Show Me Your Spreadsheets
Tonight, guest writer Mets Kramer resumes his blog posts on digitizing your dealership with “Show Me Your Spreadsheets.”
Show Me Your Spreadsheets
Over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken often about the Digital Dealership, a dealership with equal digital presence to the it’s physical (bricks and mortar) presence. The idea of the Digital Dealership is not to remove the need or option for a physical interaction with customers, but to support the growing demand for a more digital interaction.
While the transition to or addition of more digital customer facing channels is growing, many dealers still struggle to digitize their internal operations. Working more digital or electronic is a natural desire for many dealers and their team members. Most of us spend our whole day staring at a computer screen, or 2, to transact the business in an efficient way.
The most common digitization of the dealership starts with their accounting. This standard activity for all companies seems the easiest and, often, most justified area to bring in software to support the business. Yet, after this common function most dealers struggle to take the next step. I believe many dealers struggle with this step because the right approach and the value and importance of the transition to a digital dealership platform is not clear.
Going forward I’m going to use the word “platform” to refer to all the information systems, software tools, data and IT infrastructure used by a dealer to execute the daily transaction of the dealership. A platform doesn’t have to be a specific or singular software tool.
There are a few main aspects to a dealership platform that I’d like to layout in this blog to help dealers determine an approach to improving the digital landscape in their dealership. These aspects include the obvious, software, but also include Information in general, identity management and finally integration.
First, let’s take a step back and think about what happens naturally in a dealership. It’s important to recognize that everyone in your team is trying to get their portion of the work done. Given just a PC/laptop they tend to find methods to accomplish their tasks. The most common answer is Excel. I love and hate excel personally, it’s a great program, intuitive and useful for lots of things. When I work with new dealers, my first question is often, “Show me your Excel sheets”.
Excel, despite the fact it shouldn’t be used as a business system, highlights one really important aspect of the business, INFORMATION. People use Excel to save, store, look up and update information. We all know how much chaos is caused when an excel sheet gets deleted. All that information is LOST. This proves that INFORMATION is the foundation and the most important aspect of your dealership platform. It supports all your transactions, information typically needs to flow from one area of the dealership to another and, intrinsically, everyone knows it’s the one thing they don’t want to lose.
With the idea of INFORMATION’s importance in mind, let’s look at the most common focus of the digitization of the dealership, SOFTWARE TOOLS. I call software products “tools” because I want to distinguish the tool portion of the software from the Data or INFORMATION that’s stored in the Software.
The most common approach to going digital in a dealership is to go looking for a SOFTWARE TOOLS. It’s like we’re all technicians when the Snap-On truck shows up. We admire the software interface (UI), we listen to the promises of problems solved and we see the SOFTWARE TOOL as the solution and often don’t know what questions to ask during a demo.
SOFTWARE TOOLS are just that, they are a tool for interacting with your INFORMATION. Throughout the time you use a tool, you are creating that component we agreed is the most important, INFORMATION. As time goes on what we want to do with the INFORMATION may change and this is where the Software Tool often fails. For Dealers looking to improve their internal digitization it’s important to approach Software evaluation by separating the software tool from the information. Just like we don’t hire technicians based on the size of their toolbox, we should keep a similar approach in mind to Software. A Software Tool is disposable. Yes, you heard right, the tool should be considered disposable. It will serve its purpose for a while, but then will need to be replaced. Many dealers have experienced this, but hit a major problem caused because the tool contains the thing they value, INFORMATION. If your information can’t be transferred you might find yourself locked in, this can be especially pronounced when that tool is a Dealer Management System.
So, what should dealers do when faced with a need in the business to improve efficiency of process and visibility to information? Ask the following types of questions
- Ask Questions during the demo about YOUR process needs and how the SOFTWARE will handle these situations. Ask the person giving the Demo to illustrate.
- Ask how and where the data is stored and how it can be accessed aside from using the tool
- Ask how the INFORMATION can be extracted/exported/dumped from the Software
- Ask questions about the Next thing you’ll want the software to do after you solve the first problem.
So, in summary, INFORMATION is the most valuable part of your dealership platform. SOFTWARE TOOLS help you create, view and interact with the INFORMATION. This brings up the next aspect that is often not understood by dealers without dedicated Information Systems people; INTEGRATION.
INTEGRATION allows one tool to talk to another tool and access the data. It can either query the data and use it, or it can even update and add data. This can be done in the following ways
- Direct Database access – if your software tool stores data in a common, accessible database like SQL, MySQL or similar then other tools can read the data.
- APIs – Application Program Interfaces – These are basically hidden pages or screens in your Software that allow other programs to mimic the actions people make.
If you’re looking at a platform solution that doesn’t have methods for direct access to your INFORMATION, an API or some way to move data to your own database you’ll likely end up finding this a roadblock or hurdle to INTEGRATION of other platform components. It will in time cause you to be locked in potentially or lose valuable data when you switch. The truth is, all of these options are possible in modern digital platforms.
