Ep.48 - Stop Being So Nice: How Weak Leadership Masquerades as Kindness

Summary

In this episode of Crossroad Conversations, the Lewis Brothers discuss the fine line between kindness and weakness in leadership. They emphasize the importance of addressing conflicts directly and the consequences of avoiding tough conversations. The conversation explores how empathy can sometimes lead to enabling poor performance, and the need for leaders to set clear expectations. The episode concludes with insights on leading with clarity and the significance of maintaining a strong company culture.


Takeaways

Top performers will leave if conflicts are not addressed.
Avoiding conflict can erode workplace culture.
Empathy can turn into enabling if not managed properly.
Clear expectations lead to respect and accountability.
Vague kindness can create confusion among employees.
Leaders must check their egos to foster a healthy environment.
Direct communication is essential for effective leadership.
The highest expense in business is often the workforce.
Leaders should lead with clarity, not comfort.
It's important to be genuine in leadership style.


Titles

Navigating Leadership: Kindness vs. Weakness
The Cost of Avoiding Conflict in Business


Sound bites

"Empathy turns into enabling."
"Don't avoid hard conversations."
"Stop being so nice."


Chapters

00:00 The Cost of Avoiding Conflict
10:08 Navigating Kindness and Weakness in Leadership
21:14 The Impact of Not Addressing Issues
34:30 Empathy vs. Enabling: Finding the Balance
51:58 Leading with Clarity, Not Comfort

Feel the dynamic energy of the Lewis Brothers as they deliver real stories and lessons that keep local businesses on their toes, and share how experiences in the community inspire them to keep on driving.

Check out all our great episodes at CrossroadConversationsPodcast.com!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is going to be a gut check for some people out
there.
You think everything's okay.
Yeah, okay, what happens?
Let me tell you what's going tohappen with your workforce.
The average and below averagepeople will stay with you.
The top performers will leave.
They will leave your topproducers will leave your team

(00:21):
because they want to gosomewhere where they're going to
be encouraged, coached andpushed to be at their highest
level.
Hey everyone, welcome toCrossroad Conversations with the
Lewis Brothers, where we aim toshare real stories about
running a successful familybusiness, working through
adversity and pouring back intothe community that keeps our

(00:43):
door open.
We're your hosts, matt Shelbyand Taylor, and we bring you
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business and maybe
even throw in a plug for you todo business with us.
Welcome back to CrossroadConversations with the Lewis
Brothers, episode 48.

(01:03):
This morning we're back.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Starting to get it figured out.
Morning we're back starting toget it figured out 48 figured
out here.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
We're starting to get in stride here.
Hey, today's topic, stop beingso nice.
I've been saying that that's myfault how weak leadership
messes up, kindness this pointedtowards me?
not at all.
Hey, today.
Hey, today we're going to hiton something, honestly, that
hits pretty close to home withus and, I think, for a lot of

(01:30):
business leaders out there,especially small businesses as
you start to grow, and those whocare about their people.
We're talking about the fineline between kindness and
weakness in your leadership.
When does empathy becomeenabling and when does being the
nice boss actually hurt yourteam and your leadership?
When does empathy becomeenabling and when does being the

(01:51):
nice boss actually hurt yourteam?
You ever thought about that?
Like being the nice guy orbeing somebody that cares too
much actually hurts your team.
Yeah Well, today we're going tounpack that and a whole lot
more.
But before we do that, what didwe go over last week?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Last week why leaders fail and why smart ones learn
from this.
So we talked about failure isnot final, it's feedback.
The real failing is not owningthe failure and failing the same
way twice.
Now that's a problem.
So we fully unpacked that inepisode 47.
Don't stop what you're doingright now, but set aside another
45 minutes to an hour to checkthat one out.

(02:23):
Crossroad conversationConversation, episode 47, why
Leaders Fail and the Smart Ones.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Lack From it Absolutely, and always check us
out at lewissuperstorecom forthe freshest inventory, all the
specials, everything we've gotgoing on during the month, and
then the podcast.
Go back and look atcrossroadsconversationpodcastcom
.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Hey, and then we're talking about you.
You know we got to talk aboutwhat we drive.
So today I'm gonna throw youguys a curveball.
Why?
Because we've just gotten agood amount of them in and
sometimes we don't talk aboutthese.
Um, because it's it's notfrontline and not everybody
comes in asking for this vehicle.
But a lot of people need thisvehicle.
I think it's relevant to thispodcast.
It's our commercial division,yeah, you know.
So it's the cabin chassistrucks, it's the cargo vans and

(03:10):
then even sometimes we have thepeople that are looking for qc
quality control.
Maybe the maverick comes inhere.
Oh, escape, the escape.
Uh, you can put the compass inthere as well.
But I really want to talk aboutcabin chassis, because we just
got a big load of cabin chassis.
What the heck is that?
So cabin chassis is a pickuptruck without the pickup bed on

(03:31):
the back.
Okay, so it's got a frame.
So if you ever see what lookslike it's missing a bed, it's
not that it got in an accidentFrom the manufacturer.
They didn't put a bed on thereand in fact it's got a little
bit different frame in the back.
So it's easier adaptable towhatever you need for your
business.
So, for example, if you neededa flatbed.
You're just hauling stuffaround.
Maybe you need a hay bed, maybeyou're in agriculture and you

(03:52):
need a hay bed with feeders andstuff on it, or you need a
utility bed.
A utility bed then has all theboxes built in but still has the
middle open so you can putstuff in there.
Or if you want to upfit it witha crane or the generator.
Or we've had some for the citythat, uh, have been for animal
control, that have airconditioned dog boxes on them,

(04:12):
fully versatile, all that stuff.
And again, we don't talk aboutthat enough.
But this month alone we'lldeliver over a hundred of those
vehicles through our fleetdepartment yeah, it's a.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
It's a big need Generally.
It's not specific for you,right, it would be for your
business, and so it's not thetop of your mind for us of
selling or you of buying, but itis so important and that
Maverick and that Escape is areally good option.
It can be a sub $30,000 if youneed a runner for your business
or someone to read a meter,someone that doesn't need to

(04:47):
haul three, four, five, six,70,000 pounds or doesn't need a
class seven hitch on the back.
You bet Right that's a goodoption there that you can
generally reorder those in white.
That allows it to be white, toput your labels on the side, or
you can wrap it with yourcompany logo or whatever it be
there.
But we do have a bunch of thoseto pick from.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
We do and we handle all the upfitting for you.
So we'll help you figure out.
So legally you're in balancewith GBWR or payload or what
licenses do your drivers need?
I'm going to throw we usuallydon't spend this much time here
but I think, as something wehaven't covered, that I just
want to get y'all's opinion onreal quick for all the business
owners out there.
Maybe they do have a fleet offive or ten vehicles.

(05:26):
It's when do you upgrade them?
When do you turn them?
Yeah, here's what I tellbusiness owners that ask me
about that.
I said, okay, could you ride itinto the ground until nothing's
left?
Yeah, you could, you sure could, you sure could.
But at what cost?
Yeah, and some of that's froman image cost, some of that's
from a maintenance cost and thenthe value of the vehicle.

