Giving Your Brain Positive Energy
Positive Energy….It’s a term being talked about a lot more frequently in meetings these days. After all, when business legend Jack Welch says that great leaders have loads and loads of positive energy and Pete Carroll, coach of USC football credits positive energy as a key ingredient to winning important football games and National championships, people tend to listen, and start asking questions. What in the World is positive energy anyway?
How do I develop it as a dealership manager? How can I get my business filed with it? In today’s world with gas going to a zillion dollars a gallon, salespeople fleeing for a better position and you’re the last one to turn the lights off when closing, how do you manage to gather the strength to have enough positive mental agility to motivate others in this business and push on?
With questions come answers; lots of them. You would have to live on another planet not to notice the new plethora of books and articles discussing the importance of positive influence, positive leadership, positive cultures and positive relationships. From books such as The Power of Nice, What Happy Companies Know and How Full is your Bucket to an abundance of new research, from researchers such as Daniel Goleman and Barbara Fredrickson, demonstrating that positive people, positive interactions and positive work cultures produce positive results, there is a growing sentiment that positive energy is the cure for the ailing a sick slow business, the suffering stock price, the battered leader, the negative leadership team and the “sick” and “tired” morale and culture. A college Professor described it as the holy grail of any business that wants to flourish.
Yet, while I agree with this research and sentiment, there is a bigger, deeper question that is often overlooked when we discuss positive energy. That is why when I speak to the dealers at a dealership I ask them one simple question. “If a positive mental attitude is so important, and I am sure we all agree that the research demonstrates it works…… then why aren’t more dealers, more positive?” Why aren’t there more people skipping through the halls, smiling at their managers and co-workers just loving their job? Why do more dealers carry over a crappy week-end to Monday’s? If positive energy is so important and we all know it is, then why does negativity cost companies 300 billion dollars a year according to the Gallup Organization. And why do so many dealerships have morale and productivity challenges with 42% of sales and managers suffering from burnout according to a recent study.
The answer is simply because positive energy doesn’t happen with a wave of a magic wand. It clearly doesn’t happen by sitting around and wishing things will get better. Or thinking my manufacturer will find the cure. Or, holding hands and singing
Kumbaya. Successful, positive auto dealers with positive employees and positive cultures are created like anything else. Through a set of principles, processes, systems and habits that are ingrained in the corporate culture from the top-down and instilled into each individual employee. Positive auto dealers aren’t born…. they are developed. When it comes to auto dealership families there is no such debate about nature versus nurture. It’s all about nurture.
Help Wanted “Only Positive Management Required”.
In order to build a positive dealership team then it is essential that there is not only a positive ATTITUDE FREE executive manager leading, but a positive executive who believes in nurturing and developing a culture of positive energy. Too many times I have been brought to consult with a company to infuse the employees with positive energy and 2 minutes after meeting the management team an employee will come up to me and say, “this all makes so much sense but the managers who need to hear this are not here and that’s the problem.” This is really a truism. To build a positive dealership environment in any organization lead by positive energy you’ll need to first get the management team on the energy bus. Because, while positive energy trickles down…up… and sideways through an organization, it flows best and more powerfully from the top down; from management; to employees and then finally to the customers trying purchase visiting with the salesperson. It doesn’t matter if you are a professor in economics there really is a “Trickle-Down” theory. Not only does profit Trickle-Down from a managers influence…. but also positive energy trickles down the organization by-ways. But if management is causing negativity to flow down, the positive energy gets zapped like the sun on a dark, cloudy day, creating a negative flow to everyone in the dealership. Leadership has to positive no matter how cloudy the day becomes.
Nurture the Core of Your Business. Today I called and talked with a dear friend of mine who happens to be a dealer. He made a startling statement regarding sales in his store. What he said was business “sucks” but he had a silver lining based on the service department. Although he was not too positive about the sales efforts he came through with building a positive concept using the service department as the obvious place to turn to. He brought his service team together and they developed strategy from the service manager that even gave the salespeople the possibility to earn commissions based creating service appointments.
My decades of experience suggests success requires management to have a long term vision and an understanding that too many of their counterparts focus on the low hanging fruit on the tree. Sooner or later there will other ripe offerings that will have an opportunity to do business. The culture, trust, people and positive energy of the dealership run based on foresight with developing successful, positive employees that know you will provide a tree that will always be blessed with the fruit it supplies. If you ignore the root of the problem, eventually the tree will dry up and so will the fruit. To nurture the root of your dealership you’ll want to feed it lots of positive energy. And this is done by all managers who believe in the benefits of positive energy, urgently invest in it, nurture employees with it, and as Pete Carroll a famous football coach has said, “ingrain it in everything they do.”
To fuel your business and growth with positive energy and ingrain it in everything you do here are a few best practices and strategies that will get you and your team on the energy bus and moving in the right direction.
(ONE) Employ Only Positive People. Sure everyone knows this. But the question you must ask yourself is do you have rigorous systems in place that screen out negativity and ensure that you hire positive people. An example is do you give a personality profile (PPI Testing) to check to find the hidden problem before it raises its ugly head ….negativity? It’s obviously a lot easier to create a positive culture with people who are naturally more positive and this starts in the beginning at the hiring process. The Basket Ball coach Pat Riley said, “You don’t have to yell at someone who wants the same things you do.” When you have positive people on the dealership bus you’re more likely to have a positive ride. Giving a Personality Profile Investigation gives you insight and assists with the decision process with finding out who this person will be in six months before they are hired.