In my next blog I’ll continue to look at important things to consider when looking at SOFTWARE TOOLS, how good choices enable removing silos and duplication. I’ll also introduce the final piece IDENTITY Management and how this can simplify and improve the flow of your Digital Dealership Platform.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
Show Me Your Spreadsheets
Show Me Your Spreadsheets
Tonight, guest writer Mets Kramer resumes his blog posts on digitizing your dealership with “Show Me Your Spreadsheets.”
Show Me Your Spreadsheets
Over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken often about the Digital Dealership, a dealership with equal digital presence to the it’s physical (bricks and mortar) presence. The idea of the Digital Dealership is not to remove the need or option for a physical interaction with customers, but to support the growing demand for a more digital interaction.
While the transition to or addition of more digital customer facing channels is growing, many dealers still struggle to digitize their internal operations. Working more digital or electronic is a natural desire for many dealers and their team members. Most of us spend our whole day staring at a computer screen, or 2, to transact the business in an efficient way.
The most common digitization of the dealership starts with their accounting. This standard activity for all companies seems the easiest and, often, most justified area to bring in software to support the business. Yet, after this common function most dealers struggle to take the next step. I believe many dealers struggle with this step because the right approach and the value and importance of the transition to a digital dealership platform is not clear.
Going forward I’m going to use the word “platform” to refer to all the information systems, software tools, data and IT infrastructure used by a dealer to execute the daily transaction of the dealership. A platform doesn’t have to be a specific or singular software tool.
There are a few main aspects to a dealership platform that I’d like to layout in this blog to help dealers determine an approach to improving the digital landscape in their dealership. These aspects include the obvious, software, but also include Information in general, identity management and finally integration.
First, let’s take a step back and think about what happens naturally in a dealership. It’s important to recognize that everyone in your team is trying to get their portion of the work done. Given just a PC/laptop they tend to find methods to accomplish their tasks. The most common answer is Excel. I love and hate excel personally, it’s a great program, intuitive and useful for lots of things. When I work with new dealers, my first question is often, “Show me your Excel sheets”.
Excel, despite the fact it shouldn’t be used as a business system, highlights one really important aspect of the business, INFORMATION. People use Excel to save, store, look up and update information. We all know how much chaos is caused when an excel sheet gets deleted. All that information is LOST. This proves that INFORMATION is the foundation and the most important aspect of your dealership platform. It supports all your transactions, information typically needs to flow from one area of the dealership to another and, intrinsically, everyone knows it’s the one thing they don’t want to lose.
With the idea of INFORMATION’s importance in mind, let’s look at the most common focus of the digitization of the dealership, SOFTWARE TOOLS. I call software products “tools” because I want to distinguish the tool portion of the software from the Data or INFORMATION that’s stored in the Software.
The most common approach to going digital in a dealership is to go looking for a SOFTWARE TOOLS. It’s like we’re all technicians when the Snap-On truck shows up. We admire the software interface (UI), we listen to the promises of problems solved and we see the SOFTWARE TOOL as the solution and often don’t know what questions to ask during a demo.
SOFTWARE TOOLS are just that, they are a tool for interacting with your INFORMATION. Throughout the time you use a tool, you are creating that component we agreed is the most important, INFORMATION. As time goes on what we want to do with the INFORMATION may change and this is where the Software Tool often fails. For Dealers looking to improve their internal digitization it’s important to approach Software evaluation by separating the software tool from the information. Just like we don’t hire technicians based on the size of their toolbox, we should keep a similar approach in mind to Software. A Software Tool is disposable. Yes, you heard right, the tool should be considered disposable. It will serve its purpose for a while, but then will need to be replaced. Many dealers have experienced this, but hit a major problem caused because the tool contains the thing they value, INFORMATION. If your information can’t be transferred you might find yourself locked in, this can be especially pronounced when that tool is a Dealer Management System.
So, what should dealers do when faced with a need in the business to improve efficiency of process and visibility to information? Ask the following types of questions
So, in summary, INFORMATION is the most valuable part of your dealership platform. SOFTWARE TOOLS help you create, view and interact with the INFORMATION. This brings up the next aspect that is often not understood by dealers without dedicated Information Systems people; INTEGRATION.
INTEGRATION allows one tool to talk to another tool and access the data. It can either query the data and use it, or it can even update and add data. This can be done in the following ways
If you’re looking at a platform solution that doesn’t have methods for direct access to your INFORMATION, an API or some way to move data to your own database you’ll likely end up finding this a roadblock or hurdle to INTEGRATION of other platform components. It will in time cause you to be locked in potentially or lose valuable data when you switch. The truth is, all of these options are possible in modern digital platforms.
In my next blog I’ll continue to look at important things to consider when looking at SOFTWARE TOOLS, how good choices enable removing silos and duplication. I’ll also introduce the final piece IDENTITY Management and how this can simplify and improve the flow of your Digital Dealership Platform.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
Are You Unleashed?
Are You Unleashed?
Learning Without Scars is pleased to introduce our new guest writer, Isaac Rollor. For his first post, he is asking, “are you unleashed?”
