International Truck Update 20

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution and our international edition with our hosts, Adam and Jeremy. And we have a couple special guests today, Shelby and Bobby. And we're going to be talking about triage. How are you guys doing, Shelby and Bobby?

Fantastic.

Good.

That's not very exciting. Like.

Shelby's an understated man.

You know.

There you walk quietly, carry a big stick kind of a thing.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm. I'm. We're going to talk about triage, which is a fun subject, very important. I'm sure you're going to walk away with some tips and some, you know, some ideas and food for thought. We're also going to go through some books that we have recently read and what has inspired us or what we've learned from those. But it's been. Been a little while. You guys have been busy, huh?

Sure have. Sure have.

Going out all over the world.

Travel I'm seeing.

I'm not excited about all this traveling again. Like now all of a sudden, I'm traveling again. I don't like it.

Yeah, I prefer the lockdown.

It takes some getting used to. You get into your own routine, and it takes a while for you to. To get back into that routine again of traveling.

You know who else has gotten really busy? Jeremy.

Who's that? Chris.

Oh, our comedian hacker is coming in. Look at this.

Yep, everybody's on board today. So you know who else gets really busy? Security guards. What do you call the security guards outside of a Samsung store?

What do you call the security guards outside of a Samsung store?

Sam Singh.

The Guardians of the Galaxy.

Oh, man. That's pretty good. I like that.

It was good. That was really good, Christian.

So is that because the Samsung phone is called a Galaxy?

Duh.

I don't know. I have a. I'm in the Apple cult.

I liked it because I have an Android and a Galaxy. So. Thank you, Christian.

My pleasure.

Why do you have two phones? You have a burner phone?

Maybe. Maybe I do.

Does your wife know about both of your phones?

One phone?

Guys, you just blew my cover.

Wow. I never would have thought Adam was the secret phone guy.

See.

I knew this guy once that had a secret phone from his wife, and he buried it in his backyard, and his wife found it.

Buried in the backyard. You start calling something and you hear it ringing in the. In the ground or what?

I think that she thought maybe, like, I'm guessing. I don't. I don't know. But I'm. I figure probably she's like, why does he keep going in the backyard for hours at a time by himself.

Oh, he would dig it up and then to make calls on it and then, like, rebury it again.

And, like, where would you charge it?

Come back inside with dirt on the side of your face or something.

Man, this is too much work. That's nuts.

So let's talk about the books that we've been doing and Shelby and Bobby, if you guys want to jump in, if there's, you know, maybe think about your favorite book or if you've read one recently or podcast or anything that's inspired you. I'll give you a couple minutes to think about that. But what are you reading, Adam?

So I've been kind of struggling to get this thing finished with timing and everything, but Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for life. I've been watching a lot of his other podcasts and discussions with other folks out there, but this, this book, I really started it probably three months ago, but I'm on Rule 4, and Rule 4 so far out of the first four really stick out to me, I'll put it that way. Comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today. And I think we kind of strive in that realm a lot lately, especially with everything going on as well. But I think in regards to parts and service, for that matter, and just who we are as individuals, a lot of times we're trying to, you know, win at everything. And sometimes I think what we've seen, some service managers and even including myself, we're trying to win in everything that we touch or that we have, you know, being thrown at us. And it's kind of a challenge, you know, you can't really do everything. So we might feel like we're winning, but we're really probably not. And it's really important, you know, to really focus and have a focus on, you know, the task at hand and not trying to be the master or what is it? Jack of all trades, master of none is kind of what I call it. But really what kind of really stuck out to me so far in this quote is no matter how good you are at something or how you rank your accomplishments, there's someone out there who makes you look incompetent. So if you kind of think about that, I don't know you guys, but that's kind of resonates with me because there's always somebody else that might be doing it better. And that's kind of the struggle, I think, that we all have out there is if we become complacent, somebody else will definitely make us incompetent. Because someone else out there is still trying to continuously improve and get better. And I think that's the moral of this rule, right? Is continuously improve, reflect, and just trying to beat yourself and to be your best self and continuously moving forward. So, yeah, this. This book, I think, in a way is. Is. It's kind of. I know he's, what, philosophical. And some of it kind of goes a little bit above my head. So it really takes me a little bit longer to kind of really think about things and how he says it. But so far, I am enjoying it. So that's. That's what I got going on, Chris?

