Chris Hunsicker talks about leading beyond the moment, using an example of Rob resetting standards during a difficult time. He challenges leaders to publicly acknowledge when they break patterns and recommends a weekly ritual: share one time you lived your values and one time you didn't.
Chapters
Foreign. If your entire team acted the way you did on your worst day this week, would you still be proud of your culture? It's Friday morning and you've been slammed since 7:45am and you look up and there it is. One of your top sales guys doing another 3C car delivery. See the car, see the keys, see you later. You see it and you freeze. Do you say something or do you let it slide because you're tired, worn out, or low key, Discouraged. That is the moment. Not the meeting, not the rally. The moment that you didn't expect. The one that's going to shape your store and your team more than anything else you said all week. And that's what separates average leaders from what I call moment makers. Those leaders who are able to lead beyond the emotion, beyond the fatigue and and beyond the moment. I'm Chris Hunsicker and this is the dealership war room. Leadership fire. Built daily, fueled intentionally and delivered relentlessly. And I'm coming to you live today from the showroom floor at Hansel Ford of petaluma. It's 6am so there's nobody else here. So we're going to knock this out and bring you into the final close. This is the crescendo day of behavioral change week. And we've looked at everything this week. We've looked at habits, we've looked at frameworks, we've looked at systems, and we've looked at behavioral feedback loops. But today we're going to lock in the one thing we still need to look at and that is the identity that makes it all stick, especially under pressure. So let's dive in. All week you've been coaching your team. You've been following through on these long challenges. You've reset the script, you've clarified expectations, you've hacked habits, you've built a rhythm or feedback loop. But here's the deal. Behavior doesn't change because of tools. Behavior changes because of your ability to set the temperature in the room, especially under pressure. That's where culture is tested. That's where leadership is proven, and that's where identity is exposed. Because here's the truth. Anyone can lead when the plan is going well, but only moment makers can lead when the plan breaks down. Let's look at Rob. He's done everything right on paper. And Thursday afternoon hits and boom. He's short staffed again. Double booked appointments all over the place. 10 car backup in the lane. And he looks up and he sees a service advisor blowing past another upsell. He stops, pauses, takes a Breath and says this line, let's reset. That's not our standard. We can fix it. And that moment, the energy shifted because leadership is contagious and so is panic. So. So here's today's war room challenge. Don't just coach your team, coach yourself in that moment. And pick a time this week. Pick a moment this week where you broke pattern, where you got tired defensive short and you actually broke the pattern. The standard that you set. Own it out loud. That's not who I want to be as a leader. And I'm committed to showing up better starting today. That is how you end behavioral change week. Not with perfection, but with pattern breaking ownership. Behavioral change isn't built in meetings. It's built in moments. And moments are led by people who refuse to fold. One of the most powerful changes I've seen over and over in organizations and teams that I've worked with is when we started to absolutely clarify the values of the organization. Not some mission statement on the wall, but what are the behavioral values that we're going to do. And almost every time we go through an exercise to install these values, I asked this one behavior, this one pattern to do, which is every week when they have their leadership team meeting, they go around the room, everybody in the leadership team, starting with the owner, and they have to share one example of where they live, the values and one example of where they didn't. Because when you set high standards, people almost always fall short. That's not the problem. It's not the standard, and it's not falling short. It's if you allow yourself not to own the falling short and then change it and move forward. And by doing this, beginning with the owner, going around everybody in the room saying, hey, here's where I live the value and here's where I didn't. It gave everybody permission to own the failures because once you own them, you can change them. As you change them, they go from problems and weaknesses to strengths. That is the value of being a moment making leader, of absolutely seeing and knowing those moments, all owning when you break the pattern and then stepping up and using that as fuel to change and move forward. And I hope that this really hit home this week, that you have a set of tools now that you can use to help create behavioral change. But more importantly, I hope you have an identity that allows you to step up and be a moment maker, to own the moments. And when you fail in the moment, you own it, pivot, move and demonstrate and model for your culture the vulnerability, the humility, and the honesty necessary to be elite. And with that, I will see you next week in the dealership war room, where we will be broadcasting from Paris.
