Kenny Chapman, the blue collar coach, argues leaders should identify and reinforce what's working before fixing problems. He uses a technician example to show how tracking wins and publicly sharing performance keeps people engaged and improves retention.
Hey, everybody. Kenny Chapman, the blue collar coach, coming to you live with this week's video version of Freedom Friday Focus. Now, this week, I want to talk to you and ask you a question. First and foremost, what are you doing? Well, see, as owners and leaders and frontline people driving businesses, sometimes we forget to look at what are we doing? Well, we just jump to, what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong? We're. What do I need to fix, fix, fix? Band aid, Band aid, Band aid. Triage, triage, Triage. Right, Whatever it is. But first and foremost, we need to take a look at what are we doing well, first, so we can make sure that we don't lose, that there's so many things going on. We're focused on so many things throughout the day, weeks, months and years in business that we can take for granted. Some things that are going well. Now, yesterday was my anniversary with my lovely wife, Christy. And, you know, you know, when we have, like, lines in the sand or a New Year's Eve, an anniversary, something like that, sometimes we'll kind of look and reflect and go, well, you know, in our case, what's going well about our marriage? What are we doing really effectively in this union together? And then what are some areas that we might kick up a notch? Now, hopefully we're doing that more often than once a year on an annual basis, but it's something that's very, very effective, and it's something I don't see business leaders do very often because we expect great results. Now I expect great results, too. I hold my team to the highest level because I hold myself to the highest level. I want you to hold yourself to the highest level. I want you to get amazing results. But once those begin to come in, don't take them for granted. Look at them. What are we doing? Well, because our competition is chasing us. Yes, they're weak, but they're chasing us and they're on our tail. So we need to reinforce and reinvent the things that we're doing well. Then we take a look at, okay, what do we need to improve? Same thing when you're coaching technicians. I came off of training our service sales success school for the great folks at Service Roundtable down in frozen Dallas, Texas, this week. And I had a technician come up and go, you know, Kenny, why won't my boss share our numbers with me? He doesn't post for the technicians to know where we stand and where we're at. I honestly can't answer that question. All I can do is empower a technician to say, well, keep track of your own results. Because tech should be keeping their own statistics anyway so they know where they stand. But it's a company's responsibility to let them know where they're at, good or bad. So if you're getting great results, good, we want to reinforce that, but then we kick it up a notch. One of my great sayings is always grateful, never satisfied. I believe that in business, I believe that in customer service, I believe that in sales we need to be grateful. But we don't want to get satisfied because we want to strive for more. We want to continue to grow as human beings. We desire growth more than anything in life. We desire progress. And we need to do that. Even if we're getting great results, we still need to layer on. Had a great call a little bit ago with a client of ours that is talking about, the guys are doing good, but I want to coach them to kick it up a notch. We'll come from their side. What do you think you're doing well, Mr. And Mrs. Technician and talk about those and then what are some areas of improvement that we might be able to kick it up a notch, layer on the good stuff and then kick it up a notch with the things that need some improvement. You don't have to wait until the end of the year. You don't have to wait until you're budgeting for 2014. You can do this on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannual and annual basis. Check yourself, check your results, but start with what you're doing well to make sure we keep that at the forefront and, and continue to get great results. Then we shift to okay, and what are the areas that we need to massage, tweak, kick up a notch, improve a little bit so we get better results. Retention is a big challenge in our industry right now. And if you haven't looked around, recruiting is not the easiest thing to do. Retention is paramount. So we need to validate our team members. We need to let them know the things that they're doing really well and then coach them on areas of improvement. And it impacts your culture, it impacts your bottom line, it impacts your retention, which again impacts your culture, impacts your bottom line. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Until we talk again, have a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time.