Isaac Rollor is a lifelong gearhead, mechanic, and training content creator/instructor. Isaac got started in the heavy equipment business as a mechanic maintaining and repairing his father’s equipment fleet and eventually received formal training in the Diesel Equipment Technology Program at Chattahoochee Technical College in Acworth Georgia. Isaac’s enthusiasm for lifelong learning led him to complete his MBA at Reinhardt University in Waleska Georgia.
Isaac has enjoyed many technical roles over the course of his career, most notably as the Automotive Program Technical Instructor at Chattahoochee Technical College, Corporate Technical Trainer with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and Technical Instructor/Developer (Dozers) while working with Komatsu America.
Isaac also has extensive experience in sales, holding the title of Sales Instructor/Developer, District Manager and National Account Manager with Komatsu America. Today Isaac works with Forrest Performance Group and specializes in sales training and sales recruiting.
Isaac enjoys writing articles, developing training course content, and appearing at public speaking events. Isaac is actively involved in educating and recruiting high school and college age students to pursue careers with OEM’s and heavy equipment dealers.
You can contact Isaac directly by connecting with him on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaac-rollor-335b6876/
If you would like to learn more about sales training and sales recruiting, please visit: https://www.fpg.com/
Early in my career I realized that some inexperienced salespeople with entry-level subject matter knowledge were having more success than other highly experienced and highly knowledgeable salespeople in the industry. What I was witnessing is a phenomenon that is often flatly overlooked or described as “beginners’ luck” without any further investigation or question. Maybe you have noticed something like this? This phenomenon is most visible in sales but exists in all professions to some extent. We have all seen salespeople who have worked in the industry for decades and they are not closing sales. We have also watched brand new salespeople who are in the president’s club 3 months after they start selling. This new salesperson didn’t make the presidents club because of their huge knowledge base, meanwhile the veteran is struggling to meet sales targets despite having a deep knowledge of the industry and an intimate knowledge the product they are supposed to be selling.
In education we are told to believe that someone’s performance should be equal to their knowledge base. I started to question this paradigm while I was developing product sales training content for North American sales teams. At this time my mission was to develop cutting edge product sales training content and deliver this content to salespeople through web based and instructor led training. This is exactly what I did. The training content was excellent by all standards, and I successfully delivered hundreds of training offerings that received excellent reviews. I focused all my attention towards ensuring that the North American sales team had access to all the knowledge required to educate customers and help them make a purchasing decision. My efforts were successful, and salespeople soon had all the knowledge they could possibly desire at their fingertips. I felt that our training group had finally evened the playing field for all salespeople within the organization, and I was certain that massive increases in sales market share would be the result of these efforts.
I soon witnessed something very interesting. Some sales teams flourished with access to this increased knowledge and some sales teams saw no noticeable difference. This was concerning to me. How can two groups be exposed to the exact same resources but have completely different results? This question caused me to read many books and download many podcasts related to developing successful training programs. I soon learned that even the so called “experts” in sales training were slow to guarantee any results from the training experiences they provided. It was at this time that I stumbled across a book written by Jason Forrest called WTF: Why Training Fails. This book acknowledged something profound “164.2 billion is spent annually on training in North America, yet 70% of this training fails to produce ROI. “
I was shocked by this. Even more shocking was that the WTF book even promoted a trademarked performance formula: Performance=Knowledge-Leashes.
As described in WTF, a “leash” is the limiting beliefs that prevent us from acting on our knowledge. Basically a “leash” is an arbitrary rule or reluctance that salespeople have created because of past experiences and programming. Here are some examples of rules that you may hear salespeople verbalize: “You must make a friend before you make a sale” or “you must always ask for the sale in person” or even, “you can’t sell our products over a zoom video call it just won’t work”.
These are all examples of rules that will limit the success of a salesperson. The more rules a salesperson creates the harder it is to overcome those rules and make a sale. I came to the difficult realization that the training I had developed was based completely on knowledge and did not in any way remove the leashes or previous programming of the salespeople who consumed the content.
This realization prompted me to start researching how salespeople can overcome and sell through leashes. I discovered that everyone has leashes to some extent and to overcome a leash requires continued training and coaching. A salespersons leash must first be identified then a coaching program must be created that allows the salesperson to overcome and sell through the leash, essentially reprogramming the salespersons brain to think differently.
If you want your child to excel in sports, do you just drop them off at the sports complex, let them participate without any formal instruction and then pick them up a few hours later? Or do you hire the best coach and get involved? The answer is obvious, but our industry rarely applies this same thinking to professional selling. It is common to see sales reps with multi-million-dollar territories who have never received a selling script, and never been trained or coached on a selling process. A common practice is to condense sales training into a short period. This allows the salesperson to rapidly complete sales training, frame a nice certificate, and get right to work. This scenario sounds great to most sales managers and has become the industry norm.
Would you board an airplane if you knew the pilot skipped flight school and only attended a two-day seminar? I suspect not. Your customers feel the same way when they are making purchasing decisions.
I would urge you to think about your company’s existing sales training. Is this training focused solely on knowledge? What leashes might the sales team have adopted that currently limits their success? How often is the sales team receiving coaching that will help them overcome existing leashes? Is the sales team being continually coached and held accountable to a script or a proven process pattern or strategy?
