This short Service Drive Revolution episode (hosts Chris Collins and Christian Lafferty) discusses how leaders sabotage themselves by overreacting or being disengaged—especially during the COVID crisis—arguing to "manage to the middle": stay steady, control emotions, ask better questions, and learn from wins and losses. The conversation mixes practical examples about employee retention and client relations with light banter, a subscribe CTA, and a teaser for the next episode.
Chapters
Welcome to Service Drive Revolution and your Friday drive by. I am super excited. Christian Lafferty. How are you?
I'm doing great. Better than ever, I would like to say.
And I am Chris Collins. And we want to talk today a little food for thought. A little something going into the weekend about nobody likes a basket case. Basket cases always lose. And so we were talking about how during this Covid crisis, how many people flipped out, how many people overreacted, how many people lost technicians and good employees because they overreacted, and now they're having a hard time rebuilding.
Yeah.
And so my, My saying has always been, when I'm. When I'm working with somebody is we want to manage to the middle. We don't want to manage to the extreme. We don't. We don't want to manage to the. The highs or lows. We just want to be in the middle. We want to be steady and just calm and collective. I always think about, you have people that are bad winners and bad losers.
Yeah.
We want to be neither. Winning doesn't indict us as an icon, and losing doesn't indict us as a loser. They're just ways to learn. So if you won at something, is it scalable? Can you pour more gasoline on it? Or did you get lucky? If you lose at something 100% of the time, there's something you could have done to be more prepared to. To avoid it. But maybe you don't know what that thing is until you fail. But you gotta be able to be honest enough with yourself to look back and analyze that. So what do you. What do you think about managers that over panic or just aren't starters?
Right.
They're not excited about anything.
So I think that that's the thing is, is that there's the. The two ends of the spectrum on this whole deal are the, the basket case or the robot. And manage to the middle does not mean be emotionless. Like, you actually have to have control of the emotions and understand that it's a key point in what we do. But I think that the managers that go off the deep end, like, they're the ones that have a tough time with employee retention, they often make these crazy, rash decisions when it comes to clients too. Right. Like, they're the people that you'll hear about that get in a fight with a client. And I just think that having a proper understanding of your emotional faculties helps you to stick in the middle. And that's the thing that's the most consistent and it's humane. Right. To have a little bit of emotion. And I think that if someone is a leader and someone that has people working for them, being predictable, understanding, empathetic, those are the things that you want to make sure that you're exuding with every management leadership decision that you're doing.
Yeah. So everything isn't great and everything doesn't suck. It's somewhere in the middle. And we want to get better every day and constantly improve and everything is an opportunity to learn.
Yeah.
More than anything else. So pay attention and ask better questions. I find that people that are either non starters and they want to attract all the reasons why something can't happen or people that overreact and panic, neither one of them ask real questions. The people that want things to fail and want to prove that it's impossible, ask questions in a statement. So like what are we going to do when this doesn't work? That's not a question.
Right.
That's a statement.
Yeah. And I think that that first group. That is great point. It's like it's not really a question.
Ask me that totally do. And it doesn't work.
And then my, my other fav. Is the validation question that just supports whatever it is that your belief is. Right.
Yeah.
Like all they want is for you to agree with them at that point, you know.
No, it's like the, it's like the sales managers that have a bad weekend and then they call around the auto mall and they're like, oh, good news, boss, everybody had a bad weekend. It's like that's not good news. Why aren't we different?
Right.
What? Like when do we get to shut out the outside noise and just focus on the opportunity we have in front of us?
Yeah. Because somebody won.
Yeah. Somebody's out there buying something from somebody. It's just not us because we're. Yeah. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. So that's what we wanted you to think about is can you as a, as a leader, as a, as a citizen, can you manage to the middle and ask, you know, good questions, ask more questions and have less opinions and less emotions, high or low.
Right.
Just in the middle.
And part of managing to the middle is educating yourself. Right. So I started reading this anti gravity book. I can't put it down.
Wait. First of all, I don't like it when you tell the joke without involving me.
Yeah.
Supposed to say I threw that one.
On that you needed a segue.
But what's a, what's a book about anti gravity or whatever That's a good one. That's funny. I like that. Cool. Thanks. Now, do us a favor. Subscribe. Hit the subscribe button because what happens every time someone subscribes?
An angel gets their wings in heaven. In heaven.
And also, stay tuned and watch a preview of what's coming up next week on the big show on service Drive Revolution.
Next week on Service Drive Revolution. Today we're going to talk about if it's okay to steal from customers.
Could we get a bounce house?
First of all, why are you whispering? Can we get a bouncer? Can we get a bouncer?
I know. Super size Me is making me hungry a little bit. It reminds me, what does a witch put on her bagel?
I love your segues.
Michael. Nailed like three of these in a row.
Yeah, he's smarter than me. The proof is in the pudding.
Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video. Sam.
