—lead by example.
Leaders always get what they create and what they allow. Create the list of values and don’t allow your values to be compromised.
Use every opportunity to talk about your values and recognize staff for behaviors that are aligned with those values. You can’t just announce the values once, just like you don’t advertise just once. You need to reinforce what is important to you whenever there is opportunity—in your words, your actions, and all corporate communications.
Action 3: Pursue vulnerability-based trust as the foundation upon which to build a more cohesive and aligned team.
Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Advantage, essentially defines what patriots look like in business, when he describes functionalteam players—those who are willing to be vulnerable in order to build trust, who embrace healthy conflict in order to achieve alignment around values and common goals, and who are not afraid to hold others accountable.
Lencioni goes on to say that functional teams are aligned around common and shared goals, psychologically aligned around whythe organization exists, and behaviorally aligned around how the team behaves. In other words, they share a common purpose and set of values and don’t believe that any individual is above the team. Unfortunately, none of this is possible without a foundation of vulnerability-based trust, which gets ego and self-centeredness out of the way.
You know you have vulnerability-based trust when staff are willing to own their mistakes, ask for help, and are quick to apologize.
The key to building vulnerability-based trust is for leaders to go first and lead by example. To be sure, if a leader struggles with vulnerability so will the team.
Action 4: Adopt a longer-term perspective.
In a speech entitled, “Nobody Wins” (check it out on YouTube), Simon Sinek compares and contrasts the characteristics of finiteand infiniteperspectives.
Mercenaries tend to have a finiteperspective, which is short-term and involves doing whatever it takes to win, including bending the rules, stepping on toes, and throwing others under the bus. Most of their effort is transactional in nature. Sure they make a lot of sales, but don’t have a good track record of turning those sales into repeat customers. Unfortunately, since they apply a lot of pressure to get the sale, at almost any cost, those buyers tend not to come back in future.
And as soon as the customer drives off in their new or pre-owned vehicle the mercenary promptly turns their efforts to the next sale. That is why it is so hard to get most car guys to follow-through on things like we-owes and to make post-sale follow-up calls—they see their job as done once the customer leaves the lot. Not surprising is how their transactions also come with a fair amount of “heat.”
Patriots on the other hand tend to have an infiniteperspective, which is long-term and involves building relationships and doing the right thing. They see the saleas a natural byproduct of serving people and putting the customer’s best interests first. Everything they do is focused on making life-long customers who will come back for future purchases while referring their friends and family. Patriots impress and earn trust with their authenticity and genuine display of care for the spoken and unspoken needs and desires of their customers. They are masters of listening and follow-through before, during, and after the sale, because they authentically care about the customer and the mission of the organization.
Action 5: Walk the talk and own your mistakes, before asking how much it will cost—even when it hurts.
Patriots simply walk the talk. They admit their mistakes and errors, regardless of cost. In fact, they own their mistakes and make things right. That’s why they are so highly trusted and create so many long-term customers.
Patriots don’t compromise their values simply to save a few dollars. At the same time they won’t allow themselves to be doormats.
A good approach after an issue arises is to talk through the situation to discover the facts before talking about dollars—talking about dollars just complicates the conversation and makes it harder to get to the real issue(s). Once the facts are known take ownership of the aspects that you caused and gently request that the customer owns their piece. You don’t have to own things that are not your fault. It is ok to push back and hold your ground when others are being unreasonable. Reasonable people don’t expect things for free nor do they respect those that pander to them.
Action 6: Recognize the importance of emotions.
We are emotional beings, but for some reason when it comes to business, and especially the car business, many don’t think emotions are relevant. Instead they try to deal with everything rationally—price, features, quality, and time. In fact, money is the main rational tool that seems to be used in virtually every situation, with both staff and customers, whether it is in the form of commissions, spiffs, bonuses, discounts, birddogs, etc. And, at its extreme, money is seen as a cure-all, when in many cases there has actually been an emotional offense, which cannot be resolved with money.
To this point neuroscience reveals that our emotional brain (Limbic) has three times more impact on our decisions and behaviors than does our rational brain (Neocortex). Yet most of our effort and current business practices represent external [extrinsic] stimuli, like the monetary rewards and penalties, which only connect with the rational brain.
To have greater effect and bigger impact we need to start focusing on internal stimuli, the things that connect with people emotionally, like: trust, respect, relationship, responsibility, autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Action 7: Create an environment in which people feel safe to question anything and everything.
When a team is not achieving desired results and is not asking questions you can be sure they don’t have clarity and they don’t feel comfortable and/or safe to admit they don’t know.
It is incumbent upon a leader to recognize this disconnect and ensure their team has clarity so that they can buy-in and execute without wasted time and effort. Further, accountability is only possible when there is true buy-in—everything else is just policing.
The best way to ensure clarity is to encourage questions. But the catch twenty-two is people will not talk unless they feel safe. That’s why a foundation of vulnerability-based trust, in which the leader displays an appropriate degree of vulnerability themselves, is so important.
In her book Multipliers, Liz Wiseman suggests that the best leaders tend to be debate-makers—not just allowing questions, but mining for them and creating debates so that everybody feels comfortable speaking their mind and asking questions.
Start now. There will never be a better time.
Every day is game day in the car business. So, it is not realistic, nor practical to shut down the store while you retool and hire more patriots. Nor do I think it is necessary to replace all your people who display mercenary behaviors—not all people who act like mercenaries are actually mercenaries and not all mercenaries are hardcore.
A conscious focus on patriotic principles, starting at the top and working through the seven actions detailed above, will allow a dealership to transform its culture and people over time, while improving teamwork and performance.
Herb Mast is President of HealthyDEALER an initiative of COHESION, inc. and is devoted to helping Car Dealers engage their ultimate potential and get better results by doing things with greater intentionality in the areas of leadership, culture, communication, teamwork, and organizational health. Additional insights and practical solutions are available on Herb’s blog at www.HealthyDEALER.com. © Herb Mast 2018