Yeah, I used. I used to have a T shirt when I was in high school that said, somewhere out there, someone is practicing, and when you meet them in head to head competition, they will beat you.

My Nike symbols are like, slogans are like that.

It was kind of badass, too, in high school, because I think people assumed that was the one that was gonna beat him. Because why would you wear a shirt? Like, takes a lot of confidence to wear that shirt. You know, people come up and they're reading it, and then you're like, yeah, you wanna. What do you got? Okay, can I tell you my favorite rule in that book? And I've read that book twice. Are you doing audible or are you reading it?

Audible.

Yeah.

The one about the kids. Don't raise kids that you don't like.

Do you have to like them all the time?

Yeah. It's your responsibility, Jeremy.

That's impossible, Chris. I'm sorry.

No, that's the problem with a lot of what's going on is these, you know, people have raised kids that, you know.

Don'T really have the skills they need to face challenges.

Yeah, no, I'd agree with that. Definitely have to take control of that. And it's up to us as parents to really, truly mold that and influence them. Right?

Yeah. I was talking to somebody who is thinking about running for governor of California in the next go around, and I was telling them, like, I'll donate money, but if you get elected, you got to put me in charge of the school system. Because if I can control. If you give me these kids for seven hours a day, and I get to control the curriculum, what they eat, their schedule, their activities. Like, if I can control all of that for seven hours a day with the youth of California, I can create assassins. Like, if you give me that much control over them and I get to hire the teachers. Give me a break, Chris.

That's literally the plot of Animal Farm.

What?

That's literally the plot of the animal. Of Animal Farm.

What is Animal Farm?

You've never read Animal Farm?

No. What is it?

It's a moralistic tale about animal. About the first days of communism and basically the book. You're killing me.

Yeah, I think. Isn't it part of, like, curriculum in school when we're younger, we have to read Animal Farm. I'm pretty sure I had to read it, too. It's been years.

Yeah, well, the difference, Jeremy, is. And I've never read Animal Farm, but I'm assuming the difference is I'm not gonna turn these kids into communists. I'm gonna turn them into capitalists.

Well, you mentioned you turn them into assassins, and that's what one of the pigs did.

Then he went all the way in left field on that one.

When I say assassins, I mean kids that are ready to face the challenges of the world, that are ready to own the responsibility for what's in front of them and, you know, and having a moral compass and. Yeah, I'm not going to turn them into socialists for sure. But I think that the.

I think the assassins thing was. It was figurative. Only 2% of the students, it would be literal for.

Thank you for the clarity, Christian.

Appreciate it.

Adam, I also had a quick question for you.

Yes?

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Tank.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Wait, did you spoil his joke?

I did. I got one.

I'm pretty pumped.

You did a good job. That may be the first time. That's awesome. I'm so jealous of you, Adam.

Jeremy, what are you reading? What's inspiring you right now?

Well, just to finish up a quote that Adam had, actually. And it's a funny thing. Did you ever hear the whole quote from Jack of all Trades, Master of none?

The whole quote is, jack of all trades, master of none is better than master of one.

That's the whole thing.

Oh.

So. But yeah, I am kind of a.

Jack of all trades.

But anyway, I'm reading All the Devils are Here, basically by. By Bethany McLean. What it does, what this book does is it goes over, like, the history of the financial crisis. Like, it goes back way back into the. Into the early 80s, and it kind of all the foundations that started the mortgage crisis and how. It all started with the fact that a couple of banks wanted to figure out how they could securitize mortgages. Like, basically, how can they turn. How can they turn a mortgage into something that can be traded on Wall Street? And they couldn't figure out how to do it.

