Episode 098: The Two Skills Every Shop Manager Needs To Master

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All right. Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley. Running solo this morning. Uh, today I wanted to talk about, you know, something specific to managing your shop. I know we've talked in the past about, uh, you know, making sure that your, your technicians are being productive and some things you can do around that. Um, but how do you make sure that your, your shop is running as well as it could be? And I really wanted to focus on kind of a two-pronged approach. We're gonna be running a blog later this week on shop management, you know, taking some of the lessons from Grandpa, taking some of the lessons that we've learned as we've observed and, and helped shops implement over the last, uh, oh gosh, you know, 4 decades, you know, different systems. But really, for me, there's like 2 pieces of the process that I wanted to focus on, and kind of a 2-pronged approach. I think as we see a lot of new fleet managers coming in especially from outside of fleet. I kind of find that shop managers and fleet managers, they fall into one of two camps and, you know, they might lean one way or the other, but they kind of like align with these two different areas. And the first one is, you know, is more the old school approach, you know, and I think this is one that gets overlooked for how effective it is, but it's really necessary. And that's, you know, what we call it management by walking around. Right. Uh, it's your MBWA. And the second one is, you know, managing the data. Um, and I think there's, you know, like you skew towards one or the other, right? And it's good to identify which one you skew towards, uh, so that you can make sure that you're not ignoring the other. Right. So let's talk first, you know, cause I, this is the one that I probably would skew more towards and I've seen other, especially newer fleet managers as you're getting into it. If you didn't come up through the shop, if you came from another department, if you came over, you know, grew up in the computer generation, right, you're probably going to skew more towards managing the data. If you didn't, let's say you grew up as a, you know, a technician coming in, you know, then you probably need to shore up your managing data skill set, right? And as you're, as you're managing the data, you know, there's definitely different ways to do it. But for me, like, the best way is just like, you've got to know the numbers, right? You've got to know what drives the numbers, what changes the numbers, what numbers are important, and which ones are just not that critical to your shop's success, right? So I go through and, you know, like, I make sure that I know my, my system, right? Like, hopefully you've got a fleet management system, you're tracking that. Otherwise, if you're using spreadsheets, you have to know the system and process that you have in place and what drivers, what activities, what inputs are going to drive the outputs. You're looking for. Um, some common metrics I'll typically be looking at, you know, like I want to know how long my work orders are open. I want to know like where they're at right now. Do I have work orders that are waiting on parts? Um, you know, how many times do I have a stockout situation? Uh, probably a more critical one would be not just my PM compliance, but how many PMs do I have past due right now? You know, am I doing a good job staying on top of my PMs? And getting them into the shop. And your PM compliance is probably even going to be a secondary metric compared to your scheduled versus unscheduled repairs. Right. And tracking, you know, how many repairs do you do that you actually planned ahead of time and you're proactive about versus how many repairs are you doing that you're reactive about? Right. And we've talked about a bunch of different metrics on this show. We talk about them in the Fleet Success Playbook quite a bit. But for those managers, if you really want to manage your shop, it's about getting clear about what your most important metrics are. What are the ones that you, you're either struggling in? Like if I'm looking at which one should I focus on, I'm going to focus on the ones that need improvement and then I'm going to focus on 2 or 3 that, you know, like I need to make sure those are always healthy. You know, and so kind of like in line with how we talk about strategy, right? Strengths to leverage, strengths to develop. Which muscles do you have that are like, yeah, we need to make sure like we're really good at this. You know, we're really good at doing curls, right? So our biceps are looking really good. Um, you know, but our triceps have been neglected, right? And so that's your bicep would be your strength of leverage. Tricep would be strength to develop. And you change and you focus your exercises based on those things. Uh, you know, if you're trying to maintain your bicep strength, you don't necessarily have to work it out as hard. But you monitor it and you continually, like, you just kind of maintain it. If you're doing, you know, something like a strength to develop, that means you have to work it out differently, right? Like, you have to give it breaks and rest and recovery. And the same thing is true with your, your metrics, right? You need to make sure that, you know, like, you know, here's the metrics we're not doing well in, and here's the metrics we are, but we need to make sure we keep doing well in. I would not focus on, you know, like, a ton of metrics, you know, like, there's— it's easy to get metric overload. And I think a lot of us who are big data wonks, like, we tend to do that because why? Well, it gives us safety and security. We know the numbers, we can go back to our numbers, and it's easy for us to fall back and say, oh well, you know, like, this number is saying this, so it must be okay. As you're going through and developing, if you're not a metric person, I would say like start with 10, no more than that, because otherwise your brain's gonna get fried. But like, pick 10, and you know, of those, I would say 70%, so 7 You know, make those ones that you want to focus on improving and the other 3, make those ones that you want to make sure are, you know, that you're holding them back. Now, you could do that a little differently. You could do 5 and 5 if you want to. But the point is that, you know, like, I want to make sure that I'm focusing on things that I'm growing and developing and getting better at. Now, if you've been established and you've got like a great system in place, you're going to be able to track way more metrics. Right. And I would still focus, like, figure out what your top 10 metrics are and then go through. You can add subsequent metrics if you have like different teams, different shifts. You could break those out by shift. You could segment them. I mean, shoot, here at RTA, like, you know, every department has their own operating set of metrics. And so you kind of are going to see that too. But at the executive level, like, we only focus on 10, maybe 12, right? Really focus on prioritizing, strategizing, getting clear about what's most important, and don't get distracted by all the other options that are on the table. All right. And if you need help figuring out like, well, which one should I be focusing on? Every shop is a little bit different and every shop has different needs. Some are really good at their PM compliance. Some are really good at, you know, getting their work orders done on time. Right. And some are not. Right. And this is one of the things as we