The Law of Thirds is a simple concept that explains why some organizational cultures are more positive whereas others are negative and why some organizations have higher employee turnover than others.
The Law relates to where leaders focus their effort—on problem employees or highly engaged employees. Attention is like a magnet that draws others in its direction and influences culture.
When operating properly culture is intended to attract the right employees and reject the wrong ones.
Great Leaders obey the Law of Thirds by focusing their effort on the top third of [highly engaged] employees and in the process build a positive culture that supports higher productivity and retains better employees.
Scenario A: When leaders give more attention to problem employees. In the process many of the average performers and half of the top performers lower their standards and productivity.
This happens when leaders are afraid of conflict and don’t deal with issues as they arise. Instead they allow negativity to prevail rather than nipping it in the bud. Other times, when it is hard to hire replacement employees , like in the case of sales staff or service techs, leaders tolerate negative behaviors in fear they will lose the employee. Unfortunately, the effect of tolerating negative behaviors results in lowering the productivity of good employees whose attitudes is negatively impacted, to the point where many of them leave to find an environment they find more fulfilling and rewarding.
Scenario B: When great leaders focus their efforts on the top performers. In the process the average performers and half of the low performers increase their own efforts and adopt higher standards.
Great leaders follow a vision and uphold the values of the organization. They nip negativity in the bud so that it does not spread to others in the organization. This takes tremendous resolve and courage, but ultimately allows the leader to shape the organization into a positive and productive powerhouse where top performers thrive and low performers self-select for environments that tolerate their negative behaviors.
Here is a brief video from Patrick Lencioni that explains how the Law of Thirds works:
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It is hard to imagine true leadership without empathy.
In fact, by definition it would seem that leadership without empathy would be more akin to a dictatorship. For isn’t the act of leading one of taking a group of people where they want to go (alignment around vision and values)? And why would people follow unless they feel the leader hears them, is sensitive to what is important to them, and acts in their best interests?
Empathy helps people feel safe and more willing to be vulnerable–key ingredients to building trust, which is foundational for all kinds of relationships.
Research done by Bal and de Jong (From Human Resource Management to Human Dignity Development) has shown that when people trust each other at work [because their relationships are strong] they are more committed to the organization and more willing to make a positive contribution.
Three thoughts Great Leaders can adopt to practice empathy with intentionality:
I notice you (cognitive empathy)
I feel your pain (emotional empathy)
I act to help you (practical empathy)
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I had the privilege and honor to meet Donna Hicks, Ph.D. and to hear her as she shared insights from her research around dignity and what dignity really is. Dignity is such a simple attribute that is largely misunderstood and often violated out of ignorance. I had an epiphany as a result of what she shared, together with a deepening of my dignity consciousness. My leadership will be forever enhanced as a result. Thanks Donna.
From Leading with Dignity (Donna Hicks):
Regardless if our concern is leading our personal lives or leading an organization, a key to being successful is dignity coconsciousness: a deep connection to our inherent value and worth and the vulnerability that we all share to having our dignity violated.
But dignity is not the same as respect. Dignity is an attribute that we are born with—it is our inherent value and worth. Respect is different. Although everyone has dignity, not everyone deserves respect. Respect must be earned. Dignity is something we all deserve, no matter what we do. It is the starting point for the way we treat one another.
Dignity is the source of priceless power—it enables us to develop mutually beneficial connections to others and to create positive change in our relationships.
In my research, I have found that one of the most pervasive violations of dignity is that people do not feel safe to speak up with they feel they are not treated well, especially by their managers and supervisors.
One of the necessities of hierarchical organizational structures is the concentration of power in the hands of a few at the top. There is nothing inherently wrong with hierarchies, but if those who are in leadership positions don’t understand dignity, power can easily be abused and misused.
One of the greatest temptations that leaders have to avoid is believing in their superiority. This is where dignity provides a counterbalance, for we may differ in status, but we are all equal in dignity.
Leading with dignity demands that we pay close attention to the effects we have on others. Without such knowledge, relationship problems that plaque the workplace will continue.