(05:46):
So I tell most of my guys outthere I'm like, why don't you
look at trading somewherebetween 60 and 100,000 miles?
And you guys know this If weget a utility bed truck in, it's
got 60 or 70,000 miles, itturns really fast.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, before the truck's just been destroyed Like
somewhere where you know it'sgone a little past manufacturer
warranty but they had.
You know that's going to bethree to five years depending on
how much yep, you know.
So they've been undermanufacturer warranty a long
time.
They've generally taken goodcare of it.
Yeah, those turn good, whichmeans we get to give you more

(06:22):
money right, which means you getback in the cycle quicker with
a new range.
Your employees are happy withthe new vehicle.
You look good when you pull up.
That's right.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
And when you look from a maintenance standpoint,
try not to push yourself tospend more than regular
maintenance.
So if your goal is 70,000 miles, maybe put a set of tires on
there, maybe two, depending uponthe conditions.
You get regular oil changes,air filters, fuel filters.
You might have a tranny servicein there and then stop it there

(06:53):
.
Why get into where you mighthave to spend five, six, seven,
eight, $10,000 on an enginetransmission or even more?

Speaker 3 (07:02):
The vehicle's worth less plus more than likely in
three or so years you've alreadydepreciated it out on your
taxes hopefully, if youdepreciate and what you don't
look at specifically until it'san issue because we hear it
through service and we hear itthrough text messages and phone
calls is, hey, my truck's down.
Yeah, on, no one's fault, butmy truck's down, my guys have a

(07:26):
job to go to, or I've got sevenstops today.
You waited too long, that'sright.
Right, so now you're down time,so it's costing you in the shop
but it's costing you in lostrevenue.
You went too far.
You need to appreciate thatthing.
Most can depreciate in the firstyear, that's right, uh.
But if not, nominaldepreciation, go three or four
years max.
Find that sweet spot of 60 to100 000 miles where it still

(07:48):
brings good money.
You get a fresh one.
You start that depreciationover again and then you're not
in the spot where you're likedang this thing's in the shop
always because you've just, it'snot the same miles as your car,
no, it's hard right, it's aheavier, it's under more load.
Some of the engine idle hoursare higher than a kite.

(08:09):
Yes, like the miles aren'tcrazy hypothenical on.
Idle hours are much higherbecause you always leave it on
in between stops and all thosethings.
So take that all into accountlike now I'm okay, I got 98 000
miles.
Well, like, hang on, it's beenpretty rough.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
I've got a guy right now that I love and we're
getting so deep this topic, butthat's what it's about.
Obviously going down andtalking relevance of anything
that's in business and he was onthe other side of buying
auction vehicles high mileagecash, less money and he was
spending five, ten, twelvethousand dollars.
He now has ten and he said I'mnever running it past a hundred

(08:43):
thousand miles.
Comes in, has it structuredthat it's under warranty until
100,000 miles and he's come inseveral times.
Here's my keys he never has abill and he's just run, run, run
run and that's tough to seebecause the startup cost is so
much higher.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is Right.
You know you can go pre-ownedrig that is $20,000 to $40,000.
The new would be $50,000 to$80,000.
Yes, depending on how you scalethat thing, I understand you
get two for the price of one ina used truck, yeah.
But if you factor inmaintenance costs of at least
10% a year maybe 20% a year, yes, plus your downtime, you're in

(09:19):
a losing battle.
You cannot win.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
No, I think that's really important and everybody's
at different stages and you'veheard us talk about in this
podcast.
I get it.
If you're starting up a business, don't have a ton of cash flow
and you got to buy a 200,000mile vehicle to get started I
get it yeah, I get it, but, asyou've heard us say as an
examples, what got you to whereyou are won't necessarily get
you to where you want to go.
Yeah, so you know.
Just like, when you move out ofyour parents' house, you move

(09:44):
into an apartment with four orfive buddies, that's not your
end-all be-all.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
You're not like, hey, all four of us here are going
to raise families, bachelor forlife.
So then you save up and two ofyour buddies, you get a duplex,
oh yeah.
And then you get your firsthouse, yep.
And then you get a house withyour fleet.
So then you get into that cycle.
I know we took more time there,but hopefully that was
beneficial to everybody outthere.
We just get the opportunity tosee hundreds and thousands of

(10:11):
customers and we can share thatadvice with you guys and what we
see that the most successfulones do, yeah, all right, so
diving in, today we're talkingabout being the nice guy or not
being the nice guy, or where'sthe in-between?
So let's talk.
Let's first talk about the costof avoiding conflict, and I
would just say, naturally, Idon't know very many people that

(10:34):
wake up in the morning and sayI'm looking for some conflict
today.
Let me see who I can addressabout uneasy situations or
uncomfortable situations thatwill make my day.
In fact, let's do a meeting at8 o'clock to just unpack
something.
That's really hard.
No, that's not a natural thing.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
That was something that I pointed out at the end of
the last podcast.
That was not my natural thing.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's not mine either, right, you know, and I know
when I've had a situation thatman, I just haven't wanted to
address and I hope that theywork themselves out, which we
know they don't ever workthemselves out and and I just
man, I just keep putting it offand putting it off.
But then when I finally hadthat conversation, unpack it
with that, individual weightslifted off my shoulders more

(11:22):
than likely.
They needed that conversationtoo.
And the quicker you do ithere's what I found and you guys
weigh in on this the quickeryou address it.
Now, you know me, if you'velistened to the podcast, I'm not
going to address it within fiveseconds.
I'm going to make sure that,emotionally, that it's real.
I've gathered the facts.
Okay, the heat's come down, theheat's come down, but if, let's

(11:43):
say, call it 24 hours, so if 24hours, if I address it, then
versus seven days from now, I'vegot a better opportunity to
coach and keep that employee,versus the longer it goes, there
may be all this animosity builtup and it might get too far
down the tracks and I might losethat employee you know, another
aspect is that is the severityof the situation might have lost

(12:07):
its luster.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
It's not fresh on the brain, it's not fresh on their
brain and it no, I didn't godown that way.
Or it wasn't that bad, thecustomer wasn't that upset, or
it wasn't that big of a deal.
The coverage, you know.
We only had two salespeoplehere and there was 30 customers.
That wasn't that big of a deallike yeah.
So there's that little bit ofuh, holding period.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Make sure it's real and then you need to address it
quickly no, I I agree, and I wascoaching a sales manager
through this the other day and Isaid when you're in the middle
of a situation and a salespersonis not using the right verbiage
or they didn't do the rightprocess, but the deal's still
progressing forward, finish thedeal up, right there.

(12:50):
Finish the deal up, but afterthe deal is done, pull them in
while it is fresh on everybody'smind and say, hey, I heard you
say this or you did this.
Here's how we do it.
Do you have any questions onthat?
You know, is there any reasonwe didn't do that or did you
just forget?
So why it is fresh on theirmind that you're helping coach
them through those pieces.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Absolutely.
The other day I had a customerin the middle of it, like you
said, whenever the customer'sthere that they had interjected
something, that the customer hadcome in and apparently had not
asked for the salesperson.
But he was in there and saw thesalesperson and said, hey, I

(13:31):
asked for you and felt a littleguilty and so then told him that
the salesperson I could see thetemperature rising in the pot,
it was just boiling, and I wasstaring at him like a kid, like
don't do it, don't do it, don'tdo it.
And here came the other onebebopping in, fired up, fired up
, and the person then said ash,free.