Because, you know, obviously you can't aggregate thousands of mortgages into one giant security and have the risk be similar because they were obsessed with risk, how to manage it. But they figured out this process called tranching to where you can carve out portions of mortgages and sell them off to different people depending on your level of risk. So like the higher levels of default, those were sent off to junk bond collectors and people that were really invested in high risk stuff and.

The more.

Safe securities were other people invest them, like for example, pension funds. So it's really interesting how they came up with this financial product based off of mortgages and then just everyone jumped into it because there was so much, there was so much money to be made and how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played this huge role in the whole process because they had this implied government guarantee. So basically they were, they're, they're semi governmental entities. So the implication was if they ever went under, that the government would bail them out. It was never said anywhere in anyone's charter that that would happen, but it was implied. And so as a result of that implication, so many mortgages were underwritten with their blessing. And as a matter of fact, most mortgages had to have their blessing because of that implied government control.

And anyway, I'm not all the way through it yet, but it's a very interesting process about, you know, how some lenders took a while to jump in because they really wanted, they didn't like the risk or they wanted to, they wanted to only sell mortgages to certain, to, you know, less risk borrowers. And then it just went crazy after that. But it's a really good book and I really, I'm really interested in business and the kind of things that motivate businesses, whether it be financials, debt, dealerships, whatever. There's all different kinds of motivators. And this one, it was, it was partially driven by the, the actual urge to put people in houses, but it was mostly driven by the desire for profit and just how it built this massive tidal way that, you know, took over our economy for a long time.

That's interesting, Jeremy, that you say that about the implied or the assumptions. Right. It's interesting because we see that a lot just in, in business. You know, even if we have things that are stated somewhat black and white written down, there's still always that implied assumption and a lot of different things. It's kind of interesting that you bring that up because I think we've seen that too. Right. It's just Kind of assumed. And then when it's sometimes clearly stated, it's kind of like, well, what do you mean? Well, we never said.

And how reluctant people are to actually test assumptions. Like, once you develop one, it's incredibly hard to break one. Like, it's a whole scientific process to break an assumption once you have it. I can't tell you the amount of things that I believe for so many years because my dad told it to me, like, once. And then I research it to be completely wrong. But, yeah, it's hard to break an assumption or an implication.

Yeah. Or just authority. Right. Like somebody with authority tells you something and then you assume it to be true. Like, what's that study they did at Stanford where the guy had a lab coat on and they had him shock people that answered the questions wrong, Forget the name of that study. But because the person looked like a doctor and had on a lab coat, the people would just keep shocking just because of that authority and that assumption. Right.

Yeah.

That's awesome. I'm going to read that. That book. That sounds fascinating. That's a good find, Jeremy.

Thank you.

And Animal Farm.

I don't know about that. I don't. It's common.

Animal Farm.

It's.

It's simplistic but good.

But it's about communists.

It's about the beginnings of communism.

Why do I want to read about that?

Well, you have to know your enemy.

Yeah. It's to make sure you don't go that route.

Yeah.

But I also think we're giving Shelby and Bobby some ideas, you know, especially the lab coat with the shocking.

So I'll say I'm not reading anything currently, but. And I think I told you something about this, Adam, but I've been working on an old 84 Chevy pickup with my son. And, you know, the interesting things is what your child picks up on, you know, So I keep my toolbox close to where we're working, and every time I'm done with the tool, I immediately wipe it off and put it back in its place, and I go back to doing what I was doing. And he's constantly asking, you're going to go back and get that in a minute. You know, you just said, you're going to need that again. Why are you putting it up? And you know, well, you know, there's a place for everything. You gotta put it back. That way you let you waste less time. You know, it's two steps versus five minutes looking for where you set it down or did it fall or did it get kicked across the floor. And it's just interesting, some of the things that they pick up on, they start asking questions and then just the general mechanics of it, or when there's an inadvertent fire.

And see their reaction to it. It's pretty fun.

Yeah, that's really cool.

I don't do that, Bobby. Maybe I should start. I just put the tool down like I'm going to use that again soon. That's maybe. Maybe that's why my kids read my toolbox all the time.