Understanding the powerful forces that are unleashed with a violation of dignity (anger, resentment, and the desire for revenge) as well as when dignity is honored (love, loyalty, and the desire to give of oneself freely) will make it easy for leaders to do what is right.
When such consciousness is part of a leader’s repertoire, not only do people thrive, but the organization thrives right along with them.
~ Donna Hicks, Ph.D.
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There was a man who punished his 3-year-old daughter just before Christmas for wasting a roll of wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a cardboard box to put under the Christmas tree.
On Christmas morning the little girl brought the gift to her father and said, “This is for you, Daddy.”
The man became embarrassed by his overreaction earlier, but his rage continued when he saw that the box contained nothing and was empty. He yelled at her; “Don’t you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?”
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you, Daddy.”
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.
Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child.
Her father kept the box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the innocent love of the child who had put it there.
A timely reminder thatthe heart of the giver is always more important than the gift itself.
There are stories, there are good stories, and then there are stories that transform, like the one above. Great leaders understand the difference and use emotional stories to connect with and move their audience.
Its biological and research has proven that emotional stories have transformative power. Emotional stories connect better with the brain, hold a person’s attention longer, and enable greater retention of the information and concepts communicated.
Great leaders become great communicators by following a simple formula for the content of their messages:
Every time I ask Service Managers about the 4thC I get a blank stare.
All Service Managers know about the 3 “C”s: Concern, Cause, and Correction. But none seem to know what the 4thC is. Why is that?
The answer is actually quite simple. The 4thC is not part of the original formula and did not exist until I had an epiphany while working with a client and gave life to the 4thC. You see, this particular client wanted to increase their customer experience and after much discussion we came to the realization that the 3C approach does not go far enough.
It seems that the 3 “C”s originated with manufacturers and warranty administrators as a way to hold service departments more accountable for warranty billings. By requiring repair orders to detail certain minimum and consistent information manufacturers were better able to validate the legitimacy of warranty claims. And, since each of these validation items begins with C, the alliteration of the 3 Cs was born.
In other words, in order for dealers to be paid for warranty claims, the technician’s story on every repair order must detail the concernunderlying the claim, how the technician diagnosed the situation to discover the root cause of the concern, and what the technician did to correct the concern.
This makes total sense for warranty claims, but how the 3 Cs became the industry standard for customer-pay repair orders behooves me. The reality is that the 3 Cs fall woefully short when it comes to customer-pay. Kudos to those few dealers, the truly customer-centric ones, who figured it out on their own as they simply sought to provide a high level of service to their customers. Unfortunately, most service consultants still haven’t caught on and still only teach the 3 C approach.
I contend that stores who don’t go beyond the 3 Cs are delivering inferior quality, have higher incidences of repeat repairs, provide a lesser customer experience, get lower CSI scores, and reap lower customer retention as a result.
The good news is that with a simple epiphany and a small paradigm shift every dealer can adopt the 4C approach to provide higher quality repairs, experience fewer comebacks, and deliver better customer experiences while reaping higher CSI and retention.
The Epiphany: Customers Don’t Care about Cause and Correction
The old axiom holds true that perception is reality.
So, when customers arrive in your service drive, their issue is usually a combination of reality and perception together with a dose of emotion. They are not thinking in terms of the 3 Cs. Hence, they don’t really care how their concernis diagnosed, nor the corrective action that is recommended/ taken. In other words, they simply want you to make their issue go away—provided it does not result in higher than necessary cost and inconvenience.
Since most dealers are myopic, transactional, and rationally focused they dive right into problem solving mode and often don’t fully listen to the customer’s concern, thereby missing many of the subtle, but important, emotional cues.
For those that have read some of my other articles you know that research has found that emotions/feelings have three times more impact on people’s choices and behaviors as compared to rational and logical factors—for a refresher on the greater impact of the emotional brain refer to my article Research Reveals Up-Caring to Be 3x More Effective Than Up-Selling at HealthyDEALER.com.
A customer concernis more times than not emotionally based, like the irritation of a rattle, vibration, squeak, or warning light, which is usually associated with a rational element, like metal-on-metal brakes, over-heating engine, or A/C not blowing cold, etc.