(13:53):
But they said you weren't hereso they were going to take care
of you know, like, oh gosh, herethese are getting right across
and the customer had no ideawhat they've done.
They were trying to be nice.
So then we finished offcustomer is excited, left.
And then I had to de-escalatethe situation pretty quickly but
of that really being able toweigh in and see, hey, is this

(14:15):
something I need to dive into?
But whenever you do dive intoit and not just brush it off,
you're like, okay, this wasserious, this is serious and it
needed to be addressed you know,I think one of the things that
points out to me about havingthat hard conversation is your
transition into that.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, that's good, your lead in, you know.
So everyone handles hardconversations differently.
Very rare that a person's like,hey, what the heck man?
And just like ready forconfrontation Like you know,
that's not new sort of peopleand you're just like whoa
doesn't get a good response,like I don't care who the other

(14:51):
side is, it's just not.
They're either going to lock upor they're going to come front
back.
You know which is not good,right, too heated, de-escalate,
so.
So I think it's how you segueinto that, you know.
For example, you know ifthere's an issue, I'm like hey,
Matt, I'm looking at this hereOnce again.

(15:11):
It's going to be somethingwhere I'm going to take some of
the responsibility.
We talked about that last week.
Hey, I was looking at thistrying to figure out where I
messed up at in clear directionand leadership in all these
things here.
I was going over this specifictime here and of our scheduling
and was there something that Imissed in direction of the?
We only had one sales managerand only two salespeople on this

(15:36):
Friday and Saturday.
Was that something that Imissed and so that's a segue and
it's light, it's not.
You know, I'm not trying to notaddress it, but the way that
I'm moving into thatconversation and nine times out
of ten they're like no, that wason me.
Yeah, I overlooked it.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
But you came at it at the right angle.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
I think that's so important and that's not natural
.
Right, that takes work.
We've talked about it.
How say you know what?
That's my fault likecompetition with the customer,
you know, and if you canapproach that the same way, it
just helps you win.
In the end it's like, hey, Icould have done better.
And you're saying I could havedone better.
It's like, hey, why don't wework together and let's bounce
these ideas off each otherbefore it becomes an ish hey,

(16:19):
let me speak real quick, becausesome of y'all before you tune,
tune out on this podcast.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
You're like, ah, this podcast is not for me.
Man, when something comes up, Ihammer it Right, then, right
there, I address it.
Move on, rip the Band-Aid off,let's go.
Yeah, hang on a second.
All right, now I'm talking toyou.
Okay, before you just addressthe situation, have you thought

(16:44):
about what am I trying toaccomplish?
When I get done with the wordsthat are getting ready to come
out of my mouth?
How is the employee going toreact to it?
And two days later, two hourslater, two months later, will
they have productively movedforward or will they just think
I'm a donkey's behind?

Speaker 3 (17:02):
That's so important and saying there there's a
difference between nice and fair.
There's a big differencebetween nice and fair.
So if you're confrontation,you're like dude, I ain't overly
kind.
I tell them like it is, Istraighten them out.
Even it's in front of everyoneand they know very clearly what
it is.
Well, do they feel like youcare?
Do they feel like you havetheir back, like were they okay

(17:28):
to go like directly back intocustomer facing and not sound
like they were just whipped likeright, like no one loves that.
So if you can nicely approach it, kindly approach it and then go
off of this like okay, is thereanything else you need for me
so that we can make sure that wedon't have this issue again?
They're like you've been veryclear, it's like okay, so here's
what anything else you needfrom me so that we can make sure
that we don't have this issueagain.
They're like you've been veryclear, it's like okay, so here's
what we're going to do Nextweek.
We're going to follow up andsee have we had any more

(17:49):
examples?
How did we learn from this?
What else can we do tostructure this up?
And so then you've slowly gonedown deep into the issue.
You've sat in the issue, right,you right.
Like no, this was a big deal,like let's spend some time here.
Once you progress down into theno different than getting the
cold plunge right, you're goingto slowly get down in there and

(18:10):
then, once you're in there,you've acclimated to it and
you're going to be like and thenyou're going to slowly progress
them back out, warm them backup, and then I think you can
interject them back into normal,sure, and they've maybe learned
the lesson, without just beinghard, just hard as crap, and
just like yeah, I get it.
Dave gog is just straight inthe mouth they're good to go.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
I just think you really have to think as a leader
.
And what we're talking about,some of y'all are going I don't
have time for that.
Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, you do.
Let me prove it to you.
What are you trying toaccomplish with that employee?
Are you trying to have them bemore productive, have a higher
ROI, whatever it may be in yourbusiness?
And if the answer is yes tothose which it should be, if

(18:50):
it's no, you need to do acheckup.
If it's yes, you've got tofigure out how do I coach these
people to get the most out ofthem.
Not by threatening them, and Ireally like posing this scenario
and question on managers.
I say this have you developed asense that others want to be on

(19:13):
your team Because you're goingto help them achieve their
highest level of success?
And you're going to do it in amanner where they can still go
home and be nice to their family.
You're going to do it in amanner which they are excited to
come to work to earn a living.
And those that develop thatfollowing of people that want to

(19:34):
come work for them not becausethey'll be buddy-buddy They'll
be hard on them when they needto be hard on, but only because
they want them to improve.
And if you can this is a toughone if you can develop that and
word travels within the industry, you'll have people lined up to
come work for you.
Yeah, but again that's not tocome work for you because you're

(19:56):
the nicest guy and you invitethem over for Christmas and you
do this and you do that.
It's no, you're respectful tothem.
You cared about them and theirgoals, but you push them to get
to the next level to achievethose you know there's a lot of,
a lot of that.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
That's really good, A big thing, and I think a lot of
times managers miss.
No different than whenever youparent your child, but this is a
little bit different.
The consequential part of it iswhenever you go in and
wrongfully address an employeeand then the customer sees it.
And then I had a customer thatthe employee had done something

(20:32):
they should not have done and itreally made the manager mad and
he went and addressed theemployee where he thought was
out of vision of the customerand the customer ended up not
buying because of how he feltlike he didn't know the whole
story, thought he was reallycoming down on him and treating
him wrongfully.

(20:53):
But that one is moredetrimental than oh my gosh of
going through there.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
So you have to really make sure.
So what's the other side ofthat?
So we've talked about how tothat you need to, but what about
if you don't?
What if you were just a niceguy and you don't address it?
What does that do to the team?

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Here's what I see when people do not address
issues that need to be addressed.
This is going to be a gut checkfor some people out there.
If you think everything's okay,yeah, okay, what happens?
Let me tell you what's going tohappen with your workforce.
The average and below averagepeople will stay with you.
The top performers will leave.

(21:40):
You know they will leave.
Your top producers will leaveyour team because they want to
go somewhere where they're goingto be encouraged, coached and
pushed to be at their highestlevel.
Top performers don't want to bearound where average or below
average is tolerated andaccepted.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
No, because think about we talk about.
You want to be an average ofthe five people you hang out
with, and if the people aroundyou are people that show up late
, don't meet or exceed theirgoals, don't put in a good
effort, don't try hard, don'tfollow the process, don't hold
up the same standard that youare held to, they don't enjoy

(22:25):
that.
I don't know right, even ifthey're the top of your board
because everyone else is average, they still don't enjoy that.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
There's a first part to it.
Now here's the second part, umthe culture.
So what happens when you don'taddress a tough conversation or
conflict, that now, within yourworkplace, the culture will
start to shift and changebecause they're like they're not
going to address that, it's nota big deal, don't worry about

(22:55):
it.
And then, all of a sudden, theway we talk, the way we treat
each other, our customers, theattention to detail they're like
well, there's no downfall,they're not going to address
that, just who cares?
Yeah, don't follow up with them.
You know what I mean.
Don't offer that customer water, don't show them where they
actually need to go.
You know, don't take the timeto ask the other question and
actually care about that.

