OOPS! - The Biggest Workshop Myth Busted!

Anthony Perl: Andrew, I wanted to delve into the idea that there's got to be something else going on, right?

Anthony Perl: That that getting into working out what the real problem is.

Anthony Perl: I know we've talked about in previous episodes about addressing this idea of it's not really a skill shortage in the in the way that people think about it.

Anthony Perl: And it starts with the way people asked the right questions and are prepared for the prepared for the responses and some level of discomfort.

Anthony Perl: And we've talked about these kinds of ideas and we've talked about the technician being the centre of of things of where you can make your biggest improvements in in terms of limiting that friction in your business.

Anthony Perl: So I wanted to get a little bit of a explanation from you as to what's this idea of something else that might be going on.

Andrew Uglow: So there is a a a hierarchy if you like.

Andrew Uglow: This has been given a a variety of different names over the years.

Andrew Uglow: This is the Learning Ladder, the influence Ladder.

Andrew Uglow: This has got a whole bunch of different names, but essentially the results that you're getting are a direct, a direct flow on from the behaviors that you do and and this applies to to to management, this applies to customer service, this applies to technicians, this applies to you at home, in your home life.

Andrew Uglow: The results that you're getting are a direct result of the behaviours that you do.

Andrew Uglow: And so if you're unhappy with your results then change behaviours, right?

Andrew Uglow: The challenge is that there's more to it than that.

Andrew Uglow: As you said behaviours come about because people actually have the ability to do behaviours.

Andrew Uglow: If I wasn't able to disassemble and rebuild a a a hydraulic pump on a car, I couldn't I couldn't actually do that.

Andrew Uglow: I need to have the ability to do the behaviour before I can get the results And so sometimes we we call that a a lack of skill right that's that's you know I expect the person to be able to diagnose the car and they can't and the issue is or the reason why is they just don't have that ability.

Andrew Uglow: They haven't learnt it yet, but behind ability is our beliefs and our values.

Andrew Uglow: If I couldn't be bothered doing it, I'm never going to learn it.

Andrew Uglow: If I don't believe it's valuable to do, or important to do, or worth doing, I'm never going to do it.

Andrew Uglow: I have to value quality, technical performance before I I'll ever produce it.

Andrew Uglow: I have to believe that it's important to hold certain things to be true before I'll even go out and get the ability.

Andrew Uglow: And this is essentially the the part of the iceberg that no one is addressing.

Andrew Uglow: Certainly that I've seen in automotive.

Andrew Uglow: We have technicians with some, let me be honest, with some really ****** beliefs and values and as a result we get some really ****** behaviours and so we get some really ****** results and at the same time managers don't get a free pass.

Andrew Uglow: Here I have seen some breathtakingly ****** management behaviour.

Andrew Uglow: Like arguably illegal but ****** nonetheless.

Andrew Uglow: And that comes from the fact that their ****** results and their ****** behaviour comes from ****** beliefs and ****** values.

Andrew Uglow: And the values don't serve the manager first and foremost, and they certainly don't serve the business or the customer or the staff.

Andrew Uglow: And let let me, let me put on my let me put on my ******* hat again because like I said, this is one of the many services Ioffer you know there there's this narrative floating around at the moment that people should trust politicians and and if they don't trust politicians, well, that's the people's fault.

Andrew Uglow: Well, no, I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that.

Andrew Uglow: You trust someone because they're trustworthy.

Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

Andrew Uglow: You trust is not given.

Andrew Uglow: Trust is earned.

Andrew Uglow: You know, you trust someone because they're trustworthy.

Andrew Uglow: You stay in a business because they are retention worthy.

Andrew Uglow: And if they're not retention worthy, why would anyone stay?

Andrew Uglow: Now that retention worthy, that's on the business.

Andrew Uglow: That's not the technician's fault, that's the business's fault.

Andrew Uglow: If the business isn't doing the behaviors to make it easy for the technicians to want to stay, that's the business.

Andrew Uglow: That's not the technician.

Andrew Uglow: Now don't get me wrong, the technicians have a part to play here.

Andrew Uglow: Like we said, friction involves at least two parts, right?

Andrew Uglow: And so the two parts we're dealing with here are the business slash management and the technician.