When salespeople are trained and coached, they will perform at the top of their game, win market share, impress your buyer, and provide a massive ROI.
If you would like to learn more about the WTF book please visit: https://shopfpg.com/product/wtf-why-training-fails Forrest, J. (2017). Why Training Fails. MJS Press.
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For our course lists, please click here.
Five Things
Five Things
For this week’s Lifelong Learning blog, Founder Ron Slee talks to us about performance reviews and leading teams – both in a classroom and in a business setting. He describes for us five things that prompt thoughtful conversations.
Five Things
Many of you know that I am almost fanatical about providing great performance reviews with each and every employee I touch. Regularly. Not annually rather as the opportunity arises. But frequently to say the least. Then this came up as I was running through my time allocated to social media and my email and texts. That allotted time is my recognition of distractions that Nir Eyal pointed out to me that changed how I work. That recognition came from his excellent book “Indistractable.”
A post by Harvard Business School on LinkedIn brought to mind a few things I used to do, as a matter of common practice, when I was leading teams at dealerships or software companies.
I called them my “Five Things.” They went like this:
It was an interesting exercise. Everyone on the team had a week to make their lists and we tried to ensure they didn’t work together on their lists. Then we got together as a team, at a break or after work and put them on a flip chart. We compared the lists. It was remarkable how there werem any items that were on all of the lists. As you can imagine my question was rather simple. If they make operations better AND they are a pain for you to do AND they will make your own job better THEN why haven’t we done them. Think about that for a moment.
I also regularly asked each member of the team three simple questions.
That gave me a very upfront and personal performance review by my team members.
Then this morning I find the following on LinkedIn from Harvard Business School.
“If you’re worried that your employees are eyeing the door, it’s time to start having some important, career-defining conversations. Here are five key questions to ask your direct reports at your next one-on-one to ensure that they feel seen and valued — before it’s too late.
As many of you know I am quite critical about our skills in performing a performance review with your team members. Typically, no one has trained any of you on how to do a review. In many cases the review is what I call a “hygiene” review. Is the employee on time or late, are they absent a lot, are they dressed properly. Oh, and then some metrics. In many cases the individual employee does not have any control over the metrics so why are they in their performance review. It is almost that I have to check off another of the boxes on the things I should do.
Many of you know that we have Job Function Skills Assessments for most parts and service and product support selling jobs. Ninety-Six Multiple Choice questions. Your knowledge and skill level will be seriously evaluated with these assessments. This is about getting an objective measure of the “gaps” in the skills and knowledge that are present with an employee. The employee and their team leader sit down and talk about the assessment. With the score that the employee has achieved on the assessment we can provide a “Learning Skill Level.” The Skill Levels follow the education system categories: Developing, Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. With each Skill Level we have eight class recommendations for the employee to continue to grow and develop their skills. We recommend that the team leader and the employee come to a joint decision on the classes that the employee should take to continue on their “career path.” This is a very different performance review. This is about treating each employee as an asset not an expense. They are people that we want to operate “aspirationally” (our word) not transactionally. We want employees that are engaged in their work.
For more in this direction please read David Jensen’s recent post on PTO.
The Time is Now.
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Friday Filosophy v.11.04.2022
Friday Filosophy v.11.04.2022
Friday Filosophy v.11.04.2022 brings quotes and words of wisdom from the Chinese philosopher and poet, Lao Tzu.
Lao Tzu was an ancient Chinese philosopher and poet, well-known for penning the book Tao Te Ching. He was the founder of philosophy of Taoism, a religious and ethical custom of ancient China. He is largely respected as a religious deity in various traditional Chinese religious schools of thought. He is also believed by some to be an older contemporary of the famous philosopher Confucius.
Lao Tzu’s journey began as he set foot towards the western border of China, currently Tibet. He was saddened by what he saw around him: men being diverted away from nature and the goodness it brings. A guard he met on the border asked Lao to write down his teachings as he went. This is when he wrote the famous Tao Te Ching, a 5,000-character account of his thoughts and philosophical ideas.
Like various ancient Chinese philosophers, Lao Tzu made use of rhyme and rhythm, paradoxes and interesting analogies to get his point across in Tao Te Ching. In reality, the entire book can be considered as one great analogy.
The ‘Tao Te Ching’, literally meaning ‘The Way and Its Power’ presents the idea of ‘Tao’ as being the end all and be all of existence. It is extremely powerful, yet down to earth. It is the source of all being in the world. The book intends to guide people on how to return to the laws and ways of nature to maintain the balance of the Tao.
Tzu is also the father of the Taoist philosophy. Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, is the pillar of ancient Chinese thought. It is not only a customary philosophy, but it has also taken the shape of a properly organized religion. Though the two elements of religion and philosophy are separate, they are profoundly connected. Lao Tzu’s teachings have encompassed the depths of both.
Taoism focuses on leading life according to ‘Tao’ or ‘the path’. It encapsulates moral, ethical and religious Chinese customs. Tao is a concept not exclusive to Taoism; it is also found in various other Chinese philosophies. In Taoism however, it plays a major role. As per Taoism, Tao is deep and overwhelming; it is the all-encompassing. It is both the cause and the effect of every existing thing in the world.