And they'll pay attention to the technicians in the shops that are most profitable. They're very organized people. They keep their tools in a specific order and they don't lay them laying all over the floor. And I just picked up on that as I grew up in the shops. And I'm just kind of started that whole.

Throughout working on things. That's how I operated.

So.

And I just do it. I don't realize that I do it most of the time anyways. Until he says something. I'm like, well, this is why I do it. But I guess I didn't realize that I was actually even doing it.

It's those little habits. I think it's funny you bring that up too, because when I was out in the field and we'd go into some dealer visits as well, you know, the. The tool audits or whatever, there's a couple of different things I could always tell, like if the shop kind of had a good working operations, is it their. Their tool room was somewhat organized where they could go find the tools and they were put away and, you know, clean. That's the same thing in every technician's toolbox. If they're clean, organized, it's that sense of pride, too. And they're probably putting more pride into their work as well, and they're being more efficient. Right. Well.

And every tool costs money.

There you go.

You got to replace. So. Yeah, it's just interesting to see the things that they pick up on for sure.

Especially when you don't realize you're doing it.

What about you, Shelby? Are you reading anything, doing anything that you're drawing.

Inspiration from?

I'm not reading, but I've been listening to Sen. Sue's Art of War on audible.

Ah, that's a good one.

That's a good one.

On the. The levels of the ground, I think it's like five stages of ground. Makes you think and assess before you actually act.

Shelby reads the announcement.

Shelby.

Yeah.

How does that apply, Shelby? Like that. It's more like the battle is won in the planning.

Yes.

So how does that apply to what you're doing?

If you act too quickly with the wrong decision, it can cause more problems. And just giving a little bit more thought to planning it out, staging it out correctly.

Yeah. Takes twice as long to fix it, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

That's awesome. That's a good one.

So I don't know. I've been reading a lot of stuff lately, and I question whether this will be of any interest to anybody, but it inspires me. So one thing that I've been fascinated with, and it's Richard Natura, you know, his journals and books and all that. And then this Barbara Lamprecht wrote this book just on the furniture that Natura did. And so the thing about him and his generation of architects in the, you know, 30s, 40s and 50s was that they saw architecture, you know, completely different than. Than a lot of architects would today. And so.

He. So this is a quote from it. He says Natura always endeavored to view the design of a house, its furnishings, and the relationship to its surrounding as a single overall task. So he would design furniture and every aspect of a house because he couldn't imagine, like, designing a window with a view and then not controlling how the family sat in the living room or how the kitchen flowed or whatever it is. And I saw this documentary about a house he did out in the desert here in California, and the guy he designed it for was saying how Natura would come out once a year with his wife for a week and play with his kids and just kind of see how they interacted in the house. And one year he came out and they put in a breakfast nook, and Mr. Natur, like, freaked out. Like, why would you put in a nook? You didn't call me. What are you doing? Just losing his mind. He couldn't believe that the guy would do something to the house without asking him first and explaining what he needed and letting Mr. Natura do it, because he felt like he was responsible for the emotions and. And the inspiration and the. You know, he felt like when somebody went to work and came home to a house he designed, he was responsible for calming them down and making them, you know, feel inspired and recouping. And if they had a dinner party, you know, the show of the dinner party and how the guests interacted and, you know, just so many different things. Like, he understood the magic of, you know, the bigger thing. And even, like, there's this. There's. Well, I won't talk about that, but it's just Insane. And one of the things that he talks about, they talk about in here is he had a customer interrogation form. And he called it customer interrogation. And it was like the pre interview before he would design the house or the building. And I'm trying. So Barbara did Neutra's, you know, notes and archives for I think ucla and I'm going to email her and ask her if there's any way she can get me a copy. Like I'll pay her an hourly rate or whatever if she can get me a copy of his customer interrogation form. Because I'm curious what questions he asked people before designing the house. Like what is it psychologically? He wanted to know.

