Episode 227 - Stop Managing Individuals—Start Building a Team That Wins

Good morning. My name is Rick White from one Abiz, and this is my. Just one thing. We're a coaching and training company for the independent auto and truck repair shops. We're helping shop owners who feel like they're just leaving a little bit on the table. We can help them get even more. All right, so what are we going to talk about today? Today we're talking about teams. And you know something? I. You know, I don't like the word employee because I don't feel like that's the correct relationship anymore. So a lot of times I'll call the employees team members. But the reality is, and I was talking about this last week, there's a difference between having a group of people that show up at the same location and a team, okay? When you've got a group of people, right, they're each focused on their own goals and their own accountability, everything like that. Whereas you got a team. So here's the thing that I heard from Simon Sinek, which is a team is a group of people that agree to grow together, okay? Sharing the same values and heading towards the same destination. So what I want to just do real quick is I want to talk through this, right? A team is a group of people that agree to grow together, right? Where they share a common purpose, they share values, they share beliefs, and they hold each other accountable. When you have a group of people that just show up at the same place, that doesn't make it. It doesn't work. The whole idea of a team, and I really want you just to get this, is to mesh complementary skills, okay? It's not to have this one, then this one and this one and this one. It's to have people mesh together so that it creates complementary actions and skills, and everybody's doing what they could and where they should, and everything like that makes a huge difference, okay? Makes a huge difference. So the reality is, having the common destination is one of the core components of having a team, okay? When they can form around something that really means something to them, right? And then be able to translate it into goals, that's pretty freaking amazing, right? So you got a common purpose. That's the first part of having a team. And then there's got to be performance goals, okay? Something that's specific and measurable and tied directly to the team's purpose. This helps track their progress, okay? And it helps to build momentum. Because here's the amazing thing about a team. They don't feed on each other, they feed off each other. In other words, instead of being A vampire and sucking the energy out of somebody. We all know people like that. These people actually feed on each other, right off of each other. So what I mean is, by that is like, this one, you know, this person's doing this, and this one's stepping up, and this one's stepping up, and this one's stepping up. It's just really, really amazing. Okay, but the next part is complementary skills. Okay? This is where they work together. I have someone on the front counter that's really great with people and good at documentation. I have technicians that have a great skill set. Or at least. At least we. We. How do I want to say that? We dispatch to the strengths, right? We want to keep it so that we're not. We're not trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And I don't mean that in a bad way. But if you give a mechanical technician an electrical problem, you're not going to be happy. It's not going to work. Well, what I want you to understand.

Right, is as these are complement, become more and more complimentary. The whole idea is to reduce friction. When you have a group of individuals coming to work every day, you have friction. But when you have a team where they have a common destination, common values agree to grow together, right? And they complement each other. Now you have something that starts to mesh together and there's less friction, right? And then the other thing that's really important is they all have a common approach. In other words, everybody agrees on the flow of things, how things are going to work, how, how you're going to move through the day and also through your decisions. And everybody contributes. That's the amazing thing. They have clear roles and expectations, and it really works well. And here's what I love about a team. This is you guys are going to love this. You know how y' all feel like you're babysitting. It's because you have. You don't have what's called mutual accountability, but mutual accountability, what does that mean? Is they hold each other accountable. You have checks and balances set up where they hold each other accountable to achieving what they need to do. But because they're all headed towards the same direction and destination, it really makes a difference, right? This mutual accountability, it arises from those shared goals and having that commitment to each other. And you know what's a really cool thing about accountability like this is it fosters trust, right? It really does kind of just grow this trust because, you know, you have each other's back.

Right? You know, you have each other's back. So I think that's absolutely amazing. And, and I think if you look at this right, so that you understand that as management, it's not your. Like, teams shouldn't be formed just for the sake of having a team, but only when it's the best way to perform. And that's the problem. And too many leaders, too many owners. You're so busy putting fires out, you're not setting the destination, you're not defining and clarifying the values. Right. And the expectations. When you do that, then you're there to provide support and resources without micromanaging. Don't do it. Don't micromanage. Now you gotta be able to stand up and look at what are team efforts needed versus individual accountability. Most of the time you really need team more than you need individuals. I mean, can you all remember, and some of you might be too young, but there was this first time they came up with this dream team for the Olympics, for the basketball. It was the first time you could let professionals in. And hey, they thought they were just going to sweep the Olympics and it was horrible. And it was because they had a bunch of individuals, they didn't have a team. Everybody was glory, everything Right? Now here's the thing. I need you to understand, please listen to this. Teams, when you build them properly outperform individuals every single time. Right? Right. What do they say? If you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, you go with a. With many. I hope this all makes sense to you guys. Thank you. Listen, what I want you to be able to do, I want to challenge you this week to step back and look at the people in the shop. Do they actually work as a team or are they all individuals? So what I want you to be able to do is step back. I want to challenge you. Look at the friction in your shop. Look at the frustrations you're having in your shop right now. It's because you don't have a team. It's because there are holes where you should have a team. So step back and start to be the owner, start to be the leader. So that you can not all day, not every day, but start just a little bit, half hour a day. And you're going to be amazed at what you can do because you'll have a group of people that have your back. They're there to help and they care. So everybody, thank you. Please share this video Remember, our shop owners roundtable is this Thursday night, 7pm Eastern and we also have our webinar this Thursday, 1pm and it's all about standing out, right? Really standing out in your market. So, everybody, I hope I'll see you there. That's the pocket business. Genius. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Go make some money, everybody. Take care. Bye. Bye.