Moving From 'Friction' to 'Friction-less'

Anthony Perl: Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the first episode of The Frictionless Workshop.

Anthony Perl: And it's without a further ado that I want to introduce the star of the show, Andrew Uglow.

Anthony Perl: Andrew, welcome.

Andrew Uglow: Thanks very much, Anthony.

Andrew Uglow: It's not often in that I get called a star.

Andrew Uglow: I get called lots of things, but Star is not one of them, strangely enough.

Anthony Perl: Well, I think those are people that are going to listen to this podcast series are going to find out why perhaps you might be a star in your particular space and I I suppose that's the first place we should start really is is do you want to do a little bit of an introduction as to as to yourself but also then into why the frictionless workshop.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, really good.

Andrew Uglow: So my background is automotive technical.

Andrew Uglow: I've pretty much spent my entire life in the automotive the industry.

Andrew Uglow: I started out as an apprentice, moved into workshop, a variety of different workshop functions, worked in dealerships, worked in independent aftermarket workshops, worked in automotive training, both here domestically in Australia and internationally.

Andrew Uglow: And I am still a bit of an automotive technology.

Andrew Uglow: Tragic.

Andrew Uglow: I love cars.

Andrew Uglow: I love the technology on cars.

Andrew Uglow: I love problem diagnosis, as in the chasing down the weird stuff and figuring out not just what's happening, but why it's happening and how to solve it.

Andrew Uglow: And I'm also very much a a people person in the respect that my time in the trade has taught me that what I do is actually a really difficult thing.

Andrew Uglow: And I see a lot of technicians struggle, I see a lot of workshops struggle because their technicians struggle.

Andrew Uglow: And I'm really keen to go and add some value in that space to help firstly the individuals be more successful at what they do.

Andrew Uglow: Because there is a an absolute skill behind that, but also to help businesses be more successful not just in terms of profit, profitability but certainly in terms of the retention, the engagement and the development of their staff because that has a long term impact on the trade.

Andrew Uglow: And and that's sort of something that's really close to my heart and and hence the reason for for starting the podcast.

Andrew Uglow: You know, I feel that after 35 plus years in the trade, I've actually got something I can give back.

Andrew Uglow: And so that's that's why we're here.

Anthony Perl: And I I love that.

Anthony Perl: And I think particularly what people should realize that are listening in is that you've worked from the ground up.

Anthony Perl: You know this is cut this business that you've created now.

Anthony Perl: And what we're what this podcast is about in terms of giving over their expertise comes because you've started on the ground level and worked your way up into, you know, ultimately having your own business.

Anthony Perl: But it's, you know how these cars work, you know what it's like to work in the space and to work training people in the space.

Anthony Perl: So I think that this is a natural progression, but I think it's important that listeners understand that the perspective you've got is pretty unique.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, I was in preparation for the for the podcast.

Andrew Uglow: I did some math to try and figure out just out of vital curiosity, roughly how many people I've I've had in my training classes over the years and it's in excess of about 30,000 people.

Andrew Uglow: And with those people there's always been discussions.

Andrew Uglow: You know, we've, we haven't just stayed on topic.

Andrew Uglow: We've been talking about all and sundry, all the different things, all their frustrations, all of their difficult difficulties, all the things that that they enjoy that what they don't enjoy, what's been successful for them.

Andrew Uglow: And so that's reflected I guess in my perspective of of how I see things operating.

Andrew Uglow: And then on top of that, of course is is a natural curiosity.

Andrew Uglow: We find people make claims about why things do work in a workshop or why things don't work in a workshop.

Andrew Uglow: And I get really curious, I go well, well, how would we know if that was true?

Andrew Uglow: How would we, how would we test for that?

Andrew Uglow: How would we identify if that was in fact the whole story or part of the story or that thing only happens in a specific context And that's kind of where the whole concept of a frictionless workshop came about in that friction just makes everything harder as as automotive technicians, as as service managers, workshop owners, we're probably pretty familiar with friction.

Andrew Uglow: You know it's the bit that causes all the damage on the cars that come in and and so it's it's no different in in running a business.

Andrew Uglow: A business is essentially a a fairly complex organic machine.

Andrew Uglow: And where there's friction, stuff goes wrong, profit goes out the window, people leave.

Andrew Uglow: We have all the stress, the strain, the difficulty, the the challenge, And friction is effectively robbing all of their effort and giving us a smaller return.

Andrew Uglow: So anything that we can do in our workshops in our businesses to mitigate the friction because you can't actually reduce it, well, not yet.

Andrew Uglow: We haven't quite figured that out entirely, but we can certainly mitigate the amount of friction we go through has a significant impact not just on our own well-being as business owners, but certainly on the well-being for the people that work for us.

Andrew Uglow: Customer outcomes like it's reflected right across the range of things that we measure and and and hold to be valuable.