(23:16):
It'll start eroding yourculture, which then again, you
know, just a thousand cuts at atime.
This thing happens just becauseyou didn't want to have that
difficult conversation yeahcheek piss.
Good, no, it really is.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
It really is um, you know, going into there.
So, uh, hey, I got a fun factquiz that we're going to dive
into there.
Okay, fun fact quiz, I'm gonnabe able to throw you off, I'm
gonna be able to go into whatyou got what was the first car
to ever break 100 miles an hour?
don't worry, I've got yourmultiple choice, so it's a.
Yes, so you're gonna think it'sa.

(23:51):
Just because of the name of it,anybody thinks fast car.
Anything else but a bugattitype 35, b, b, ford, model T?
It better be going downhillwith dynamite in the back.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Can you imagine doing 100 in a Model T?

Speaker 3 (24:04):
I've driven the Model A a couple times and no sir,
did you get 20 in it.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Oh, yeah, I made 30.
Okay, C a Benz Lightning.
Yeah, d a Nippier E the 1905Gobron Breyer.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
That sounds like a fish that's got the light over
the top of its head.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
That's one of the European models or something I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
What are y'all's thoughts?
I know you have the answer andyou know, but I know it's not
the model we're looking for.
I'm probably going to take itout of your list there.
Tell us, the correct is the1905 Gobron Breyer.
Tell us what is it?
The correct is the 1905 GobronBreyer.
It hit 103 miles an hour in1905, driven by French racer
Louis Rigolois 120 years ago,powered by a massive

(24:51):
four-cylinder motor like arocket-powered wagon.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Hey, there's two things I think about there.
One, that they even had anengine powerful enough to propel
some 100 miles an hour backthen, which is like right when
the gas motor even got in.
Yeah, that thing was chugging.
Two what were the roadconditions in 1905?
Cobblestone?
You know what it's like doing100 on a back road right now.

(25:15):
It'll work pretty good.
Can you imagine in 1905?

Speaker 2 (25:20):
The suspension had to be good it was the French, yeah
, french comment on.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
So, even if it was cobblestone like that, you know,
hold on.
I mean, people were differentback then.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, maybe this is when the Bonneville Salt Flats
were discovered.
The French came to the.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Bonneville Salt.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Flats In 1905.
You'd be better off sittingthere on the Autobahn.
They were going through thehills Back in 1905, it's got 103
.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
So, diving into the next topic there, when empathy
turns into enabling, there's adifference between support and
excuses.
There's a difference betweensupport and excuses, and I think
this kind of rolls straight offyour question.
You were talking about lettinga poor performer linger and you
keep taking excuses as why Icouldn't sell that many.

(26:09):
Oh, these customers were hard.
No one's answering their phones, you know.
The list goes on and on.
And how they were difficult.
So what have y'all seen therethat is really stood out.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
You know, I think naturally we want to give people
opportunities and I don't knowlike I'm going to my brain right
now like why that is.
Besides that humans don'tnaturally like conflict.
But I think we all growing upwhether it was in sports or
academics or, you know, ourfirst job at some point in time
we came across somebody thatmicromanaged every single piece

(26:46):
of what we did, and in the backof your mind you're like, hey,
just give me a chance here, I'llwork it out, and if I don't do
it, then come back and readdressme.
But you're going to have to letme fail a little bit to figure
that out and coach me, but thengive me the opportunity to
accomplish that and by you justnitpicking everything about me,

(27:06):
I can't even move forward.
Yeah, and so in my brain that'skind of always stuck in there,
some probably sometimes too far.
The other way of like give thepeople the tools they need back
off, let them be successful, butthere's a slippery slope I know
I've been down.
Is that you let them go too fardown the slope without going?

(27:27):
Hey, now I need to jump in andhelp you to be successful, and
it gets too far away.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
I think that's a thing of finding that balance
but also having checkpoints.
So, hey, how's it going?
Checking the temperature,checking the progression,
checking the performance andthen allowing to make
adjustments along the way.
It's like that's great.
First two weeks, look good.
I see that you're at 80%, 80%,80%, 80%, look good.

(27:56):
And then I see the 40 and the30.
Let's look at those and see ifI can give some direction there
or if there's something we couldchange in our process to get
that up to your 80 percent thatyou're on everywhere else you
know I'll say that I was goingto say this on the last part,
but I'll bring it up now becauseit it plays a part here.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
You know in the past the way our organization was ran
, we really didn't have anyconversation with employees
unless something was going bad,you know.
So if you think about that, youknow, besides our meetings to
bring somebody in one on one,you were bringing them in really
because there was an issueabout them or someone in their

(28:36):
department so that was maybetwice a year, uh-huh, once a
year.
I'm not talking about going bythe desk like how you doing no,
no, this is going, it's like inmy office really is.
So then it became reallyawkward to call somebody like
hey, can you come to?
my office.
They're awkward.
You're awkward, it's justawkward.
No, this is a prime example onwhen we hired talent.

(29:00):
That was beyond what we knew tobring to our organization how
it has and we're not 100 percenthere yet, ok, but it has
started to change the ease ofthat.
So we hired a new HR managerthat was good at performing
performance reviews on a monthlyor quarterly basis.

(29:20):
That established hey, we'regoing to talk about your
performance good, bad or ugly,we're going to talk about it.
Yeah, and those first few.
There's not anythingimprovement or negative that
even comes up.
So then everybody's used tocommunicating and talking about
that.
Now I'm saying that on theother side of this microphone,
like it's easy and we've got itnailed.

(29:41):
It's not, no, but we have foundthat once we have that
conversation more often, thenit's easy.
She'll be like you talked aboutthen to tip into it yes, hey,
what do you see about this?
How can we grow here?
What could I do better?

Speaker 3 (29:55):
You know, it's like hey, give a couple wins before
you talk about the loss.
That's really good there.
I'm just understanding that.
But well, have a conversationthat doesn't always have to be
the hard conversation.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I guess I would say yeah, and really learning how to
communicate.
That's probably been good.
It's not.
I sit on this side of the desk,you sit on that side of the
desk.
It's really going to whateverperson you're managing and being
in their area.
I found that really helpful andShelby's helped me with that

(30:30):
before.
With difficult managers thatit's like I know I need to sit
down and do this.
Are we going to go and sit inan office away from everywhere
else?
It's no, no.
You go to that person and someof it needs to be private, where
obviously no one else is around, but go to their area and
communicate how they communicateand go through there, the door,

(30:51):
the wall, everything is down,and you'll get way more
accomplished way more point.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
That's like the other way of like, hey, come to my
office, that's taking the fishout of the water.
Oh yeah, you know, it's takingthe animal out of their habitat.
And they're just, they're likeand you're not gonna get the
real no.
So if you can ease your wayinto sitting down at the desk
working on this, like, hey, I'mjust gonna work on sports, I'm
gonna hang out, you only have toexplain that like one time.

(31:19):
Or you just sit down andthey're like, oh, what's this
guy doing?
Pretty quickly their stage faceis gone and they're back to oh
yeah.
And so then you can kind ofhear some tendencies and see the
process and you're like, hey, Ilike that.
How long they've been doingthat?
Hey, I think that's good.
Where'd they get that from?

