Just ONE Thing
Auto Repair Leadership: Why Your Team Isn’t Following You
Episode 253
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ. We're a coaching and training company for the independent auto and truck repair shops. And this is my Just ONE Thing for this week.
This is all about leadership, and I really love this.
One of my favorite quotes about leadership is from John Maxwell. It says, "If you think you're a leader, but nobody's following, you're just going for a walk."
There's a lot of people that don't like that quote because it forces a really hard question, which is: are people actually following you, or are they just working around you?
See, leadership isn't something you demand or command, right? Leadership is actually given by the follower. You don't determine leadership. The people following you do. How cool is that, right? If we can understand that, it is a game changer.
There's a big difference between people just doing their job and people choosing to follow you, right?
And that decision—this is what I really wanna focus on—comes down to three questions your team is asking themselves every single day.
It's not something they ask out loud. It's actually their answers are actually in how they show up. So I want to share these three questions with you because these kind of blew my mind when I read them.
The first question is, "Do I like you?"
Now, this is not you asking it. It is your team. Each and every one of them: Do I like you?
This is not about being friends. This is not about being their best buddy. It's about connection and respect. See, your team is constantly asking, do I matter to you beyond what I produce? Think about that for one second. Do I matter to you beyond what I produce? If the answer's NO, if they don't feel like they matter, then they disconnect.
What does that look like? It looks like them doing the minimum. There's no initiative, no ownership.
In fact, it was funny, I was talking to a shop owner this past weekend, and he was saying how his team just—like if they finish a job, they just stand around. That's the fact that there's no initiative.
And here's the reality. I need you to hear: if your people feel like a number, they're gonna perform like one.
Let that sink in for just a sec.
If any one of your team members feel like a number, they're gonna perform like one.
Now, what gets you a yes here when they ask, do I like you?
And let's say this. Number one, you listen.
That's the first thing. They got something to say. You actually stop and you give them your undivided attention. What's the best way to show that? With your eyes.
Second thing, you acknowledge their effort. Yes, we're looking for results. We work off of results, but we've gotta acknowledge effort because that's where the results happen.
Okay. Third thing, you see and treat them like a human being, somebody that is going through life just like you are, not a unit of production. It doesn't work.
Second question: "Can you help me?"
This is all about growth. They're asking, can you make me better? But here's the thing you gotta be really careful about.
Listen to this carefully.
Can you make them better the way they want to be better? Right. See, a lot of times people say, can you help me? And we go in and we help them, but the problem is we're helping them the way we want to help, not the way they need help.
And if we could just be curious when someone says, can you help me? We just don't jump in and start doing stuff. What we do is we step back and say, how can I best serve you? Right? And then we actually do what they need help with. Even if we know that that isn't gonna help them ultimately, this is one of those leadership lessons, those teachable moments where we're gonna be there to help them, we're gonna support them the way they want, and then we can talk to them about what happened.
But the reality is, if they don't feel like you're there to help them, they don't push.
What does that look like? Low hours, right? Low sales. Nobody's improving. There's no hunger. Feels like you're constantly pushing people.
Listen, people don't follow titles. They follow people who will help them win. That is so important to understand.
Now, what gets a yes from this?
When you have clear expectations, when you're coaching instead of correcting. What do I mean by that? You're in front of stuff, helping, guiding, mentoring instead of in back of them saying, you did it wrong, you did it wrong, you did it wrong.
It's about having a training and development program customized to each person. It's not going, oh, Napa has a class. I'm not knocking NAPA classes, but you've gotta be able to sit down and help them where they need it. Then show them what better looks like, because sometimes they can't see what the potential they have is, and you've gotta be able to call it out in them.
Third question: "Do I trust you?"
This is the deal breaker. This is the ask kicker right here. You can be likable, you can be helpful, but if they don't trust you, they're never gonna follow you.
What does that look like? Broken trust looks like saying one thing, doing another. It's playing favorites. It's avoiding hard conversations, and it's that Jekyll and Hyde emotional leadership where one day you come in and you're amazing, and then the next day you come in and you're a monster.
That's a problem. And there's so much pressure and stress that that happens all the time, and that kills trust. That kills your leadership because I gotta tell you, the truth here is without trust in your team, without your team trusting you, everything feels forced.
So how do you get a yes here?
You do what you say. That makes sense. You are constant under pressure no matter what. And you hold everyone to the same standard, no double standards in the shop.
So I want to give you a really simple framework. It's EARN. That's what it is. E-A-R-N, because you have to earn trust.
So number one...
(E) Engage the person. You gotta get to know them beyond their job, and when you're talking to them, be fully present. All right, so here's one action, one challenge I want to give you in this area: I want you to have one real conversation with somebody on your team that has nothing to do with work.
(A) is Advance their growth. Help them improve. Don't correct them all the time. Coach them. Weekly challenge: your one challenge here, I want you to work on one skill or behavior with each person this week.
Then we have (R), which is Reinforce consistency, which means do what you say and stay steady, especially under pressure. You gotta catch yourself if you find you're about to get off the deep end, right? If you're about to lose it. That's really important.
Next is (N) Normalize accountability. What do I mean by that? You gotta hold the standard. Doesn't matter who they are, what they do. There's gotta be a standard—a standard for performance, a standard for behavior, a standard for quality, and a standard for experience, customer experience.
So what do I want you to challenge with here? I want you to have that conversation that you've been putting off.
Okay, so listen. If you've been having troubles with this stuff and you'd like someone to talk to, just reach out to [email protected]
. We can sit down and talk and see what's going on.
Because here's the truth: if nobody's really following you, you're not leading. You're managing, you're enforcing, and you're just going for a walk.
When you can get your team to answer those three questions with yes—
Do I like you?
That's the first question.
Can you help me?
And then the third question is, do I trust you?
When you've got that, you don't have to push people anymore. It's so amazing.
So everybody, I hope you can share this video. I really hope it helps. This is the missing piece.
When you understand the questions they're asking, it makes it much easier to get yeses. The hardest questions to answer are the ones you don't know about.
I've gone through most of my life like that, right? That's the whole bull in a china shop thing. But by being able to step back and ask these questions, see these questions tattooed on everybody's forehead, and just looking at the level of connection, the level of challenge, and the level of trust that you can bring to this, it changes everything.
So everybody, I just wanna say, have a great week. God bless, and listen, go make some money. Have a great week, everybody. Take care.
Bye-bye.