Lao Tzu’s philosophy was a simple one. He was against putting effort and striving, as he thought struggle is not only futile but also hinders productivity. In his theory of ‘wu-wei’, he advises to simply do nothing. By this he means not to go against the forces of nature, wait for the gush of events nature brings to you and dive right in. He advised not to struggle to change the natural order of things, but to bring spontaneity to one’s actions as one holds on to the nature’s way of life. Followers of Taoism believe that striving for nothing will never lead them to failure. The one who has never failed is always successful, thus becoming powerful.
By understanding this principle, Taoist debates against Confucianism and its endeavors at domination and standardization of all aspects of life, and strives for a lone, deep meditation among nature. Taoists believed that through contemplation, nature will grant them the keys unlocking the powers of the universe. The logic of ‘doing nothing and achieving everything’ reached the rulers and affected the way the kings treated the masses. Thus, in a subtle way, Taoism took shape of a political philosophy.
Lao Tzu’s works have continued to influence individuals and anti-authoritarian campaigns around the world. Belonging to the sixth century, Lao Tzu, a title given to the great philosopher meaning ‘Old Teacher’, taught the world the importance of the ways of nature and how embracing the principle of doing nothing can help achieve everything.
The Time is Now
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Coaches Corner v.11.03.2022
Coaches Corner v.11.03.2022
Guest writer Floyd Jerkins brings us our latest installment of our Coaches Corner, v.11.03.2022.
Can You Improve Your Employees Psychological Income?
One of the most profound human characteristics centers around our need to be appreciated. When we are in a relationship where we feel appreciated and valued, our self-esteem rises, and we are much more open to making changes and being part of a team. Leaders know this and work to create an environment for people to be recognized.
Employees need economic income and psychological income. To reach peak performance, both are needed to have balance in life while the business pursues high profits. When employees enjoy the economic portion, a question is how much more commitment could they make if they had the psychological income to match?
Managers Becoming Experts in Finding the Things That Go Wrong
More often than not, managers are on the job to find the things going wrong and fix them. Many become experts at this. One of the most serious challenges in motivating people is that over time if all they hear are the negatives, it breeds a less than average mindset or one that goes all out to protect themselves from ridicule. It’s hard to build a team of high-performing champions if all they hear is what they are doing wrong all the time.
The “emotional bank account” is a theory and a practical application. The theory suggests that the more deposits you make into someone’s emotional bank account, their self-esteem increases, trust builds and makes them more open to changes. You are overdrawn in the account if you don’t make purposeful deposits. The person then closes down and isn’t up for much of anything because they are always suspicious of your motives. The practical application is to be well invested in the emotional bank account with your teams through your leadership and communications style and the consideration you show.
Catching Team Members Doing Something Right
Many times, all a leader hears in a day are the negatives. Some staff will bombard you with every negative there is. As a leader, you are often the center of communications, and this can become draining if you don’t frame these issues correctly.
This is one of the biggest keys to making happy employees. As a leader, we often forget to praise someone when they do a great job. Our heads are into other business-related issues. I don’t bet but only on sure things. And I’ll bet your business has all kinds of positive service points of contacts every day. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t last long in the business. Do you see them? Can you make it a daily practice to praise your staff when they perform the correct customer service behaviors you want to see?
A client of mine owns a few McDonalds. They installed the “thank you” process. Each employee was to say thank you when another employee did something for them, or they witnessed a fellow employee performing an uncommon act of service. All the managers started the process weeks before they rolled it out with all the staff. My friend said it was amazing how quickly this caught on and the improvement it made to the attitudes of the staff. It became contagious.
An example from another client. If an employee goes over and beyond to help a customer or assist a teammate, they will get a “good job card” with their name on it at their monthly manager’s meeting. These cards can come from managers, other employees or from customers telling management. They then would get to put their cards into a box. The manager would draw a card out of the box with a name on it. That person would then win a gift of $100 in value. A few of their people didn’t care about getting a card until they saw the same people winning. Then they joined in by trying to go over and beyond at customer service or helping another teammate to win. It became contagious.
Strategy to Make Emotional Deposits: The Magic of Dimes
Business owners go to great lengths and expense to recruit and hire the right people. I’ve always wanted people who worked for me to come to work and enjoy what they are doing.
As I mentioned in this article’s opening lines, we all have basic human tendencies. As a leader, we can nurture people through our leadership style and grow the talent we need to continue to achieve the goals and mission of the company.
Try putting ten dimes in one pocket and moving them to the other pocket one at a time with each positive message you give to someone throughout the day. The idea is to try and break old habits, and I am sure that is what many of us have. How many dimes do you have at the end of the day? Track this for a couple of weeks; you’ll be surprised. If you do well, you will also notice a change in the people around you. It is magical.
You can’t be fake about this, nor be insincere. Remember, in the absence of leadership; people will follow the strangest things. With leadership, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
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Observations from Rural New Mexico
Observations from Rural New Mexico
Guest writer David Jensen shares this week’s blog post with his “Observations from Rural New Mexico.”