(31:39):
It's like hey, have, hey, haveyou noticed that person B, that
they, every time a customercomes to the front door, that
they duck down or that they seemlike they're on the phone, or
like, when a person pulls up inthe service drive, that they go
to the bathroom.
Have you noticed that?
And they're like, yeah, it'slike, have you talked to them
about it?
No, oh well, why don't we workon that next time you just go

(32:02):
hang out next to their desk whenthe customer pulls up like, oh
hey, I think that's Ms Johnson,let's get rid of them, right,
but that's so right If you cango in their spot, it just once
again.
This is not about confrontationLike the I'm right, you're
wrong.
It's about conveying thecommunication of what's expected

(32:23):
.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
That's really important and I remind people
about this.
We talked about this on thecustomer front, but both
employees too.
As a manager, you need toremember to check your ego at
the door, and you know there'san old saying out there.
You know lose the battle to winthe war.
I'm not worried about if I'mright or wrong in a situation.

(32:47):
What I'm worried about is am Ihelping this person be
successful in the dealership?
Be successful, yeah, and if Igot to take it on the chin for
something that maybe is in thegray area and they're blaming on
me, I'll take it on the chin ifit'll allow the wall to come
down where then they'recoachable to then, in the future
, fix this entire thing right.

(33:08):
Um, the other thing you need toremember out there you're like,
okay, this sounds great, I'vegot to incorporate this into my
business.
You got to start at the top.
You know we found that with ourmanagers we were talking about
one-on-ones and reviews, but ifwe had not done that with the
manager one, they didn't knowhow to do it.
And then two, if we hadn't doneit with them, they didn't think
it was that important, you know.

(33:28):
So now I'll do that with them,and then they have to turn in
their results, or at least arecap.
When they've talked to theirs,they know the expectations,
because this naturally doesn'tjust happen.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
They know the expectations, because this
naturally doesn't just happen.
No, it doesn't, it doesn't atall.
You know, in going throughthere, the biggest deal of that
whenever you don't address that,you don't have that expectation
with your manager, it continuesto go into letting the same
issue slide and it just createsthat whole toxic environment.

(34:00):
Same issue slide and it justcreates that whole toxic
environment.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Like you said, it just keeps slashing away, keeps
cutting away and you look at itand it's completely eroded, your
whole culture so you allow you,you enable that one person to
do something that's not directlywhat you expect and like oh no,
they turn a lot of hours, theysell a lot of cars.
People love them, right?
Yeah, they're great withcustomers.

(34:25):
What's happened is your cost,is your other employees.
They've just come and gone.
You know like why'd steve leave, where'd bill go and where's
sarah?
You know all these things.
And like you've got toxic tomout back that just coaches and
counsels the friendly this, thisand this, but he's just getting
in the middle to make sure noone's disrupting his cheese hey,

(34:48):
tara, I think back, you know,on the title of of this part
here where it talks aboutempathy into enabling the.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
We have gone through this as we scaled our business.
What we found that if we givetoo much control to a department
manager, their emotions andtheir empathy gets involved.
So what we wanted to do, whatthe best thing?
And we tried to coach and coachand coach through that and then
we found and we just have tocome up with a process or a

(35:17):
policy that then they canleverage or even blame I mean,
he's the word blame, even blame.
Hey, this is, this is thecorporate policy.
I have to uphold this.
The slippery slope there iswhen they give people extra time
off, like to go to a dentistappointment or pick up this or
pick up their dogs, because theyget too involved.
They get too involved, theirempathy's involved, yeah you

(35:39):
know.
But then everybody else seesthat and it starts enabling the
entire department.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Why can't I, you let him?

Speaker 1 (35:45):
She's always gone, and then you look up and you've
got nobody to help yourcustomers out, right?
So I think what we've learnedthere too, and we tried to coach
through that, is like no, wehave to give something black and
white that people can pointback towards to say, no, this is
this.
And then we tell them hey, isthere a gray area where
exceptions have to be made?
Yes, but in order to do that,you have to type up an email.

(36:07):
It will get reviewed at ournext board of directors meeting
and then we'll vote on it.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
And if all the details aren't there, you know
we can't talk about it.
So, what?
That, which that's proper,right, yeah, that happens.
There's not just pie in the sky, that actually happens.
What that does no differentthan saying, hey, when a manager
or somebody brings me ideaslike hey, I think that's great,
will you bring me a businessplan, an action plan, a game
plan, with three differentsources, your pick and the cost
of all those?
Bring that to me in a proposaland then let's go over it.
You're never going to see it.
Yeah, 90 times out of 100, 99times out of 100, you'll never

(36:45):
hear about it again.
So if you tell your employee hey, here's what we need to do, we
can submit that to the board.
That's outside of our normalpolicies.
Here's what the policy iswritten you get x, you get x,
you get x.
We'll submit that to the board.
If you'll write me up a letter,it's going to squash that, but
it still lets you know thatyou're kind, that you heard them
, that you understand them.

(37:06):
Now, when they go talk to theirbuddy, they're not gonna be
like well, they were, theykindly let me down, you know,
but they're gonna be like it waspolicy.
They gave me opportunity tosubmit to the board, but I know
what the board's gonna say youwant to know why policy is so
important and we deal with thiswith top performers.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
We do this to top performers.
They mom, dad, the fire out ofyour organization and if you
think this door right here isthe only door they're gonna go,
to listen, your top performers,your racehorses, always kick the
stall.
They always cause a problem,but whenever it's race day they
run, so that's why you have them.
Well, you have employees thatwill go from a department

(37:44):
manager to then maybe over to HR, because they're like hey, I
talked to mom, it's okay, we'regood there If you're all in tune
with policies and procedures.
Well, I had one that thedepartment manager didn't agree
with.
Him went to HR and HR was likeno, if you don't agree with your
department manager, you need togo to your next higher level

(38:04):
manager.
And so then it got over to meand I said, no, let's revert
back to this.
And so it was black and white,staying exactly.
And guess what?
They didn't go do what theywere going to do.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Which, on the downside of that, if you think
about that, people have to settheir thoughts of actually
having the ability to make adecision, because what will
happen is they'll go to mom,they'll go to dad, they'll go to
uncle, they'll go to aunt, andone of those managers has this
high and mighty feeling that Iam able to make these decisions,
that I can say yes or no touncle.
They'll go to aunt, and one ofthose managers has this high and
mighty feeling that I am ableto make these decisions, oh yeah

(38:37):
, that I can say yes or no.
And so they'll revert away frompolicy just by.
And it's generally they'resaying yes, sure, right, uh, and
I'm not saying hey, I'm takingthat control away.
I'm just saying hey, seeparagraph four on page six, and
then, if that follows that youmake that decision, that's on
you absolutely.

(38:58):
But that, because otherwisethey get hung up and like, no, I
told him, yeah, I can do that.
Am I not head of thisdepartment or not?
It's like, yeah, you are, butyou need to follow the policy
there, and so if you can getthem to check their ego at the
door and just go by the rules,that's insert a little human,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I Insert a little human, that's it.
I think what's important heretoo and it's not even in here,
but I'm just going to brieflyhit on it is you've got to make
sure how connected or how closeyou get to your employees.
And you know we've got somemanagers, especially if they
were promoted from within, thenthey're still going to lunch
with all the same people,they're hanging out on the

(39:40):
weekends with those same people.
Yeah, they're playing videogames with those same people,
but now they're in a managerrole and you can't effectively
manage if you're too closeemotionally to somebody, because
you'll let things slide that's.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
That's such a good point, but it's so real because
we we often see that and it'slike, well, now they're coming
over for fight night or no,we're going to the lake or no,
we're gonna go out and watchthis concert.
It's like, well, you told me toget to know my employees, right
?
Like don't we say that, get toknow your employees?
Like yeah, but find that lineI'm not saying it's wrong or

(40:12):
what you're doing is not properall the time, but it's every now
and then it's every now andthen.
And so then the devil'sadvocate's like so, you want me
to hang, who do you want me tohang out with?
Right, I spent 80 of my life atwork, or whatever you know.
So who do you want me to hangout with?
And it's like well, you got tofigure that out.
Like you got to figure that outbecause, I mean, it's not like

(40:36):
we're having people over to ourhouse, all of our employees and
functions, like that.
It's not because we don't wantto welcome people.
It's just when it's time tomake that hard decision that's
based on facts and policies, youdon't want them over the thing.
Like well, dude, I come over toyour house for steaks yeah we're
like hey, I thought you weregonna let me come hunt over
there, you know all these thingslike, yeah, we're going to well

(40:59):
, what happens if you carpoolwith one of them and that day
you have to address something?