Andrew Uglow: But there is absolutely no point upgrading technicians if you haven't upgraded the business, if you haven't done the work to make the business retention worthy.

Andrew Uglow: There is absolutely no reason why the technicians would upgrade to become engaged, to become professional, to become all of the things that you expect and demand them to be productive, efficient, etcetera.

Anthony Perl: It's a simple adage that works across all businesses really, but if your values and beliefs are not aligned, then you're not going to get the most out of the people that are working for you.

Anthony Perl: You can hire the best technician in the world, but if your values and beliefs are not aligned, it's not going to work out.

Anthony Perl: And that's going to play out at the very heart of the business, which as we've defined in previous episodes is the Technician.

Anthony Perl: And it's such an important aspect of how the Workshop functions isn't?

Andrew Uglow: It absolutely it.

Andrew Uglow: It is.

Andrew Uglow: It is.

Andrew Uglow: And and like we, we sort of like really be getting below the surface of things.

Andrew Uglow: You can try and force compliance on someone and let me again put my ******* head back on and argue that that's essentially what HR does.

Andrew Uglow: HR is all about compliance.

Andrew Uglow: You must do this, You must do that.

Andrew Uglow: These behaviours are not good.

Andrew Uglow: These behaviours are good.

Andrew Uglow: Do this, don't do that.

Andrew Uglow: And so people comply.

Andrew Uglow: But if there's if, there's no if, there's no belief system behind that supporting that.

Andrew Uglow: If there is no value that you hold that sustains that, you're going to have to be on those people's back day in, day out.

Andrew Uglow: No, no, no, that's not acceptable.

Andrew Uglow: Don't do this, don't do that.

Andrew Uglow: And people will stop it because they want to comply.

Andrew Uglow: But don't expect them to be engaged.

Andrew Uglow: Don't expect expect them to do anything that resembles discretionary effort.

Andrew Uglow: In fact, you're going to get the opposite.

Andrew Uglow: You're going to get minimum viable product.

Andrew Uglow: What can I do?

Andrew Uglow: What's the least I can do and still stay employed.

Andrew Uglow: And they'll do it because they there's there's there's there's no underpinning or internal or intrinsic motivation for them to do otherwise.

Anthony Perl: And I think before business owners sitting there thinking oh, this is just high level mumbo jumbo, this is stuff that's been tried and tested has.

Andrew Uglow: Oh goodness gracious.

Andrew Uglow: There is so many, so many studies.

Andrew Uglow: This stuff has been used successfully.

Andrew Uglow: If you can think of a context, it's been used successfully.

Andrew Uglow: And I would argue that the really good dealerships are doing this already.

Andrew Uglow: They just haven't languaged it or described it in these terms.

Andrew Uglow: And it's not easy.

Andrew Uglow: If you don't know how to do it, well, we go back to having the ability to do the behaviour to get the result.

Andrew Uglow: If you don't have the ability, you don't get the result right.

Andrew Uglow: But this is, this is absolutely foundational and it has been entirely overlooked in the automotive industry almost entirely.

Andrew Uglow: Like I said, there are some good businesses that are are doing this and there are the business that businesses that are doing it to a lesser degree.

Andrew Uglow: But if you just go for compliance, you'll get it sooner or later you'll get it, but but don't expect performance at the same time.

Andrew Uglow: It's kind of one or the other.

Andrew Uglow: You know you can get, you can get compliance, or you can have performance.

Andrew Uglow: However you build or install or develop a belief system, you go and install values like meaningful values that mean things to the individual personally that they subscribe to, that they engage with.

Andrew Uglow: You don't really need to worry about compliance.

Andrew Uglow: You'll get performance, though, but you don't really need to worry about compliance because they'll do it because they believe in it.

Andrew Uglow: They'll do it because they want to.

Andrew Uglow: They'll do it because it matters to them.

Anthony Perl: I think it's it's a really valuable lesson for business owners to to take and I I think it's really important then to say how does this, what does it really mean for them you know what what you know we've talked about this at a high level but you know I suppose in in part it's it's maybe we should examine what it doesn't mean as much as what it does mean when it comes to to to running a workshop.

Andrew Uglow: We we talk about the workshop being retention worthy right.

Andrew Uglow: And the retention worthy part is the job of management.