Anthony Perl: And I think just finally to set the scene for the for the podcast series that we're embarking on here is that the idea of friction is one that you can learn from as well.

Anthony Perl: Because I think that's the important part, isn't it, that the the notion that there is friction that is going to exist.

Anthony Perl: You can either choose to ignore it and have it slow things down, or you can learn from it and constantly try to improve on it.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Uglow: And arguably that perhaps the biggest challenge in running a workshop, in in running a a technical team is friction can look super normal.

Andrew Uglow: You can look at things and you go, well that's it's like that and that's the way it is And it's always been like that.

Andrew Uglow: When the reality is there's actually friction there.

Andrew Uglow: And if you don't know to go looking for it, you'll just accept it.

Andrew Uglow: You know put your head down and your tail up and push harder and try and get a a better result.

Andrew Uglow: When the sensible thing to do is actually look at what's causing the friction and go about mitigating that or resolving that or or limiting that friction so that the effort that you do that actually gives you a better outcome rather than you having to do more effort to get the same outcome.

Anthony Perl: Yeah.

Anthony Perl: And I think so we want to turn our attention now particularly to the workshop, which is obviously the main focus for us in terms of where the friction starts to play out.

Anthony Perl: And I think just to again to set that scene a little bit is that often the people that are overseeing those things, those workshops might be a bit removed from it.

Anthony Perl: So this might be a little bit of a starting of a look under the hood to understand what might exist in the workplace.

Anthony Perl: So give us a little bit of an insight of how you see friction starting to play out in workshops.

Andrew Uglow: Perhaps the the biggest indicator and and it certainly depends upon the amount of friction.

Andrew Uglow: Friction in its early stage can be very benign, very difficult to find.

Andrew Uglow: But as friction increases its impact increases and when things start melting down or seizing or that sort of stuff, friction becomes super obvious.

Andrew Uglow: And I guess the biggest indicator for me was around a lot of the terminology that we see used in the workshop or in the industry today around skills shortage.

Andrew Uglow: Oh, there's a skill shortage.

Andrew Uglow: It's so hard to find people, not just good people, you know, I just need someone who can stand upright, maintain a pulse and preferably spin a spanner, you know, I just need a warm body in my workshop to do the work.

Andrew Uglow: And that kind of rung some alarm bells when I started to hear about that.

Andrew Uglow: Because when I started in the automotive industry 30 plus years ago, there was a skill shortage then.

Andrew Uglow: And it's like, well, hang on a minute, if there was a skill shortage all the way back then and there's still a skill shortage now, surely this can't be normal.

Andrew Uglow: Surely this can't be a straightforward problem.

Andrew Uglow: There's got to be something else here at play and to to to to to give it a a name.

Andrew Uglow: It would be friction.

Andrew Uglow: There is something here that is making our efforts or absorbing our efforts and giving us poorer results, even though we keep trying harder to resolve the issue.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, I think that's an important thing for people to understand, isn't it, That that it's firstly recognizing that there is going to be a problem because it's inevitable that there is a problem, right?

Anthony Perl: That that if you think there's no problem, the chances are that you're not looking properly.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Uglow: And if it was something simple or something simple, surely we would have solved it by now.

Andrew Uglow: Like the the industry isn't that stupid, right?

Andrew Uglow: That that we've got some absolute gurus that work in management, that work in business ownership, in in financial areas and financial controls.

Andrew Uglow: We have some of the most gifted people I've had the pleasure to, to talk to and work with that work with technical things.

Andrew Uglow: And so given all of this brainpower, given all of this knowledge and skill it it it befuddles me like why haven't we solved this yet.

Andrew Uglow: Surely there's got to be something at play here something more than what we believe is at play and and so I guess in answering that question and and looking if you like you say below the hood looking below the water level of the iceberg, right.

Andrew Uglow: We all see the problems in the tip of the iceberg.

Andrew Uglow: They stick out like the proverbial.

Andrew Uglow: But if we're going to go and actually go looking, we need to be prepared, I think, to call a spade a spade.

Andrew Uglow: And some of that stuff's going to be a little bit unpleasant, right?

Andrew Uglow: There's going to be the odd elephant in the room.

Andrew Uglow: There's going to be things that we just don't want to hear.

Andrew Uglow: But if we're not prepared to address them, if we're not prepared to actually take a look, well, strangely enough, we're going to keep doing the same things we've always done and continuing to get the results that we always get.

Andrew Uglow: So it really is a both an exciting thing and an and an uncomfortable thing at the same time.

Andrew Uglow: I.

Anthony Perl: Think one of the important things is, is understanding that there is a skill shortage and starting to think about how to address that.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Uglow: And part of the part of the challenge, I think with the skills shortage is the name that we've given it.