That then, you know, drove his, his, his work. So that's one that I, that I've been obsessed with and his, his journals and all that. And then this book is pretty cool magic show. And I think I've been doing this two day leadership workshop that I've kind of been doing around for, you know, people, safe crowds that I like and clients that I think will enjoy it. And.

You know, just kind of understanding that perception and reality are two different things. And how it applies to leadership, like how people perceive your authority is more important than you actually having authority. And how that perception firewall happens. That if people perceive you to be an expert at something or to be a leader or to be better at something than them, then they, you know, it changes the relationship that, that you have and the leadership that you have and how that dynamic works with people.

Because it is more about perception than reality. And I never have liked the saying fake it until you make it. I've always thought that was very disingenuous. Like I, I always feel like when people say, well, you got to fake it until you make it, it's like, well, it's almost like you got a lie until, you know, it never really feels right to me, that sort of thing. So.

Reading about magic and how things are, you know, framed and perceived is fascinating to me. So that's where I've been.

Chris, do you think that anyone actually truly makes it after they fake it for so long and then what's the ending result after that?

Man, that's a great question.

Well, I, maybe, maybe I would answer that, that people that make it, that fake it to make it and make it might not be making it because they faked it.

But a lot of it comes down to permission. And a lot of what happens is, you know, you, you, you hire a guru or you do a diet or you, you know, you, you watch the Biggest Loser, you go to a Tony Robbins convention or whatever it is.

A lot of that comes down to you giving yourself permission to do it and.

The confidence, like you kind of get a sort of false confidence because you see the other person do it. Right. And so that maybe it has more to do with confidence in a sense. Does that make any sense?

I think so.

So.

Faking it until you make it might mean giving yourself permission and just having confidence. Now, the thing that I find where I think I veer from a lot of people on this is I believe that confidence is created by putting in the work and by failing at things and not giving up. And you get confidence because you've been to war and come back and now you understand it. Confidence isn't something you can really fake. And that's why I think people get hung up on the fake it until you make it is.

Why don't you learn it? Why don't you go find a mentor? Why don't you study it? Why don't you put your foot in the water and feel it out and be more realistic about it? Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think so. Bobby, I think you had something to add in there as well.

So the fake it till you make it. What do you think, though? How do you think those people are perceived by their peers or employees?

Even fake.

Disingenuous. I would much rather be led personally be led by somebody who says, you know, I don't have it figured out, but together we could do it. Let's go. Right.

I would much rather have somebody tell me, like, one thing I always say is, you know, the leader I am today isn't the leader I'll be a year from now because I'm constantly getting better. And it's more about the progress than it is appearing to be the, you know, the guru. I, I think. What do you guys think?

I think that as a society lately especially, we focus too much on gamifying things like basically, here's the code to do to be successful, here's the things, the thing that you need to do and it'll be easy. And I don't think that's the way that's the truth. And I think that anyone that's trying to find the easy way to do something, it's not, it's not going to be successful in the long run. Change is slow, change is painful, it's going to be fraught with failures. And like you mentioned, you have to put in the work. You can't gamify success all you can do is work hard and learn and learn from your mistakes, and that's how you get there sustainably.

Yeah.

I think game gamification in a lot of ways I think just gives you permission or an excuse to take some steps forward.

Right, right.

To try.

Well, it gets people to put in the work.

Yeah, Chris.

Not try. They do.

Like, let's just, let's just say, you know, you have, you have a bunch of technicians in a shop, right? And you go out and you say, hey, you know, we want to, we want to inspect every truck that comes in for additional work.

And so we're going to have a contest and every time you, you find something, whether it sells or not, I'm going to give you a raffle ticket. And at the end of the day or the week, we're going to pull raffle tickets and somebody's going to win a TV and a barbecue or whatever it is. The more chances you have, the better. Now inspections will quadruple, if not, you know, 10x that week. Right. And so what is it that's happening there? Like if I came in. So just think about this, you guys. If I came into that shop and I privately interviewed every technician, which I've done many times, I did that for like 10 years, and I asked every technician in private.