“Work, really?
Again?
Didn’t I just do that yesterday?”
I recently observed a t-shirt with the above phrase. It seems to sum up the current attitude among many regarding work. Clearly the individual is in disbelief that we are to return to work the next day. If you Google the statement, “My Work is ……” some of the top responses are as follows: boring, makes me ill, is killing me, is stressful. At the risk of sounding as old as I am, I do not understand how the current generation views employment. From my teen years working in my father’s store to the present, I have found work to be the source of many important life lessons. So, what is up with this generation? Is it a generation that been “bubble wrapped” to the point that the slightest disappointment is too much? In a current TikTok, an individual was denied requested PTO (paid time off) so he hijacked the phrase PTO to mean “Prepare The Others I am quitting!” Is this a generation of quitters? Is this idea of work life balance gone too far? Recently, an associate of mine was preparing to offer an applicant a job when this would be employee spoke up and offered a list of demands: no nights, weekends off, two weeks’ vacation and all federal holidays off. The applicant did not get the job!
Living in rural New Mexico in an agricultural community, nights off and no weekends sounds very foreign. Our livestock operates on their schedule not ours. Although, since only 6% to 8% of the population works in agriculture, maybe “weekends off” is a thing. That said, what is really going on with this generation? Perhaps the researchers who survey worker attitudes and then mark the trends can help provide the answers.
The Gallup Survey
Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup, in a recent book entitled Blindspot suggests that world leaders have missed the level of employee unhappiness (subjective wellbeing). The belief that an improving GDP benefits all is false. The “misery index” which includes among several indicators a measure of employee dissatisfaction over the last ten plus years is trending higher. Regarding worker dissatisfaction, the Gallup researchers found, based on survey questions that workers can be sorted into three categories.
If you have 100 employees, on average 62 are slow walking the effort and not significantly contributing to the success of the enterprise! Worse yet, you have on average, 18 who are actively working against the goals of the organization.
Lessons learned! Or relearned! …The Engagement Check List
So, this current generation is not a lost generation after all. The workers are simply disengaged. Lesson learned by leaders are sometimes forgotten. You may recall what the General Electric classic research into experimenter bias taught us. Simply paying attention to the workers improved productivity and the lights had little to do with the outcome. In a time where competition for skilled a worker is ever increasing, the challenge and opportunity that organizations face is to move some of those 62 employees into thriving category (engaged).
Below is a short check list for getting started:
Conclusion: Organizations should develop their own list of actions to enhance engagement. To succeed in a competitive job market with fewer workers, engagement strategy is an essential part of the employer brand. Otherwise; “Prepare the Others” (PTO) I am leaving!
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Another Look at Success
Another Look at Success
Learning Without Scars is pleased to introduce our new guest writer, John Andersen. As one of the original owners of PFW Systems, John Andersen was the first person in the industry to be labeled an Evangelist. Over his 30 years with the company, he visited thousands of dealers in North America sharing a unique vision of the heavy equipment industry from a dealers and customer perspective. With over $150 million dollars in sales credited to his commercial teaching skills he later aided in the transition to CDK Global where he continued as Director of Sales before “retiring” in 2016. John now operates as a freelance consultant bringing vastly diverse experience bridging technology, consumerism and sales to several industries. We invite readers to join us as we take another look at success.
Another Look at Success
I read a recent blog from Learning without Scars about success and its various definitions. Insightful as all of Ron’s blogs are, this one really sat with me for a long time. The definition of your own personal success and measurements of it can really shift over time. The most important takeaway for me was that long term success seldom happens by accident and recurring themes like hard work, dedication and sacrifice always bubble to the top. You don’t often hear someone talk about a myriad of miscues, wrong turns, or potholes along the way, but I believe they are the catalyst to continued success.
I have been known to bring a box of mistakes with me to a presentation just to illustrate. It’s filled with items like a RIM Blackberry, a Hughes Satellite terminal, my Grandmother’s pressure cooker, and a treasured Dick Tracy watch from my childhood. The reactions are always the same when I present these items one by one. Nods of approval or, “I remember that”. Each has been replaced with a more successful or refined success like a Google phone, a Starlink system, an Instant Pot, or even my trusty Apple Watch. This kind of evolutionary success doesn’t happen on its own.
For each success someone has taken the time to look at the result and ask what could be better. On rare occasions the answer jumps out, in most cases it requires a hard look followed by harder work and even greater investment. This begs the question, what would happen if you looked at your own success with that same intention. What would you look like if you went from a 1960’s pressure cooker to a Ninja Foodie?
The first step is the toughest. It takes an incredibly difficult look in the mirror. A stripped down, honest, humbling introspection is the hardest thing to do when looking for a model of success. Let me share a story.