Speaker 1 (41:04):
you're gonna get the tea.
You better get an uber on theway home.
So so again, it's just all thisis a fine line you're trying to
balance through there, but youmight?
I mean this is too hard to do.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's not too hard if you want your business to
continue to scale and if youwant to continue to grow and so
the alter ego to that is theywill respect you for holding
them accountable not always inthe moment, but like you know
what this guy stands forsomething he says, what he does,
what he says he's gonna do.
He, you know he doesn't alwayslet me get away with it and I

(41:37):
respect him for that.
It pisses me off sometimes butI respect.
Oh yeah, right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
I mean going back up to the top there where it says
the most expensive thing inbusiness, avoiding hard
conversations.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
So you're just like I'm the nice guy, right?

Speaker 1 (41:51):
No but that directly relates to.
If you look at your pnl and youlook at your business, your
highest expense is what yourpeople it's your people, it's
your people.
So if your highest expense isyour people now I'm gonna play
the other side of it it's alsoyour highest roi yes, revenue,
you know what I mean.
Then you're gonna have to havethose difficult conversations.

(42:14):
You know, you just areabsolutely no, that's part of it
.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
just just knowing they're, then you're going to
have to have those difficultconversations.
You just are.
Absolutely no, that's part ofit.
Just knowing their emotionalleadership is good, but
emotional manipulation from teammembers is real.
So making sure you stay in that.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
All right, Mythbusters time.
Okay, so bringing you, ifyou're, this is a Mythbuster
right here.
So if you're a good leader,people will always like you.
That's the same.
You want my answer.
If you're a good leader, peoplewill always like you.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
No.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Okay, that's your opinion.
If you're a good leader, peoplewill always like you.
That's a feeling of a lot ofpeople.
It is A lot of leaders, a lotof people.
It is a lot of leaders, a lotof managers that is busted.
That is not true.
Not true.
That is not true.
Do not gauge performance and orhow good am I doing based on

(43:08):
how many people like you right.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
The farther you move up, the lower it is.
Your job is not to get peopleto like you.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
No, your job is to help them be more successful.
Yep, yes, yep.
You know you're going to buildan interactive team that, like
is amazing, that works welltogether, and you're going to
build some relationships withthose people.
It needs to be a workingrelationship.
It's like, dude, I like workingwith you.
This is good yin and yangfiguring this out, but it's not

(43:40):
like we're not trying to descalefrom our house now that I moved
into, all the way back to thefour-person condo of I'm bunking
with Phil.
That's not what it's about.
So you have to keep the mainthing, the main thing, all right
.
So last here, lead with clarity, not comfort.
We're leading with clarity, notcomfort.
So I want to start you out witha real-world scenario, because

(44:01):
I like stories, so I'm not justtalking from the Urban
Dictionary.
Saturday, I'm in the salestower.
I like hanging out at the salestower.
We've already talked about why.
It allows me to understand whatI need to teach on and coach on
what's going on, get a pulse,real world pulse and see how I
can help.
Some of these are busy days.
Maybe I can help appraise cars,print numbers, look for second

(44:22):
looks, whatever it may be, andsometimes I need to lead with
this.
Sometimes we think we've talkedand communicated very well about
the situation, which may betrue, but you've not talked,
communicated and worked throughwith that with actually the
person.
Right, you've talked,communicated and worked through

(44:42):
with others, but not the actualperson.
There's one of our employees,it's working on this and they're
like this person's not movingfast enough, they're losing
control of the customer, thecustomer's getting bored, and
then they come back to ask aquestion.
Then they come back to ask aquestion.
These are commonly knownquestions that they should know

(45:02):
the answers to, and so each timeyou have to come back and forth
, you're losing connection withthe customer.
And so some of the managers arelike, wow, they're doing this,
oh, they're doing this.
I'm like in my mind, I'm like,okay, where do I go with this,
where do I go with this?
And we've had multipleconversations about this person.
Hey, here's what you need to do, here's what you need to
address, give them time, toolsand training before you make any

(45:23):
decisions.
And so finally, they come inthere and they go to the other
managers, they're sure, and sothey start talking, and before
the manager start talking, I sayhold on, and and the person is
with a customer.
The customer's not in there,right?
So I'm not trying to completelyretrain this dog, this dog here

(45:46):
, but I have to address it.
Look, here's the deal.
This is how we process it.
We don't your story.
This is not a fireside chatstory time.
Customers are here to buyvehicles and we need to reduce
the time it takes to process thedeal.
Are we clear?
And they say, uh-huh, I said,but you keep saying the customer

(46:08):
talks so much but you're nothelping them transact through
this.
You can keep asking questions,so do not come back in here
until you've completely filledout the credit app.
You have a copy of the driver'slicense and this is the 12th
time you've come in today andhave not put them in the system.
So we can see it and work on it, and I'm not mad at you.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
And I'm not saying you're fired.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
I'm just telling you, you're still talking your
customers over there, are stillneeding something and you're in
here giving a damage report.
So please go back with a smileon your face and say, hey, my
apologies, I forgot to hit thebutton for my managers to work
on it, and then come back withno other discussion.
And so then the managers afterthey left, like they had very

(46:52):
clear the employee had veryclear what I should do without
any sugar coat, which when Ideliver without sugar coat,
people are like dang, that's notnice.
I'm like that was kind, it'sdirect.
I told them very directly whatneeds to be done.
And so the manager's like oh mygosh.
And I was like oh my gosh,because you haven't clearly

(47:12):
communicated that with thecustomer.
I mean the employee, josh,because you haven't clearly
communicated that with thecustomer, I mean the employee.
We're doing them a disserviceif we talk about it, but we
never clearly talk about it withthe employee, because they
think that they're doing grandand they're coming in here
giving us the whole damagereport.
We don't need it.
I just need to know what's thecustomer's name, what's going on
, how to structure the deal so Ican quickly, that's it.

(47:33):
But they're giving them thewhole, all the stuff, and so I
had to lead with clarity, notcomfort.
Like I get it, customers aretough.
It's hot, uh-huh.
I was just like enough, stopyeah.
And so understanding clearexpectations equal respect.
Vague kindness equals confusion.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
I think you, you know , through your story there you
define that pretty clearly, andyou'll be more respected when
you give clear expectations.
I've been caught up before too,though, when I've had vague
kindness and I'm liketippy-toeing around it, yeah,
like either trying to like sayit in a joking manner or talking

(48:17):
about it over here, maybe outof context.
But I'm really talking aboutthat person, yeah, but I'm
trying to talk about a thirdparty.
I think that happens, naturallyit does, but then there's
confusion.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Yeah, was that about me?

