It’s another day in the grind. Up before sunrise, coffee to get going, early to the shop.
Turn off the alarm system, unlock the bay doors, check the shop for surprises. Luckily there were none. As you’re organizing to greet the day the phone rings and Jesse is going to be late.
Daughter has to go to the doctor and nobody else can drive her.
The team is arriving now, and the phone is ringing. You’ve got parts coming in and a conversation to finish with your R&R tech. Gene tells you that the fluid inventory is low, and Mrs. Martinez says she “REALLY” needs her car back by noon. Then you discover that the water heater just died.
Odds are good that none of the foregoing story seems new to you. We all deal with hundreds of “moving parts” in our workday. Some are disruptive, others are just routine.
What determines whether they become a problem is usually how we manage them.
“It’s not what happens that counts. It’s how you react to it.” – W. Mitchell, inspirational speaker
Let’s talk about “Management”. What is management? It is handling things. The root word manage is the same as for the word manual. Meaning hand’s on.
Like Leadership and Sales, Management is a skill set. It is the ability to control and direct the efforts of people and the use of resources. Management is a learnable skill. You can get a degree in management.
In a recent GEARS article, former ATRA CEO Dennis Madden talked about managing By The Numbers. He showed us how to recognize patterns of behavior and repeating circumstances in order to anticipate and improve outcomes. His conclusion was and proof showed that by putting simple measurements into daily operations you could learn to predict problems and prevent many of them.
Last night my wife and I watched the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Goldberg. It was about how the manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team transformed the way baseball was managed by following the numbers and trends. They hired players with poor skills in some areas, like fielding, because they could get on base more often. They traded high potential players who cost a fortune in favor of unproven or older players who could simply cause more runs to be scored. The team went from dead last to a historic string of 20 consecutive wins!
The same practices were adopted by the Boston Red Sox, and they came back to win the World Series.
So, what moves the needle in your shop? What are the steps and skills that get more finished jobs out the door and owners back in the driver’s seat? What are the common slow down issues or annoying delays you encounter? Trace each of them back to the items that began the series and then follow them forward to their outcomes. You can discover some amazingly easy solutions when you think like a manager not just as a technician or shop owner.
How does a person do that? Think like a manager that is.
You do it by assuming a creator’s point of view. Think like an owner, an entrepreneur, the person creating a startup business. In those instances, everything is on the table. You can change anything, and all assumptions are up for review or change.
What is the best name for our business? The best location? The best mix of employees? The right inventories to keep? The suppliers that we rely upon the most. The other shops we get business from and refer business to. The way we start and end each day. The way you communicate to your team and with each individual. The roles and duties of each person.
Could some of those duties be shuffled and shifted to others for a better effect?
Study your numbers, what pays off, what costs the most, what saves us time and money?
Think like a Creator. Assume that you can change anything!
You will see the indicators once you look at things from a higher point of view. Get out from under the hood and look around like a drone. Watch the movement of people, materials, vehicles and information.
At EXPO there is always a special track of presentations just for managers. Speakers talk about systems, time management, inventory control, personnel policies, motivation techniques, sales strategies, customer service issues, money management and even relationship techniques. Even if you can’t attend EXPO, you can access the training. There are virtual programs, recordings of the live programs and more resources available from ATRA.
A huge benefit for managers and aspiring managers is the networking and social interaction at each meeting. You can swap ideas, get direct advice from people you admire, or just eavesdrop and pick up powerful wisdom for managing your own business.
By devoting an hour here and there each week to reading, viewing videos, or connecting with your fellow managers you can become an exceptionally good manage in a relatively short period of time. Radio commentator Earl Nightingale once told me, “If you will spend one extra hour each day studying your chosen field, you can become a national expert in that field in five years or less.” A typical GEARS reader is already well traveled on the path of expertise, so you could probably devote just a few hours a week to this study and in a couple of years your colleagues will be calling you for advice!
How would the manager you’d like to be handle the things you are managing today? Be like the future you, the better version of yourself. In doing so you will lift your own spirits, the spirits of your team and the profits at the end of your accounting cycles. Make management study a priority in your life as a leader.
Jim Cathcart, CSP, CPAE is a long-time contributor to GEARS magazine and a friend of ATRA. He has written 25 top selling books and delivered over 3,500 speeches and seminars around the world. His latest book Mentor Minutes shows you How To Reach The Top 1% Of Any Field You Choose. Contact Jim for a free digital copy of the book or buy a paper copy at your favorite bookstore or Amazon. info@cathcart.com