I always viewed the peak of my success was in 2010. I was 46 years old with a thriving lifestyle. I traveled the country as the evangelist for a growing software company. I was married to the love of my life and together we had a 10-year-old princess. I collected interesting cars; we celebrated birthdays in Disney, and we cruised the islands a few times a year. We had completed our dream house and were just settling into the most “successful” part of our lives. In July of 2010 I walked up the stairs and dropped from a heart attack called the Widow Maker. Lies, I’m still here. Shortly after that my beautiful wife was given a terminal diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. I left my career to take care of my family, my heart, and those who shared my heart. That was my sole mission for the next 5 years.
As rewarding as that was, I felt like there was more left to do. The measure of success hadn’t been met in my eyes. I worked for a few folks, took on some side gigs, even tried my hand at some new industries but nothing gave me that feeling. I was forever looking for that opportunity. Fast forward through Covid when like everyone else I had the time to finally take that hard look over the wall. If my new role was that of caretaker to my family, then I better be able to do it both mentally and physically.
I started with a lifestyle coach. That meant a huge change in what I was eating followed by what felt like ridiculous amounts of exercise. I had a group that helped with the physical and mental side of getting healthy. I know now that’s the the trinity of well-being: mental health, physical fitness, and sustainable healthy fuel. What’s the worst that could happen? I lose a few pounds make a few friends. Perhaps it would help me sleep better, snore less, walk easier and smile more.
I could not have predicted the result. I was evolving into my own success model. I found myself changing from a Blackberry to an iPhone, or a Hughes satellite to an Elon Musk powered Starlink. The transition was slow at first but like most good ideas it started picking up steam. Pounds fell off, energy levels went through the roof, sleep came peacefully, and most of all…. I felt great!
So, what does success look like a year after the hard conversation with me? For starters I’m 70 lbs lighter. I go to spin classes at 6am twice a week, I go to the gym three times a week, and on Saturdays I RUN! I mean 5k, 7k, even 10k and nobody is chasing me. I run in the heat. I run in the cold. I run and listen to Ron Slee podcasts. I smile when I run, and I think deep thoughts when I run.
I would have to say my most successful time is now. The love of my life is still here and still fighting, my daughter met all of her goals so far (she even runs with me sometimes) and I have found my version of the fountain of youth. I think clearer, everything is a half-step ahead, and most importantly opportunity now seeks me.
Seeking success requires a first step. Take a hard look at you, your goals, your dreams and most importantly your “why”. Everything you are already good at will remain, but the add on skills will put you in a new stratosphere. Measure yourself honestly, painfully, and accurately then just do something. You don’t have to be a 1960’s pressure cooker. You literally own your success. It just takes a difficult conversation with yourself and then, like every success: hard work, dedication and investment.
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Learning Inventories
Learning Inventories
This week, our Curriculum Designer, Caroline Slee-Poulos, continues our series on Lifelong Learning with her post on learning inventories.
When we speak of learning styles, most often we are referring to three primary categories: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. If you are a visual learner, you are thought to learn most effectively through images (or, you know, visual aids). For auditory learners – who, by the way, are technically aural or auditory-musical learners – it is thought that hearing information is the most beneficial delivery system. For kinesthetic learners, we consider the “learn by doing” method to be most effective, although incorporating movement in any way can be helpful.
Most of us don’t necessarily pay attention to learning and education in a “meta-” way: we don’t study how we learn.
The difficulty we face with learning styles is two-fold.
First of all, those three categories above aren’t actually all of the categories. The full list is seven learning styles: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, social, solitary, verbal, and logical. Considering there are seven of them, it’s pretty strange that many learning inventories cover only those first three.
Second, these learning styles have been thrown out the window as an effective way of teaching. Although the “know thyself” wisdom of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is always valuable – for the learners – an educator should not be seeking to sort students into neat little compartments. Or houses. This isn’t Hogwarts, after all…
With asynchronous education, we have to reach multiple styles and multiple forms. I think we can all agree that online learning isn’t necessarily geared towards movement, even though a standing desk (or, better yet, a treadmill desk!) can change that. Despite that, our classes do hit the visual, auditory, verbal, logical, and solitary notes.
Then again, since you have the flexibility to take a class at home, you may very well be surrounded by family. This wouldn’t be solitary at all.
The question is: do you know yourself? What would you say your own learning style is? This week, I would like to ask each of you to take a simple learning inventory quiz. Once you have your result, give it some thought. What surprises you in your results? What did you already know about how you learn? How can this information help you in your continuing education? Let us know in the comments!
The learning inventory can be found here.
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Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022
Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022
In Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022, our Founder Ron Slee shares quotes and words of wisdom from the economist Edmund Burke.
Edmund Burke; 12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797 was an Irish–British statesman, economist, and philosopher. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of Parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party.
Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state. These views were expressed in his A Vindication of Natural Society. He criticized the actions of the British government towards the American colonies, including its taxation policies. Burke also supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, although he opposed the attempt to achieve independence. He is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and his staunch opposition to the French Revolution.
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke asserted that the revolution was destroying the fabric of good society and traditional institutions of state and society and condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it. This led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party which he dubbed the Old Whigs as opposed to the pro–French Revolution New Whigs led by Charles James Fox.
In the 19th century, Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the 20th century, he became widely regarded, especially in the United States, as the philosophical founder of conservatism.