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Was that about me?
Or even worse?
Yeah, man, I'm glad I'm notlike that.
That's them over there thatperson you know that's what
happens and I have to bereminded about that of like no,
you'll be respected more and theemployee will actually
appreciate it if, respectfully,you clearly address them in the

(48:48):
right manner instead of justthis vague and naturally, like
you said, you want to be vague.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
You want to be like, oh, they'll get it.
It they'll get what I'm talkingabout, but they don't.
You know, that sometimes willhappen in a meeting.
We don't have grand meetings oflots of people where there's a
whole lot of discussion, butlike in a manager style meeting,
sometimes I fall into that.
This is, if you're not payingattention.
This is me saying I don't havethis figured out and I'm not the
best at this, so I might.
There might be an issue withthat specific manager, and so I
cover it with everyone, becauseI don't want someone else to

(49:23):
have that issue right, I wanteveryone to experience that.
Sure, so we don't have to eachindividually experience that
lack of running the customerthrough the car wash or whatever
it may be.
But then then I don't directlythen have a sit down afterwards
or before and say, hey, I'mtalking about you right?

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Yeah, you know you say that and I laugh because
I've been there before is ifyou've got eight people in the
room and you're addressing themall, seven of the eight probably
got what you're talking about.
The one that didn't get it wasthe one you were talking about
you know what I mean.
Yes, and it just like you.
Your top performers come backto you later and they're like

(50:04):
hey, I heard what you said thismorning.
How can I do better at that?
yeah, and you're like man you're.
You're thinking in your mindyou're killing it.
I wasn't talking about you, butthanks for asking.
Yeah, and it's the one you weretalking about.
It was like man, dude.
I'm glad I'm not like whoeverhe was talking about.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
I think both of those are relevant in ways to address
, but you need to address bothindividually, right, because
you're not going to waste a goodfailure for everyone to learn
on.
But you also need to veryspecifically say hey and you
probably should have thatindividual one first and say,
hey, we need to go over this,this, this and this the way that

(50:37):
you get into it, you talk aboutit and then you build them back
up and then say, hey, I'm alsogoing to use this with the group
so that we don't have thisissue again.
Right, that's good.
And then you kind of lead intothat yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, it's so important the clarity that's
probably my biggest deal ofhaving problems with, of being
going through and managingpeople and helping employees and
anything else that I'm prettyquiet.
It starts out at a lower leveland it's like no, let's do
better, let's do this, let's dothat, let's do this, let's do
that until it's finally to theend and I want to take you and
throw you off the top of thebuilding because it finally hits
full throttle and they're likewhoa, he's kind of serious, we

(51:16):
must have done something badwhich works out good.
Because whenever I'm seriousand people are like, oh, we
screwed up, this is not good,yeah, and I've learned to dial
that in a little bit more soit'll come on.
Uh, not like a full-blownsupercharger that you just hit
your nitrous wide open that iteases into.
But it's so important to do thatbecause your team, the ones

(51:40):
that give you backlash oranything else, they're your
employees that need to be movedon with.
The ones that take correctionstep back and they come back.
They're going to come backstronger, they're going to work
harder.
Your team's going to be closer.
So don't be so concerned about.
Hey, I'm over direct, I'm overclear with this whole situation

(52:04):
and I won't like it because wewon't mesh as well together.
We won't well, it's nodifferent than working out
together.
Being together during thatwhole time, you just get
stronger and you work better.
Whenever the fast pace reallycomes on, whenever all the
customers show up, whenever thebad situation happens, they're
the team that you want to havein your back pocket, because

(52:26):
it's going to work really good,because you've made the reps and
worked through it there.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
You have.
I want to point something outhere that you do have to
identify through all this, andit's your leadership and your
personality.
Okay, because you can't besomebody you're not.
I'm going to use myself as anexample here, after I use Taylor
.
So Taylor talked about hispersonality, as you know, very
back off.
Hey, let me help you, let mehelp you, what can I do for you?

(52:51):
And then wham Okay, what can Ido for you?
And then wham Okay.
And then you take Shelby, andShelby, naturally, is a better
story joke teller, funny, he cangive people a hard time and
people laugh about it and thisand that.
And then we're, I get labeledas being really serious, so, and

(53:13):
I'll be like, okay, every oncein a while I need to not be so
serious.
And then I'll try to joke withsomebody, and it's like a bomb
went off Because I hear Shelbyjoking with somebody.
I'm like, okay, matt, chill outa little bit, like you've got
to joke just a little bit, andI'll try to joke with them, and

(53:34):
they will take it the wrong wayand again, you're not going to
change that leadership style.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
But how can you adapt to be better with it?
Right, it's one of those things, without trying to show up with
the new trendy stuff, yeah, andyou know, it's no different
than when I drug you guys to gobuy some jordans.
Yeah, right, because selfishlyit's like, hey, I need some
jordans.
Right, you know, like I've beenwearing the same new balance 86
50s to mow my lawn and now I'mwearing them to work and I wear
dress shoes and dress pants,like it's not that serious.

(54:00):
So you guys are like this is so.
And Matt was the worst.
He's like this is so awkwardand it's just like whatever.
And then he was studying them.
He wanted to know the inseamand the bounce and the jump and
the length.
I was like, not that difficult.
Uh, yes, sir, he'll take two ofthose.
And he's like I didn't, Iwouldn't even look at those.

(54:20):
I'm like, yeah, I'm paying forit, let's go.
But then when you showed upwith um, you know they're like
dang tanner, those are cooljordans.
They're like shelby, those aresweet.
And we had never worn jordansbefore.
They were taken so far off like, oh, my matt lewis has on a
pair of jordans and they're noteven tied, you know, and it was

(54:41):
like his kids were like that,like what the heck, dad.
Well, they saw mine first.
The kids did and I was like hasyour dad not shown you his matt
hadn't even taken him out ofhis truck.
Oh you of the box it was justlike.
So that is.
You know, after we had theultimate challenge auction with
service, I was going aroundtalking to people because I like

(55:03):
to joke and be around thepeople, right, and everyone has
a different personality, andJordan was telling me she was
like and she gives me a goodpulse on what people say she's
like oh, oh my gosh, like.
People know that you're likelike fun, this and that and like
exciting, and they know thattaylor's like the laughable one,
this and like.
But people were just like oh mygosh, I didn't realize matt

(55:25):
could be like that.
I was like like what, like,what do you mean?
They're like well, he wasintense and then he was like
wound up and I was like yeah,that yeah that's Matt.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
It's no different than our family.
I'll hear from family.
They'll describe us three and Iknow Matt obviously is brother
and going through everythingelse and we laugh.
I'm like no, he's prettyserious.
I'm like no, he's not.
No, he's not.
You just haven't peeled backthe layers to be able to see.
And it's fun to be able to pourthat into business and be able

(55:57):
to do that, yep.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
So that's you know.
Hey, we're giving you under thehood of like, let's be real.
Like, hey, we're telling youexactly what to do.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
It's not because this is exactly what we do, no,
we're learning it's what we'velearned, you've got to adapt to
your personality, because Ican't be you, you can't be
Taylor.
We can still follow the samepath with our own charisma.
Clarity's still there,expectation's still there.
But you also have to be who youare.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
You do.
You have to be genuine andpeople see that they can see
through it if you're not.
So a couple other notes Toughlove done, right.
Tough love done right, right,you don't have to give them what
they expect, right, hey, thisis this, this needs to be a
split deal.
And they always feel like theyget their split deals, like it's
OK to say no, based on facts.
Right, you need to be direct,you need to be respectful and

(56:50):
you need to have consistentfeedback.
We did this because this.
No, we're not allowing thisbecause of this.
And then you're looking like hey, is that policy still good?
Is it relevant?
Does everyone still feel thesame way?
You're going through thosethings there and then having
systems of accountability.
That shows you care enough tocorrect.