Andrew Uglow: Skill shortage is a is a is a brilliantly vague and and general name, isn't it?

Andrew Uglow: Skills shortage.

Andrew Uglow: Like Like what?

Andrew Uglow: What actually is that?

Andrew Uglow: It's it's it's actually really problematic because it's not only poorly poorly defined.

Andrew Uglow: What we've actually done is we've lumped a whole bunch of different issues into one issue and called it a vague name.

Andrew Uglow: And So what happens then is we think that because there's the skills shortage, then there must be a a solution, a singular solution to the skills shortage.

Andrew Uglow: But we've got a compound problem.

Andrew Uglow: We've got a problem that is made-up of multiple problems that is contributing to what we see as the tip of the iceberg, the skill shortage.

Andrew Uglow: And it kind of reminds me of, of the sort of challenges that technicians find in diagnosis.

Andrew Uglow: You know, if we start out with really poor information, it simply takes your technician longer to solve the problem because their first step is to go and get good quality information that actually identifies explicitly what the real source of the problem is.

Andrew Uglow: Instead of, you know, noise in car, Well, noise in car isn't really helpful.

Andrew Uglow: Like you've got a a large expensive mobile mechanical machine with a a vibrating motor assembly and somehow you're getting a noise.

Andrew Uglow: Well of course you are.

Andrew Uglow: Like you need something really explicit, you know, noise in car over speed humps when turning left.

Andrew Uglow: Oh, OK.

Andrew Uglow: That's far more descriptive.

Andrew Uglow: Now I can actually go about identifying what's really behind the cause.

Andrew Uglow: And it's the same with skill shortage.

Andrew Uglow: You know, what's a skill shortage like?

Andrew Uglow: What sort of skill?

Andrew Uglow: You know how is it a short that there's there's there's so many characteristics that are just vaguely addressed and and and not even labeled and I particularly like I particularly like what Yoda said and it's not often that I quote Yoda strangely enough but but he says in in the Empire Strikes Back he says named must your fear be before conquer it you can and for automotive diagnosis we know absolutely that named must your problem be before solve it you can and if we can't effectively and accurately and explicitly name what the problem or problems actually are what hope have we ever got of trying to solve them.

Anthony Perl: Yeah.

Anthony Perl: And I like how you take the same logic that's involved in what the mechanics are doing right on the ground and pulling that up to a higher level and saying to people that are overseeing this that you you actually need to take the same perspective on what's on what and and how to look at the business.

Anthony Perl: And to understand that if you think that there's no problem, you're mistaken because there is.

Anthony Perl: The question is to what degree the problem exists and how much you're you're willing to go in and starting to have a look at it.

Anthony Perl: Because otherwise, you know it's.

Anthony Perl: It's also understanding the fact that it's it, it may not be a single thing, and that it starts to compound.

Andrew Uglow: It's funny with cars and and particularly as cars have got more complex we often find that the problem is a compound or the source of the problem is a compound item.

Andrew Uglow: And I can tell you dozens of dozens of stories where after doing some some diagnosis, you know I honestly believe that this particular component or this particular connector was at fault.

Andrew Uglow: Did the did the repair.

Andrew Uglow: Of course, it's always done in a very high time pressure environment and someone says, oh Andrew, how much longer will you be?

Andrew Uglow: And I go, oh look, I I found it, you know, it should be ready in, you know, X minutes, whatever that is.

Andrew Uglow: And then I go about resolving the problem only to find out that I've solved half of it and there's still something hidden below what I thought was the problem.

Andrew Uglow: That's actually the real problem.

Andrew Uglow: Or another half or another part of the problem.

Andrew Uglow: And I suspect with people that that's also the case people are profoundly complex.

Andrew Uglow: We're not, we're not machines.

Andrew Uglow: We don't run in a in a linear fashion.

Andrew Uglow: We we work very organically and because we're organic, we we operate you know in a workshop system that is actually not a mechanical system, it's a organic system.

Andrew Uglow: And and so the the complexities of working with people, while there's patterns and there's methods and techniques to deal with that, they're actually really complex.

Andrew Uglow: And just because something looks like disengagement or a poor attitude or or whatever it is, that doesn't necessarily reflect the cause of the behavior that you're seeing.

Andrew Uglow: And so being able to dig below what we see on the surface just like you do in in in technical diagnosis, I think it's something that's perhaps been lacking in the industry.

ophies really since about the: 1950

Andrew Uglow: You know we're still operating with those sorts of mindsets.

Uglow: And I'm it's it's like: 2023

Andrew Uglow: Like surely it's time for a change.

Andrew Uglow: And we're starting to see some of it come through.

Andrew Uglow: But there's still some legacy things that are that are profoundly unhelpful in terms of of the methods that we use to to work with people in a workshop.

Andrew Uglow: So yeah, what it looks like and what it really is aren't necessarily the same.