In 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment which up until 1793 did not permit Catholics to take degrees. In 1747, he set up a debating society Edmund Burke’s Club which in 1770 merged with TCD’s Historical Club to form the College Historical Society, the oldest undergraduate society in the world. The minutes of the meetings of Burke’s Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burke’s father wanted him to read Law and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, where he entered the Middle Temple, before soon giving up legal study to travel in Continental Europe. After eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing.
In 1757, Burke published a treatise on aesthetics titled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful that attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. It was his only purely philosophical work and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and French Laurence to expand it thirty years later, Burke replied that he was no longer fit for abstract speculation (Burke had written it before he was nineteen years of age).
On 12 March 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent (1734–1812), daughter of Dr. Christopher Nugent, a Catholic physician who had provided him with medical treatment at Bath. Their son Richard was born on 9 February 1758 while an elder son, Christopher, died in infancy. Burke also helped raise a ward, Edmund Nagle (later Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle), the son of a maternal cousin orphaned in 1763.
At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as “Single-speech Hamilton”). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he held for three years. In 1765, Burke became private secretary to the liberal Whig politician Charles, Marquess of Rockingham, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Burke’s close friend and associate until his untimely death in 1782.
The Time is Now.
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Coaches Corner v.10.27.2022
Coaches Corner v.10.27.2022
Guest writer Floyd Jerkins brings us our third installment in our Coaches Corner, v.10.27.2022.
A Leadership Rule: What You Do is So Loud I Can’t Hear What You’re Saying
How Effective Are Your Leaders?
You want employees to feel good to be working as part of a team that is working together – and everyone is improving. Many managers would be surprised to learn how little their employees believe management is walking the talk.
You can quickly scan the internet and find thousands of articles on leadership. Hundreds of thousands of terabytes of data on the subject are available. Why then are we still seeing fundamental leadership issues?
Leaders have to be the change they want to see.
Whether Bruce Lee or Gandi said it first, it’s a powerful metaphor for leaders. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a cliche statement, but a modeled behavior makes this a reality. You can’t fake it with lots of words or bravado. You have to walk the talk.
I helped a group establish a renewed mission and vision for their company. First, we had to talk through how they created their first set of statements, how they outlined the behaviors they expected staff to have, and then how they communicated this to their entire organization.
Previously, they discussed their competition many times but tended to over-analyze how they compare to the other companies. They were trying to be just like the other companies their customers touch instead of understanding how they made the customers feel and replicating the same feelings from their organization. Once everyone recognized this, it started a whole new discussion. You just can’t put words on paper and expect everyone to automatically adopt them into day-to-day behaviors.
Every time a customer comes in contact with your company, you have the opportunity to create value by managing these touch points. These “touch points” of interactions form the impressions of your business. Every front-line employee has to walk the talk because hundreds and even thousands of these touch points happen daily. Nearly all of them are manageable by leaders and create coachable moments.
Specific customer service behaviors should be in your mission statement and your employee’s job descriptions. When you include these into training sessions, you begin integrating them into the hearts and minds of your employees. When it is trained in employees and in their job descriptions, they remember it and work towards it. These ideals aren’t just going to happen by chance; they must be planned for.
There is a lesson on the importance of having things detailed, organized, fast service, doing what we tell the customer, etc. If we take care of our customers, they will take care of us. That is such a simple statement, but it has far-reaching consequences in the business.
Remove Pass the Buck Bill
Nothing upsets a customer more than having an employee tell them to see someone else in the business that created the problem. Putting a customer on hold only to wait and wait for the next person in line to start the conversation all over again doesn’t make those enduring experiences customers expect today. I call those employees, Pass the Buck Bill.
Passing on the responsibility to another employee or department is a common occurrence, yet; it drives customers away and makes your company just like all the other average ones out there.
Can These Touch Points Be Managed?
Yes, They Can!
Each employee is a manager of customer relations. Even the janitor, because they come in contact with a customer, so they create an impression of good or bad service. Everyone needs to focus on the customer’s needs even if they don’t deal with or come in contact with the customer. Even a ticked-off customer is everyone’s responsibility. The more you can include your employees in this leadership role, they are more likely will become committed to doing an excellent job.
Every Customer is Heard Through Many Ears.
As a leader, you’ll sometimes get “employee ears” telling you all kinds of negative rhetoric about one department or the other. Someone in one department hears a customer say something about another department, etc. It is difficult to listen to these negative comments and not do something, but at the same time, you have to become aware that there are three sides to every story.
Implementing cross-departmental meetings to discuss customer service starts to create a deeper understanding of individual responsibility.
The idea of having different groups together within the business and discussing “how do we rate today on a scale of one to ten” starts the internal conversations about improving customer service. If one group says they are a seven at greeting customers with a smile, then ask why. This opens the discussion about how to get better tomorrow. Even if you start this out as once a week or once a month, it gives the employees their chance to have their say and make it more personal. This whole process intentionally gives them the power to try to improve.
It would be nice to have this just naturally happen between staff, but that’s not the reality. A leader has to set the tone for customer service. The leader has to walk the talk of leadership and be the change they want to see.
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