Andrew Uglow: And if they haven't done the work, if they haven't gone and done the analysis on what the really what really the problems are.

Andrew Uglow: If they haven't done the analysis on what's behind the problems, If they're not open to change, if they're not open to testing.

Andrew Uglow: If they're not open to trying new things, they're never going to get any further than they are presently.

Andrew Uglow: However, once they're open to these things and they start to understand that hang on a minute there's a whole nother level of elements at play and and and and let me give you a personal example of this.

Andrew Uglow: I moved out of automotive technical into automotive training, and then I moved into the corporate world, working in a manufacturer.

Andrew Uglow: And as part of my, my, my job there, I got the opportunity to do some leadership development.

Andrew Uglow: And one of the classes that we were encouraged to do was on emotional intelligence or EQ or EI.

Andrew Uglow: It's called.

Andrew Uglow: And up until that point in time, I didn't even know that there was a thing called emotional intelligence.

Andrew Uglow: I didn't know it was a thing.

Andrew Uglow: I thought if you looked at your tasks and completed them, that was all that you needed to be successful in life.

Andrew Uglow: I didn't know that there was this whole emotional piece.

Andrew Uglow: I didn't know I'm supposed to manage my emotions.

Andrew Uglow: I didn't even know what my emotions were.

Andrew Uglow: Emotions were baggage.

Andrew Uglow: You just pushed them to the side.

Andrew Uglow: You you didn't like who Who has emotions?

Andrew Uglow: No one has emotions.

Andrew Uglow: This is all the motive.

Andrew Uglow: You know, harden up, harden up and get **** done.

Andrew Uglow: You know that that that was kind of the the, the philosophy that I grew up with.

Andrew Uglow: And it was like, hang on a minute, there's this entire competency around understanding your emotions, managing your emotions, listening to your intuition, helping other people identify theirs and manage their emotions.

Andrew Uglow: And this was this whole other piece I had no no idea about.

Andrew Uglow: And this is kind of like it is for management sometimes, is that they don't even know that this whole hierarchy of of drivers are behind behaviour.

Andrew Uglow: They just look at behavior and go that **** behavior.

Andrew Uglow: Do this instead and go for compliance.

Andrew Uglow: Because that's the tip of the iceberg, and that's all they know.

Andrew Uglow: And yet, there's this whole skill below the tip of the iceberg about installing behaviors, about installing values, about installing beliefs, about correcting ones that are funky.

Andrew Uglow: And that's that's a skill, right?

Andrew Uglow: That's not something that you wake up one morning and you can suddenly do, you know that doesn't just drop out of the clouds into your skull and and now you're good to go, right?

Andrew Uglow: That's something that takes some development and some time to do, and it starts again with the managers.

Andrew Uglow: If if managers aren't aware of this for themselves, good luck doing it with your text.

Anthony Perl: Yeah.

Anthony Perl: And again an important lesson, I wanted to to focus a little bit now on something you have mentioned previously which is looking at a A2 part solution to this because it's I think now we've we've talked a little bit about the fact that there is a problem, but let's get down to to the main issue here.

Anthony Perl: How do we start solving it?

Anthony Perl: What?

Anthony Perl: What are those two steps that people need to take?

Andrew Uglow: So once the once management have started to upgrade and are starting to actually install a culture, we've heard that we need a quality workplace culture or open workplace culture or whatever it is.

Andrew Uglow: Once that starts to happen, we and we start to create an environment that is retention worthy.

Andrew Uglow: Now we can start upgrading our technicians, but if we try and upgrade our technicians and I and I speak from personal experience here, if we upgrade our technicians before the business is retention worthy the tension, The technicians will upgrade absolutely, positively, definitely upgrade and they'll realize that they don't fit in that business and they'll leave.

Andrew Uglow: And so trying to upgrade your technicians and I've seen this, gosh, if I had a dollar for every time I've seen seen this, we wouldn't be doing this podcast.

Andrew Uglow: I'd be on a beach somewhere drinking copious amounts of alcohol and having a wonderful time with all manner of different people.

Andrew Uglow: If we simply upgrade our technicians without upgrading the business, without changing the underlying or underpinning beliefs in a business and how we view technicians, the good text will leave you.

