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Imagine if you become less tolerant of the conditions and circumstances of your work and you became obsessed with what could be possible. Change is not resisted by us because we want to continue to do what we always have done. Not it is resisted because we are comfortable with the reality of our lives and out work. I know how to do this job and I fit into the company hierarchy. Things are good.

Isn’t that a shame? We are settling for the current level of performance in our work and hiding our true potential. We can and must do better. The Japanese have a truly wonderful approach to work that I am sure everyone has heard about. It is Kaizen. Doing something better in your job each day. It doesn’t have to be much but it has to be something. This run counter to the North American model in that we teach people what we want them to do and then expect that the more they do it the more efficient they will become. This is a trap of obedience. If you think about the education system that we all went through we were taught to be obedient. This is the way things are done and that is what you need to do to pass or to excel. Remember that? Well we do that in business as well.

Our processes and our systems are also traps of the possible. The question of “what if?” is rarely asked by an employee of themselves. We need to encourage people to search for those things that stand in the way of them doing a better job. During our Quest classes and the training that I do worldwide with parts and service management I always ask if the participants could have done what they did the previous week better. And to a person they say yes they could have done everything better but they put in a disclaimer...if they had more time.

That is still unacceptable isn’t it? We are showing our skills and talents as less than what we can do each and every week that we work. But no one challenges us to do better. They are happy with things if everything else is in balance. This is not just an issue for each employee but it is also a management issue. Management in every respect is about getting things done through other people. It is about leadership. Don’t forget you lead people you management process. You can’t manage people.

So how do we get through this wall of comfort? Well how about providing standards of performance for work groups and targets of performance for each individual within the work group. Wouldn’t that make sense? We have a series of metrics for department performance which I view as minimum performance. You remember them; sales/employee; asset turnover; gross profit: expense ratios; and then specific departmental items like labor efficiency and freight recovery. But how do we get each individual to provide for of their skills to the company every day? You do this in my view by sitting with each employee and establishing individual targets of performance for each of them.

This is a simple process but one that is rarely done within a dealership. This is also one of the major barriers to implementing change. We must become more effective at implementing change particularly in the work environment we are in today.

“One prays for miracles...but works for results” is a well known quote from St Augustine. This is one that many managers think about at month end, or year end. Gee I hope everything is going to be alright. This is more prominent now as the economy slows down. Remember earlier this year I was suggesting we were talking ourselves into a slowdown? Well what better time that to examine everything we do? Look at process, at systems, at customer coverage models, at skills of your employees, of yourself, and how can we make everything a bit better. This is the time to redouble training efforts and customer contacts. Ask what we can do for you? Whether it is an employee or a customer they will tell you. But this is a process with which you need to approach with care. If you ask the question and they tell you what you need to do you MUST be prepared to do something about it? If you don’t they will know you weren’t serious at all and that will hurt you as a person and as a business.

This is a great time in a great Industry undergoing significant challenges and change. You CAN make a difference. It is about the Art of the Possible.