Just ONE Thing
How to Build a True Team in Your Auto Repair Shop
Episode 216
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning.
My name is Rick White from 180BIZ, and we are a coaching and training company from the independent automotive and truck-repair-shop industry. And this is my Just ONE Thing for this week.
So what am I talking about today?
Today I'm talking about teams. And do you know why? It's because I was talking with some shop owners this past weekend, and they were talking about teams. As they were talking about their team, I realized there was no common definition of what a team is, so we started thinking about it. What we realized as we were going through this is they didn't have a team. They had a group of people, right? They had individuals coming into work, and about the only thing that made them common was they were you wearing the same uniform and working in the same building. That does not make a team.
I want you to understand—I love this definition—a team…listen carefully:
A team is a group of people that agree to grow together. They also embrace scared values and standards. So, in other words, they are all going after the same thing, believe in the same things, and hold themselves to the same standards. But this is the last part—they commit daily to perform at their best, for each other, to each other. They hold them.
There are times when that team is going to come to an individual and say, “Hey, man, what's going on? You're not… You're not where you should be. You're not… What's going on here?” And what happens is, by doing this, it creates the synergy where you don't have a group of people and individual bolts banging into each other throughout the day in the business; you have a cohesive unit that can move. You ever see those swarm of birds that they just seem to flow and fly in unison? There isn't any one person telling them what to do—it's just this synergy, and that's what a true team brings, right?
Because, you know, a team—they accept accountability, okay? Individuals don't. A group, they work in the same building, but a team works shoulder to shoulder. A group of people, they move around independently, banging into each other, but a team moves forward with purpose because they have a common goal.
But here's the thing—how many of you would like to have a team that agrees to grow together, they stand by the same shared values and standards, and commit to perform at their best every single day? That is a team, okay?
What's your part in this?
You gotta set the tone, and you gotta define the culture—the environment, right? That culture, that environment, basically has three components:
1. Trust. You gotta have trust within the team, and you don't wait for them to trust you—you got to trust them first. So you got to have trust.
2. Psychological safety. You know what that is? That's a really fancy term where people can feel like… All it means is people can feel like they can be themselves, that they're going to be accepted for who they are. They don't have to put a facade.
3. Connectedness. It's relationships. It's relationship to the mission. It's relationship to the values and the standards. It's a relationship with the team and the leader.
So that's the first thing—you've got to set the tone and define the culture. Now, when you're looking at it, look at those three areas:
* Where's your level of trust?
* Where is your psychological safety?
* Where are you at with the connected—the relationship?
Okay, now the reality is, your business is being run by values—a set of values—every single day. The problem is, if you're not the one that define those values, then they're going to be somebody else's. And I don't know about you, but that scares me, okay? You want to make sure that everybody on your…team understands and embraces the values of the business, the beliefs of the business.
When you have that, it's really amazing. But not only do you have to communicate—define and communicate what they are—you have to model them. You as the leader have to live by the values that you espouse to your team, okay?
How do you turn that group into a team?
Four things, actually:
1. Clarity. You gotta be clear about what that team looks like, about where you're going, about keeping them excited about being a part of it. They don't work for you—they work with you. Everybody has a voice; everybody gets heard; everybody's appreciated. This is the clarity that you have to have.
2. Communication. Then you've got to be able to communicate it. So you gotta have clarity, and then you gotta communicate—consistently, all the time. You gotta just say it so many times that you're actually sick of it (not really), but you gotta make sure you're saying it over and over and over again with energy and enthusiasm and just that belief coming down from the very core of your being—that makes all the difference in the world.
3. Consistency. So we have clarity, we have communication, we have consistency.
4. Connection. Measure the connection you have with your team. Measure the connection that each one of your team members has with the rest of the team. You want to work on trust, psychological safety, and relationship. Get that team going. Have a focal point—your destination and your mission and what you're doing. I love crusades: we're on a crusade to make the world a better place, one shop at a time. That's what you want to do.
So this is really big. Now, if this is kind of hitting you right—if the message is resonating—please share it. We need help getting the message out. We need help getting people to understand some of the frustrations they're dealing with right now are because they don't have a team.
Also, second Thursday of every month, at 7 p.m. Eastern, we have our Shop Owners Round Table. For anybody that's been there, please give a shout-out there in the comments if you think they're good. Basically, it's free coaching where everybody gets together as a group—50 to 60 of us—we sit down, we talk through something, and it's just to help each other out. It's absolutely free, no sales pitch.
Second thing—Pocket Business Genius. It's our webinar series. It's awesome. We just did one on work-life balance. I thought it was off the hook good. So please, if you're interested, you can sign up for that as well.
All right, everybody, I just want to say thank you. I want to say God bless. Have a great week this week, and go make some money, everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.