Let'S say you're a, you're a technician, Shelby. Okay, Shelby, what's your process? Whatever. And you tell me your process. I go, do you, you know, do you look over every truck for any additional work? What are you going to say, Shelby?

Yeah, we always look over for additional work.

Yeah. So the technicians always say that because it's the thing they're supposed to say. But how come when I gamify the shop and all of a sudden now we have 10 times the opportunity, Right?

Yeah, we always look over for additional work.

Yeah. So the technicians always say that because it's the thing they're supposed to say. But how come when I gamify the shop and all of a sudden now we have 10 times the opportunity? Right. And so what do you think, Jeremy? In a sense, that's giving them permission to do it, it's inspiring them to do it. What is happening there psychologically that all they say that they're doing it, but they're not actually doing it and then you gamify it and now all of a sudden every, you know, everybody's doing it or most everybody's doing it. There's usually one guy in the back that's like, eh, screw this guy. From California. I don't want his barbecue.

It could be partially.

What is that, Jeremy?

What did you say?

It could be partially. The Hawthorne Effect, too. Like, basically, because we're gamifying this, we're going to start to measure it and recognize the technicians that are doing it.

Because you're starting to measure it and you're starting to pay attention to it, inevitably those things will increase whatever it is you're trying to increase. Like in this case, inspections.

Yeah, and so, like, same. Same sort of thing. Like, so we have a lot of service managers that'll. That'll go through the training, that will ask for help and you'll come out and help them. And they know that they need to do better. They know they want to do better, but it's hard for them to take the. The leap of faith because they also want job security. Right. And so they're caught in this. Like, if I do it and it doesn't work, the consequences are probably worse than if I just don't do it at all. Would you agree with that?

I'd agree. Honestly, it's resistance. What is it? Perceived benefit is always less than.

Potential repercussions of failure. It's hard to overcome the resistance for change for that reason.

I think some of that's built into the culture and the environment that the dealership's in, though, because if you're not, you know, constantly challenging your people or creating change.

And allowing them to make change, then you have that fear of failure once the change doesn't work.

Yeah, but I think as an industry, Bobby, we. Most of the people that own dealerships or run dealerships didn't come from fixed stops.

Right.

It's a small percentage. So they're focused more on iron over the curb sales and those sort of things. And they don't understand fixed stops. And so it creates this environment where service managers and parts managers, for the most part, would rather not be the focus and not get in trouble and not bring attention to themselves and just sort of get by and no news is good news in a sense, is kind of the. The controlling narrative in our industry as a whole. Right.

I agree with that.

So I have an idea. What I propose is I'll buy a Corvette. Adam, you buy a Corvette and we'll have a competition for parts and service managers. Whoever can, like, take a leap of faith, have the biggest increase in, like, net to gross, I don't know, turn right up time. We could come up with a couple measurables and watch how many people actually will use that as permission to then take a leap of faith and do the things that they're a little bit afraid of doing. They. They know that they would work, but they also know that there's going to be pain involved, that they're going to fail and maybe get in a little bit of trouble. What would be the. The thing that would be worth it? And I think a 2022 Chevy Corvette might do that.

Well, let's hear from Bobby and Shelby. What do you guys think?

You know, I think that you put.

Any kind of a character a little bit of trouble, what would be the. The thing that would be worth it? And I think a 2022 Chevy Corvette might do that.

Well, let's hear from Bobby and Shelby. What do you guys think?

You know, I think that you put any kind of a carrot or challenge out there, it's going to create gamemanship, and it's going to create competition where people are going to strive to do whatever measurable it is that you're focusing on, you know, and that's, you know, if you want to succeed, you know, a lot of times in business, you need to pinpoint what your boss thinks is a challenge out there. It's going to create gamemanship, and it's. It's going to create competition where people are going to strive to do whatever measurable it is that you're focusing on, you know, and that's, you know, if you want to succeed, you know, a lot of times in business, you need to. To pinpoint what your boss thinks is important and make sure you're paying attention to it.

And if those are the measurables, then that's the case. But what I'll say is, from what I've seen.