A disconnect often exists because service advisers, managers, and technicians tend to think rationally (diagnosis and correction) while customers, who don’t understand what is done behind the curtain, tend to think emotionally. That is why Fix-it-Right-The-First-Time and No-Problem-Found are such a big deal to customers—neither solves their concernand only add to their emotional discomfort.
Customers are only interested in having their concernresolved while minimizing cost and discomfort. Typically they don’t care about all the words that are written about causeand correction—not only are those parts of the story often written poorly, but in such a way that you have to be a technician to be able to understand what is being said.
Truth be known, customers view the second and third C, causeand correction, merely as the dealer’s justification for the amount charged. Therefor it’s important to add a 4thC.
Trails of Evidence and the 4thC
The 4thC is confirmation.
Ronald Reagan was known to say trust but verify. The benefit of verifying is that it reduces the reliance on trust, which is helpful when trust is already in short supply, like it can be in our industry.
Think about it. How does the customer know that the work was actually done? Sure they can see when new tires have been installed, but how do they know that their oil was actually changed, especially if a new oil change sticker was not applied. Further, I have heard of many technicians who were fired for claiming work they didn’t actually do. Every now and then they are caught, and even featured on shows like 2020, reinforcing customer skepticism and distrust.
For this reason a Texas service manager shared with me that he instructs his technicians to leave “trails of evidence.” For example, when it comes to an oil change his technicians wipe away the dirt around the oil fill cap, whether they spilled oil or not. If there’s ever a question as to whether the work was actually done, like when a new oil change sticker is not applied, the adviser can pop the hood and show the cleanly wiped area around the oil fill cap. It is not foolproof, but it shows that the technician was there and it is usually sufficient to nip a customer’s skepticism in the bud. Either way, the intentionality of a trails of evidenceapproach increases a customer’s sense of quality and confidence and eliminates any sense of distrust that might otherwise arise.
Another service manager told me that his technicians always do a final hand torqueing of all four wheels whenever wheels are removed. This practice virtually eliminates incidences of wheels falling off and again increases a sense of quality and confidence, while enhancing customer experience.
Intentionality with the 4thC
Great service departments not only leave trails of evidencewith all of their repairs and maintenance work, but expand their repair order stories to include words of confirmationthat directly address the customer’s concern. Further, great service departments ensure that the rest of the repair order communicates a consistent message—if the story says the vehicle was test driven the in/out mileage reflects how far and vice versa.
I estimate that repair orders in 50% of service departments show the same in/out mileage regardless of what work was done to the vehicle. This is one of the simplest confirmations of a test drive, yet many service departments demonstrate laziness and arrogance (suggesting that customers will come back regardless of what is done) when they don’t take the time to follow through on this simple element.
A best practice is that service advisers write customer concernsin the customer’s own words. This not only avoids pre-diagnostic errors, but increases the chances that the emotional aspects of their concernare also captured and conveyed to the technician.
Another best practice is for the adviser and/or technician to add a few easy to understand words of confirmationthat specifically address the initial concern.
For example, if a customer states, “the driver’s side window goes down slowly and makes a clicking sound,” the repair order needs to go beyond normal causeand correctionstatements, like “The power window motor was faulty and replaced,” and say something, like, “The power window motor was faulty so it was replaced. The window now goes up and down with ease and without a clicking sound.”
I realize this sounds so basic and obvious, but I estimate that repair orders in 90%+ of dealerships stop at the 3rdC and neglect the critical 4thC.
A 4C Approach leads to the all-important 5thC
Without the 4thC it is difficult to get to the 5thC, which is confidence.Confidence is a feeling. In fact, since feelings drive behaviors, it is a critical feeling when it comes to customers choosing whether or not to come back in future and whether or not to advocate in a positive manner for the dealership. In other words, confidence leading to retention and advocacy should be the ultimate objective of everything that is done—it is incumbent therefor on service managers to help their advisers and technicians understand the importance of adopting a 4C approach.