(57:12):
I know, you know that they'renot like hey, don't even bring
that up anymore.
They're not going to listen,there's nothing going to change
there.
They are what they are.
Matt's serious.
Shelby's just going to jokeabout it.
Taylor will listen to it, andthen he does what he does.
You know, yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
So you have to understand that systems of
accountability that show youcare enough to correct.
Diving into that I not tocorrect that's it dive into that
?
I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna changethis up a little bit, but of
you know tough conversations,tough calls, this is for both
y'all to answer and go throughwhat's something you've had
great success with, of goingthrough there, so of a situation
that you ultimately didn't wantto do but then had had great

(57:55):
results with it, or somethinggood that turned out from it.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
I would say with that and it's double-edged.
Like you said, it was one ofthe hardest calls I had to make
but then it turned into success.
And it's when you have to partways with a top performer.
And I can remember early in mycareer and it was a really tough
one because it was one of thefirst times I did this when I
was a sales manager and I had topart ways with our top

(58:20):
performer that was a salesperson.
I had inherited him on the team.
He had some really bad habits,was always pouring into others,
sold a lot of cars, you know,didn't do anything ethically
wrong, but just didn't lift upthe culture.
And he had a cost list on allthe vehicles and he was the only
one that had an office upstairsand he, honestly, he had sold

(58:43):
cars for longer than I was oldat that point, you know.
But it was just holding thewhole team back from elevating
up.
Once we parted ways, I didn'tinstantly have somebody step
into his shoes or his production, but the whole team stepped up,
which equaled an overall biggerresult.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Yeah, so I'm gonna flip that a little bit of a
tough call making in leadership.
At this point.
I was not in leadership, I wasat the receiving side of this
tough call.
And it's funny because now,like nobody died, not the end of
the world, Nobody got fired,but I use it constantly to use,

(59:23):
for example, but in 2000, Idon't know, let's just call it
2010, during the summers of mycollege I would come back and
work in the dealership.
I worked in parts, worked inservice, and then it was like
hey, it's your time to work insales.
Matt was the general manager atthe time.
I was in college, just, youknow, respectable kid, but a kid

(59:45):
that was just being a kid.
My office was over by the airconditioner.
There was a half of a deskfacing the wall.
You know, like dealer kid justgetting the corner office with a
window.
It was not and it was becauseit was all that was available
right.
But there was a filing cabinet,my desk, the air conditioning

(01:00:07):
and then the straight up thestairs.
Like you had to go around andeveryone used these stairs to go
up to a filing house.
And so Matt puts me here.
I've only got three months tosell.
So it's not like, hey, let'sslowly onboard, you get you
trained.
It's like, hey, look, you needto get out there and sell as
much as you can.
I'm like, all right, solid,let's go.
I've never sold cars for aliving, sure thing.
And then the manager's like,hey, just tell me, you're the

(01:00:30):
owner's son.
Like they need to help you out.
It's like that's gonna go gold.
And I'm not.
I'm not that outward of aperson, I'm not like, hey, I'm
the owner's son, help me out.
I'll be like, hey, what's yourname, son?
I'm like, yeah, my name's steve, and I'm just here to help you.
So the old general manager'soffice matt's office at the time
had a window over the showroomand a window over the uh,
parking lot and I remember goingout and talking to the customer

(01:00:53):
.
I don't remember Jack, aboutthe customer or the deal, but I
remember talking to the customerand then I remember sitting
down.
I think I had a cell phone thistime I don't really remember,
but I remember Matt calling mesome way or another calls me up
to his office.
Now I remember theconversations, even brother to
brother.
Back then a conversationgenerally was not a good one.
Yeah Right, he's like, hey,come in here, close the door.

(01:01:15):
And I was like, okay, week twodoing this.
He's like, hey, who are youtalking to out there?
I was like, oh, that's robert.
He's like, okay, what's robertdoing?
It's like, oh, he's justlooking, he's gonna talk to his
wife.
I don't know, you know just whateveryone says.
He's like, okay, did you tellyour manager?
It's like I told him after theyleft.
He's like well, did you not getyour manager so they could talk

(01:01:37):
to him.
He's like no, why would I dothat, you know?
And he he was like hey, and heused this as a you know, as a
segue, without saying you'refired, get the heck out of here.
He was like I need you to bevery clear in understanding this
, that this is what I teach theteam and if I haven't told you

(01:02:00):
yet, I'm telling you now.
Your responsibility is to servethe customer at the highest
level.
But if you cannot transact withthat customer, you need to get
them TO a turnover so they canintroduce to the manager before
they leave.
And our policy is if you don'tdo that, you'll be written up
and then, if you continue to dothat, you'll be relieved of your
job.
I was like aye, aye, captain,good to see you.

(01:02:21):
Brother, I'm gonna get back towork right, not fun on him, I
can tell you, sitting in hisseat.
No, not fun to do it right onmy seat.
I'm like screw you dude.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
I don't even have to work here.
What am I?

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
like what am I doing?
Right, I'm in college, I'm justthinking if I can go drink or
hang out on a boat somewhere.
But here I am 30, I'm over hereby the fine cabinet, and so now
I get to use that as aconversation, teaching managers
or sales people that I realizelike on sat.
I'm like hey, come here, can Iexplain something to you?

(01:02:55):
My older brother had thisconversation with me, and if he
had it with me, don't you thinkthat it makes sense for you to
understand that as well?
And they're like he did that toyou.
I was like yeah, he told me ifI did not do that, he was going
to fire me.
Yeah, and they're like huh.
I was like so is there anyreason that you can't allow us
to talk to the customer?

(01:03:15):
They're like no, I guess I cando that.
I was like okay, perfect, ifyou have any questions, let me
know.
If you need help of figuringout that word track to get that
done, let me know.
But it's real.

(01:03:36):
So that was you know I was wantto do this, but I don't want to
because then the sales managerslike, if you didn't do that one,
they weren't going to do itbecause I was who I was right,
they weren't touching me with a10-foot pole for whatever reason
.
Yeah, but that was a monumentalmoment there of just having
that tough conversation yeah,that was huge.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
You know, growing up through family or anything else.
Matt's had several of thoseconversations.
He's got to be dad in thesituation because dad directed
us but uh, he's been the onethat's taught us everything
that's come up to the situation.
So I had several of those ofnot a whole lot was said, but
it's like, come here in myoffice and it's not know, here
we go again and screw it up.

(01:04:16):
Okay, I need to fix it, butit's for the better and
obviously appreciate that.
But no of having um workersthat you work with or managers
or brothers.
In our cases it's worked sowell because we work well as
brothers.
But there's been clearexpectations of like, hey, I've

(01:04:36):
got to listen, I've got to learneverything else there.
So that's been really goodthroughout the years.
But great conversation today, alot of information that was
good, going over, leading withclarity when empathy turns into
enabling and making sure.
Don't avoid that conflict.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
And stop being so nice.
Stop being so nice.
Be clear, be kind, but don't beso nice.
There's a difference betweenkindness and niceness.
Be kind, people will respectyou.
Episode 48, we broke it down.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Absolutely.
Check us out onlewissuperstorecom and always on
crossroadsconversationpodcastcom.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to give it a like, share
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(01:05:32):
that you have.
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