I recently won a silent auction. The prize? Surfing lessons. As a Californian who’s always lived near the ocean, it might seem odd that I’ve never taken to the beach. I’ll look at it from a distance, but there are things swimming around out there that I’d just as soon avoid. Two days before my lesson there were a couple Great White sightings, which made it even worse.
So I met with my instructor and we headed to the beach. He began the instruction with me doing burpees. I felt a little silly, but he’s the teacher, so I did ’em. Afterward, we hit the water, and it was more exercises. I’m thinking, “Are we ever gonna get out there?”
In the end I did actually make it up, if only for a second. When the lessons were over, my instructor went out for one last run and, as soon as he hit the wave, he did a headstand and rode it in like that.
It got me thinking about when I took drum lessons when I was in my early 20s. My teacher was a pro: a Julliard graduate who’d played with several big-name bands. He made a big deal out of reading music, so everything we did, even the simplest stuff, was written down.
For the first six months or so, all we did were exercises to a metronome. I’d already been playing for about two years and I was getting so sick of these exercises: “When are we gonna start playing?”
When we finally got down to playing music, I realized all the bad habits I had and the limitations I’d created because I didn’t know what I was doing. My skills and ability zoomed, all because I was taught right.
The problem with learning the right way is that it’s sooooo boring! It takes time and we grow impatient. We want to get right into the work and, when we have a few successes under our belt, we just want to keep going. Before we know it, we’ve picked up all sorts of bad habits that limit any further development. You might even call it a rut.
Same thing with transmission repair: In my early days, I’d rebuilt a number of transmissions before I really knew what I was doing; and surprisingly, they worked. I was taught wrong and picked all sorts of bad habits.
It wasn’t until I learned the right way, which included using a torque wrench and setting endplays properly, that things began to improve. It got even better when I actually learned how transmissions worked.
I saw this same problem working the hotline and doing tech seminars: bad habits or wrong teaching that limited a rebuilder’s growth and ability.
One day in the mid-nineties, after a tech seminar, a supplier came to me and said, “You know Dennis, that was a really good seminar, but the people in this area are a bit sharper than builders in the rest of the country. They don’t need any of this “basic” stuff. What they need are fixes.” You can draw your own conclusion from that.
Running a business is no different: Back in the early days of the What’s Working study, we found city after city where one shop would be struggling and then, right down the street, another shop would be doing really well.
We can go through the steps and methods these successful shops used, but that’s only a short-term fix for a specific problem. If we accept that there are successful businesses out there that continue to operate as transmission shops, then we have to accept that those who are struggling aren’t doing it right.
That’s a bitter pill, but it’s not the end of the world. Accepting that is the first part of turning things around. The second part is getting the right training, even if it seems boring.
Each issue of GEARS has trainers and consultants who are more than happy to point you in the right direction. Powertrain Expo is a great place to receive excellent training while you rub elbows with other shop owners. Or even something as simple as the What’s Working forum. You can keep your mind active by sharing ideas with other shop owners. The idea is to keep learning.
Whether it’s getting up on a surfboard, drumming out a paradiddle, or running a successful shop, it’s often the “boring” stuff that brings about the greatest successes.