do, like we consult with clients and we help identify like, this is where you really, uh, like you're, you're kind of dropping the ball and here's where you're doing really well. Uh, here's some metrics that you should be tracking. And it's, it's a little bit different for everyone. Uh, maybe we'll have a blog post with like, you know, here's 50 metrics that you should be looking at and here's where they should be. And then like you can pick your top 10 out of that. Um, but the idea is that, you know, as a fleet manager, you know, there's two things you have to be good at. And the first one is Know your numbers, right? Know the data, know where the vehicles are, know how long they've been on the road, uh, know which ones are past due for PMs, you know, and really understand the data that's going to drive your stakeholder satisfaction. You know, like, what are the people that depend on you? You know, what job do they depend on you to do? Make sure your metrics are aligned with that. And then the second piece is, you know, know your people, right? And that's where the management web walking around comes in. If you're one of those data-driven fleet managers, sometimes you can get so lost into a spreadsheet that you forget there's somebody behind the number or that there's a real tangible asset that represents that number. And what I found is that it actually helps that you've got to get out from behind your desk and go out and walk the floor, right? Look around, sense the vibe. You know, Dave Ramsey is one of my— one of the people I really look up to. And he would talk about that, like he'd get out and go on the floor and he would just like feel it, right? And you just kind of feel the vibe. And are people smiling and are they happy? Are they just, you know, they down? Is something bothering them? You know, are there other messes everywhere, right? Or is the shop clean and organized? Are people taking care of their tools? Do they— what do the vehicles look like? And that's something that you're not going to see show up in the data. You know, you're only going to be able to see that by getting out walking around, talking to people, and just observing. You know, there's so much that we can learn about our operation just by observing it. So as you get out and you're doing that walk around, you know, be looking at the floor and be looking at like, hey, you know, is there messes on the floor? Do we have oil everywhere? Is it safe? Are we, are we following safety procedures? Um, are people taking care of their, their equipment? Are they taking care of each other? Uh, you know, like, do we have a huge backlog of vehicles? I remember walking around one shop and, you know, they had— I want to say they had probably about 8 bays, um, and all the bays were full. And then, but I was watching and none of the vehicles in the bays were being worked on. Instead, uh, you know, they had probably about 10 to 15 other vehicles and the techs were all out in the yard, in the parking lot, working on the vehicles, right? That's not something I'm going to be able to see just by looking at my data. I go out there and I look at that and I say, whoa, what's going on with this process, right? Like, what are these vehicles all down for? Are they waiting on parts? Can they not be rolled? Let's move them out. Let's get the other— like, let's work where the work is done best in the shop. That to me is an immediate red flag for inefficiencies. Now, I should be seeing that in my data because the techs are going to take longer to do jobs if they're not doing it, you know, in the bay, right? Because it's going to take them longer just to walk back and forth between the different areas of the bay. But it's something that just immediately jumps out to you when you go out and actually walk around and you look around the shop. It's one of the reasons why when we do consulting projects and on-site training, like, we go around, we walk the floor, because we— there's things that we just observe by seeing it that we can't necessarily, you know, get out of the data. So we balance those two things, right? And so as a fleet manager, you need to be aware of like, where's your bias? Are you biased more towards focusing on the data or are you biased more towards walking around, gut feel, intuition? And there's not a wrong way to do it. You just need to make sure that if you're aware of that bias and you're aware of where your strength is, that you're not ignoring the other piece of that, right? That you're not ignoring where you need to go out and and get a feel for what's going on the shop floor, really understand your data and how to run reports. You know, I've known people that like, oh, I just, I don't know how to go run the report, or it's really hard for me to look at the data and understand what it's trying to tell me. Don't let that be an excuse, right? Take some extreme ownership and get the training you need, get the insight you need, you know, talk to a consultant, whatever it is, go figure it out so that you can get better and be a better fleet manager. Right? Don't sit there and let your weakness hold back your organization. I've said it before a million times, you are the lid on your fleet management organization. Your organization cannot outgrow you, right? You become the top of the bottleneck, so to speak. And if you're not upleveling your skill set and expanding your horizons and getting better at running reports and getting better at analyzing data, uh, then you're holding your company back. If you're not— if you're too buried in your spreadsheets and you're not actually walking around talking to people you're going to have turnover issues. You're going to have issues in the shop that you're not aware of because you're not walking around and getting, getting the vibe right. Like, you've got to be able to do both as a fleet manager and make sure that you're dedicating time. One of my favorite words is intentionality, right? Are you being intentional with your time and focusing on the areas that are going to drive the most revenue and drive the most activity and drive the outcomes that you're looking for as a fleet manager, right? So that's my, uh, you know, kind of the diatribe for today, uh, is, you know, make sure— figure out where you land on the chart, you know. Are you more data-driven? Are you more of a management by walking around? And which one of those do you need to work more on? And then get out and do it, right? Get into the data, get out on the floor, you know, and do what you're— what you're not exactly great at. And you'll find that just by doing it, you're going to learn things. And as you learn things, you're going to take better action. And as you take better action, things are going to improve. But it starts with you. It starts with getting over, you know, what I call the bureaucratic inertia. You know that objects at rest tend to stay in rest. And the same is true for people, right? If you're too comfortable sitting in your chair behind your desk, behind your screen, get out and just take that step right now. Get out of your chair and go walk around the floor. And just talk to people, see how they're doing. If you're too scared and you don't want to get into the data, or you're like, ah, I don't really want to go track all this, there's so much data and understand, just pick one, right? Just start small, small steps, start somewhere. But the key is to start, right? Don't, don't get paralyzed by fear and not let yourself go get better. So that's the tip for today. Hope you all have a great rest of your week. Until next time.

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