Andrew Uglow: You ****** ones will stay, and maybe that's the environment you find yourself in presently, right?

Andrew Uglow: That's which is terribly unpleasant.

Andrew Uglow: But there would be a reason why the the technicians left.

Andrew Uglow: They don't just leave something that's awesome.

Andrew Uglow: They don't leave something that's good.

Andrew Uglow: They don't leave something that's worth them staying for.

Andrew Uglow: And and this is kind of one of the misnomers, right?

Andrew Uglow: You know, technicians only want money.

Andrew Uglow: Well, yes and no.

Andrew Uglow: Money is important, but it's not the only thing.

Andrew Uglow: Unless of course, we as managers make it the only thing.

Andrew Uglow: And if we do make it the only thing, we essentially devalue their passion.

Andrew Uglow: We devalue their all of the other reasons why they do stuff and they get demotivated because all of the stuff that was meaningful for them gets trodden on because it's always about the money.

Andrew Uglow: Hurry up faster.

Andrew Uglow: How much longer customers waiting.

Andrew Uglow: Why isn't that done yet?

Andrew Uglow: Quick, quick, quick, more, more, more, faster, faster, faster.

Andrew Uglow: And they go faster and they do more and yet maybe they get a financial reward.

Andrew Uglow: But there's no life in that.

Andrew Uglow: There is no passion in that.

Andrew Uglow: You can't substitute money for passion.

Andrew Uglow: That that's not a lasting thing.

Andrew Uglow: That's not a value you want in your business.

Andrew Uglow: I guarantee you that is toxic.

Andrew Uglow: And when we've done that, yeah, sure, people get paid money and some of them hang around, but the ones that were really good, they give up and go.

Andrew Uglow: And where there's been sufficient technicians, we just grab another one and and keep doing the same thing.

Andrew Uglow: But where there isn't sufficient technicians, yeah, that's not sustainable and it requires a shift to business first.

Andrew Uglow: So once the business has shifted, once we're now holding technicians to be the heroes that they are and supporting them and thinking about ways that we can make things more effective and more efficient for them.

Andrew Uglow: What we really need to do is, is is not just pay the money.

Andrew Uglow: That's the the the bare minimum.

Andrew Uglow: That's like that's like choosing to breathe in the morning, right?

Andrew Uglow: That's that's that level of of of of of basic stuff.

Andrew Uglow: Of course we pay them.

Andrew Uglow: What we really want to do is we want to upgrade from paying.

Andrew Uglow: Merely paying to rewarding them and and rewarding them is so much richer and not just rewarding them, but actually resourcing them at the same time.

Andrew Uglow: Imagine that resourcing your technician and and even further, what about recognizing your technician?

Andrew Uglow: What about going for all three?

Andrew Uglow: You know, rewarding and resourcing and recognizing the technician.

Andrew Uglow: Now we're starting to get into a a culture and a workshop that technicians will actively turn down more money because they want to stay in.

Andrew Uglow: And that myth, and I'm going to call it a myth, our technicians only want money.

Andrew Uglow: The only reason why I believe that technicians, quote UN quote, only want money is because we first made it about money and it is for the business owner.

Andrew Uglow: Don't get me wrong, right?

Andrew Uglow: You can't run a business without profit, but that's not the only thing and that's where we went wrong.

Andrew Uglow: I.

Anthony Perl: Believe to to to wrap wrap things up a little bit in this and I just wanted to to make this point with you is that as an outside observer what's really interesting for me is looking at it and saying here we have technicians and you can say OK we're just need to pay them more so that they do more and you know churn through the the vehicles at a lot faster pace and money motivates to a certain degree.

Anthony Perl: But if they're not upskilled, if they haven't got the technology around them particularly in an environment where the cars and the technology around cars are moving at such a rapid pace, then it doesn't matter how much you pay them.

Anthony Perl: There's a point where if you haven't upskilled them and and provided them with the technology as well that they need, then paying them more is not going to get you a better result.

Andrew Uglow: No, absolutely not.

Andrew Uglow: There's there's limits to this.

Andrew Uglow: Absolutely.

Andrew Uglow: And moving from a external motivating force to an internal motivating force for the technicians is all the difference in the world.

Andrew Uglow: And that's that's effectively the upgrade that we're talking about.