(TWO) Demand Communication, Communication, Communication.
Experience suggests that 60% of management problems are the result of sloppy or faulty communication. We can’t use two cans and a string between them hoping the communication will be understood. One-on-one communication is handled best with direct memos delivered first party information. Create a memo and hand it to the employee for review, review it with them, they keep the copy. There is no misunderstanding, they know what you expect.
When people feel fearful or uncertain or unheard they start thinking the worse and act accordingly. And as negative energy fills more voids and grows in these gaps, the positive energy can’t flow through the organization. All meetings must be positive, happy and bring in solutions for all to comment on. Singling out one person in a meeting is like going down with the Titanic, and every time you conduct this type of meeting you sink a little deeper with the ship.
There is a time and a place to critique or review a problem employee and that is one-on-one and in private. When conducting this type of meeting you must make sure you have what you are going to say in writing. Give copies to the employee, conduct a positive meeting with how they can they can show improvement; suggest ideas you will want to review at a later date. Finally, before the meeting is over give a definite day and time to return with positive results. Then put that day and time on the calendar and follow through with a reminder to the employee the day before of the meeting that has been set.
By designing processing that can enhance communication you eliminate the gaps and allow positive energy to flow through the entire dealership. One example of this practice is using a “Huddle” meeting every Monday at 8:30am. Every Monday you hold a 15 minute meeting with “all hands on deck.” The meeting lasts only 15 minutes and everyone in the dealership is briefed on everything that is going on is sales, service and other departments for that up-coming week. Consider it a dealership of a football huddle. Communication, Communication, Communication I can’t stress enough the importance of understandable communication.
(THREE) Start Today With Positive Energy, Don’t Wait Your Business is to Important.
Place a healthy communication process now…and you’ll want to make sure you fill the energy gaps with positive energy. If positive energy is always flowing through the dealership then negativity can’t breed or take hold. The key is to implement systems that foster more positive interactions, positive feelings, and a positive culture. A huge example is Ken Blanchard. Ken is not only a leadership master for many companies but his own as well. Ken’s title is Chief Spiritual Officer and each day he holds an all employee call where he shares an inspirational message. Another example is a Transit Company where they had a huge morale problem. Turn around came from a team put in place and immediately they instituted a system designed to enhance positive interactions and feedback. Every time a supervisor noticed a bus driver doing something positive they praised the driver and also wrote their observation on a specially designed sheet of paper that was submitted to the general manager of the company. The next day the general manager would personally hand the sheet of paper to each driver and again praise them.
It is too easy to dismiss performance as part of the job. Good performance is what we all strive for; it pays the bills so to speak. But you can’t say “Thank You” enough. Most often positive recognition is the single biggest motivator in the dealership. Here is where you now use a meeting to your biggest benefit, praise in public…critique in private.
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FOUR) Eliminate Energy Buffoons.
Not with a strong memo but with walking papers. Post a sign that says “No energy Buffoons allowed” and eliminate anyone that sucks the energy and life out of your dealership. It is essential to create a positive culture and demand a positive outcome from everyone working in the dealership. Too many dealership managers know who their negative employees are but they don’t know what to do, or how to handle them, so nothing is done until the Buffoon has spread their unhappiness all over the place. A Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback once said, “One guy can’t make a team but one guy can break a teams spirit.” It is like a cancer, one energy Buffoon can spread negativity throughout a team or a dealership. Never give the Buffoon a chance to get on the dealership energy bus and contribute while you are trying to build your positive culture, if they can’t make the necessary changes, then you’ll have to kick them off the energy bus. The success of your ride depends on it.
(FIVE) You’re the Bus Driver Share your Vision and Purpose.
The founder of Starbucks told his people from the beginning that we are not in the coffee business serving people but in the people business serving coffee. Sharing your vision is not difficult, but you have to make an honest effort to inspire. Inspired people with a sense of purpose to make a difference and enjoy the success ride. Vision helps everyone in the dealership see the road ahead and focus on the goals that will lead to their destination. You need to be a human road map guiding and making sure everyone i
s following the same directions. Purpose inspires people to work longer, harder and even more passionately. The amount of meeting time won’t matter if you’re positive interactions are inspiring great performances. The key here is aiming everyone in the dealership toward the same direction. If everyone is on the same success bus with your vision they will have a deeper sense of purpose. If you and your team are not on the same bus then you’ll never be as powerful, positive and successful as you could be. Keep in mind your vision and purpose not only keeps people on the success bus, but it causes them to get out and push when the engine breaks down.
Hiring smart, intelligent, hardworking, insightful people that deliver results is not easy, we all know that. Put a plan in place to develop and give a success vision and the success bus will be fuller and more positive with a much smoother ride. Keep in mind you have the map and there your directions that count. But without positive energy and the fuel to drive the success bus forward, even the best and smartest drivers will be left at a standstill while the competition drives positively past them.
Positive energy is more than just a term. It is our energy source that will fuel successful automobile dealership business; increase profits if you cultivate it; blend positive energy into your business purpose, communication systems and employee culture and you will be able to run the success bus to a much happier destination.
Bill Zahrte