Where do you lean during change? Do you lean toward chaos or safety?
Depending on your dealership role, you may have a range of reactions to this question.
Maybe you think, “There is no way that I can create the real changes needed inside our dealership. I’m just a GM, parts support specialist or professional juggler.”
Regardless of your role, you can create change. If you have been a part of an organization where one person ruined the company culture for everyone, you know that regardless of the role you hold, one person can be the catalyst for change, positive or negative. The change you want to create is up to you.
Change is always happening; it is never stagnant. Regardless of your role, you are changing the business you are in, so let’s make it a positive change.
“Sara, I want to see a change in my business, but no matter what I do, getting my people on board always feels like a struggle.” I was at a dealer meeting recently, and that is what an owner, who looked resigned to the fact that this is the way it was always going to be, came up to me and said.
I get it; getting your people on board for change inside your dealership can be tricky, especially when you do not have any fight left. When you reach the end of peak season, you step back and think, “Man, I never want to experience that again.”
As a result, you, as an owner, develop a 73-point plan for change. Yes, you did it! Maybe you put this plan into a beautiful spreadsheet, and now all you have to do is get your people on board. I mean, you are the owner/manager, so doing so can’t be that hard, right?
Little did you know that asking your people to change would be met with the same enthusiasm as telling your kids you were not going to celebrate Christmas this year. Which, for clarity’s sake, is no enthusiasm at all.
When someone is in chaos, or constant change, with no end in sight, you might think you are dealing with an entirely different person. It is like Jekyll and Hyde walked into your dealership. People have different chaos or change levels they can tolerate before moving to a different personality (or a different part of their personality emerges).
You know the customer who walks in every time, that is the life of the party until something happens that sets him over the edge, or he becomes uncomfortable? Then, Shrek seems to have taken over his body and you start looking like him like he was green. Many times, it is because the chaos in the situation is more than he could endure.
Where everyone leans in the chaos vs. safety continuum is different. Each person can manage a different chaos or change level before they move from one side of the scale to the other. Some people can handle a lot of chaos before they move to safety. Others can tolerate only a little, and they would rather set up camp on the safety side because the thought of chaos seems too much.
If we want to work with others effectively, and without losing our minds, we must have an idea of how much they can handle before they get to the “this feels entirely overwhelming” point.
This is something you have to understand about yourself and the people you are leading through change. Without this insight, you may be marching toward something new, but there is a good chance no one will be following you. Then, you are not leading anyone; you are simply dragging them behind you.
I love to eat. Seriously, when I go to a new city, the first thing I do is start looking at restaurants. Let’s call it a passion project. If you need a restaurant recommendation, I’m your gal.
During a riveting version of the game “Would You Rather,” someone asked me, “Would you rather eat the same thing every day of your life or never eat the same thing again?” I immediately said, “Never eat the same thing again” without much thought. Which would you choose? This question tells you a lot about yourself and where you stand on the scale of chaos vs. safety.
To be clear, there is no right or wrong in where you are on the scale. To have a sustainable business, though, your focus must be the pursuit of stability at the base. Then, we can add in either safety or chaos as our choice of growth. Still, we must put the building blocks in place first.
In this midst of change, as Meghan Trainor says, “It’s all about that base.” While I am confident she was talking about something else entirely, the line seems to work here.
The people around you are looking for a stable base, and they want to know one thing and one thing only: how the change affects them. They want to know that you will keep them safe, whether you are a manager or a co-worker.
Let’s make this a little more scientific and take an objective look at whether you default to chaos or safety during change. We are going to do this teenage girl magazine quiz style. Identify where you are on the chaos versus safety continuum.
Would you rather
Never eat the same thing again?
Eat the same thing every day for the rest of your life?
Would you rather
Ride a rollercoaster?
Ride a carousel?
Would you rather
Do something different
every day?
Do the same thing every day?
Would you rather
Have a heated debate?
Have a surface-level conversation?
Would you rather
Have a tight deadline?
Have no deadline?
Would you rather
Try something out of the box?
Stick to what’s tried and true?
Now, look at your answers. If you chose mostly the first option, you chose the chaos side. If you chose mostly the second option, you chose the safety side. Now, have other team members choose their options and compare your answers with another team member’s choices.
As you look at your team’s responses, what most surprises you about who leans more toward chaos and who leans more toward safety?
Sara Hey’s new book, “The Dealership Equation: How People, Processes & Profits Can Make or Break Your Business,” is available for pre-order July 7 and will be released at the end of August. Her journey working with dealerships started when she packed VHS training tapes for dealers across the country. She has worked in her family’s business and with family-owned dealerships over the last 10-plus+ years. Now, she spends her time speaking at conferences around the world and working with manufacturers and dealers to achieve success.
