It's About Time
By Bob Dilmore
As I meet with various groups of dealers throughout the United States and Canada, a question often posed during our discussions is, "What's the biggest problem you face today?"
Business being as good as it has been, there aren't a lot of threatening answers. Profits for most are great! Money is readily available. Customer activity is at an all time high-most dealers complain that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find good people, but I have come to the conclusion that the biggest problem facing almost everybody-not just dealers-is: time scarcity.
Even with growing usage of the computer (supposedly a work and time saver), we all seem to be fighting for more time every day. And maybe it's a function of old age creeping up on me, but time seems to be rolling by faster as well. Every day seems driven by the clock almost as if we were in our own Super Bowl game and the two-minute warning had been sounded. Even our leisure hours seem to be scheduled like there's no tomorrow.
In these prosperous times, we should be enjoying life more with less time urgency, right? And wouldn't it be great just to have a sufficient amount of time to really manage-instead of putting out fires all day long?
I don't know about you, but I don't even have time to keep my Franklin Daytimer up to date. What the world needs is a time management system that takes less time.
Every day we have a total of 86,400 seconds-all of which have no shelf life. How can we use them to our best advantage?
Well, maybe as a start in the new millennium (you sick of those words yet?) you take the time to identify the forest fires in your operation that you fight over and over and over-problems that just never seem to get solved-processes that we just can't seem to get right.
Examples: How much time do you waste on discussing, dealing with and worrying about sub-par performing employees-even managers?
The average dealership experiences over 70% turnover of employees annually. Think of the time considerations in recruiting, selecting, hiring and training from scratch over 70% of your work force. No wonder we have "forest fires."
List all the policies, procedures and processes that we repeatedly go over time after time.
Do our managers know what is expected from them in terms of performance standards-and if they don't know, how can employees managed by them be expected to know?
Try this! It works:
Set these definable work performance standard levels:
- Minimally acceptable
- Expected every day
- Superior (performance for which you're happy to pay a bonus)
Determine quantifiable measurements. Establish what each employee should be accomplishing after a 90-day training program. What is minimally acceptable to you? Set a timeline on when an employee or manager needs to hit target performance every day. Hold managers accountable. Re-train one time if necessary-but after a reasonable time period, if at the end of the day, any employee or manager is not hitting their expected level marks, why waste your time-or a manager's time-trying to make a gold purse from a sow's ear?
The single largest factor in how most of us spend our time is putting out fires. These fires are a result either of our poor communications or a result of poor employee performance. Poor employee performance is a result of these factors:
- Not knowing what they're supposed to do
- Not knowing how to do it or why they should
- They just don't have the ability or they don't listen.
Think about it! Pretty simplistic, but true. Couple this with our lack of courage to step out to the pitcher's mound and pull the pitcher. Time and poor performance march on!
Yes, it's hard to find a replacement-but we need to raise the bar in automotive retailing and service operations by recruiting the best available candidates, let them share the rightful fruits of their labor-and begin to enjoy our time as well as our wealth.
Hiring a full-fledged, qualified Human Resources Director and putting that position at the same level as your Comptroller and various department managers would be an appropriate beginning, and that person (or department) can save you more time and fretting than you can imagine. Having an HRD to find and present candidates to your managers will save your managers time and will cut down on their penchant for "gut feeling" or stop-gap hires.
Utilizing fully your human assets is as important as thawing your frozen monetary assets.
Oh-one final thought-take the time to read Stephen Covey's First Things First and The Goal by E. M. Goldratt.
Bob Dilmore is Chairman and CEO of Management Performance Group. bdilmore@dealeronline.com
