Trapp on Embracing Change: Leadership Tips for Navigating Daily Industry Shifts

Let’s face it: our industry encounters change daily. The 30+ manufacturers come out with new makes and models seemingly daily with an ever-expanding bouquet of safety and comfort features. To support these vehicle repairs, we see new tools and software and other resources to support our industry. Further, the payers instigate changes in their policies and tools used, seemingly without regard for the impact on the repairer. In short, change is constant and can be frustrating. How do we lead in the face of this ever-occurring change? 

Emotional reaction 

When faced with the change, we may initially have an emotional reaction asking yourself, why do we need this? What is the motivation of the company to ask us to make this change? This emotional reaction is normal, but it is important to not overreact and allow those emotions to cause us to lose relationships or partnerships when the change isn’t as impactful as your initial reaction had you think. 

It may be helpful to step back and say, why do you think this change is being asked of me? If the answer has a logical answer, the process of accepting the change may be easier. Often, for example, changing to a new parts procurement platform when you have just mastered another can be frustrating.  

As the leader, it is OK to allow yourself and your team to share their frustration with a forced change. Let them express it openly, so they feel heard and understood. Then, transition to deciding how you will respond as a team. 

Play the long game 

As a leader, you must periodically pause on these requests for change and determine if the benefit of the long-term relationship with the vendor, vehicle manufacturer, or partner is worth the effort of implementing this seemingly frustrating change. If we adopt this new tool or process, will we be able to maintain or grow our relationship with this organization? Is it worth the short-term emotional win of telling them “No way” to the change, versus the loss of business or relationship going forward? We have to weigh the value with logic and less emotion to better enable a solid decision to be made. 

They are watching you as the leader 

How you respond to these change requests matters to your coworkers as they also struggle to accept them. If they see you not listening to the impact on them for the change, they will see you as a sellout, and they may lose some respect for you. If they see you as being stubborn and unwilling to consider the long-term impact, they again will lose respect for you when the business struggles as you “stand your ground” on a hill that may not be that crucial to defend. 

In short, they need you to lead. Let’s talk about this change. What is your initial reaction? Often, using “feel, felt and found” can really help here. I know how you feel about this change; it will be frustrating to (_____), but this may be temporary or may not have a huge impact. We felt that way when we were asked to (___), and we found that turned out to be less of an issue than we thought. 

They want to be part of how this change is dealt with within the scheme of the shop workflow and how it impacts their daily lives. Take a minute to actively listen to better understand them, so if you decide to move forward they at least feel you listened to the impact on them and their productivity. 

Use some caution here; you’d better be genuine in your desire to listen to their concerns. I like to use a flip chart and write down all their concerns (regardless of if valid) to ensure they know we are truly listening. Then openly discuss their concerns and allow some emotion, but eventually lead the discussion to the logic of whether you will embrace the change. 

The benefit of routine staff meetings/continuous improvement meetings 

If your shop doesn’t routinely have these meetings scheduled, I strongly encourage you to do so. They provide a regular forum to discuss the various changes we encounter.

For me, it is important to establish the continuity of discussing the topics from past meetings and the impact those changes are having. This gives the staff a chance to reflect on the relative impact of past changes and to discuss any adaptations which may be needed to better integrate the change into the day to day processes. Then, open the discussion on any additional changes they may be encountering. The key is to get the team to keep an open mind to those changes.  

Many shops have periodic staff meetings, but does your company culture encourage their frank feedback during these meetings? Or have you turned them into a dictation of what you want to see going forward? I guarantee if you get their buy-in for ideas/changes, your chances of implementing any change or IMPROVEMENT are greatly improved! 

Use the Standard Continuous Improvement Process once you decide to move forward 

Once we get comfortable that we will be trying to integrate the change in our process, we can use the traditional continuous improvement model: 

• Measure how we are currently performing with a KPI and speculate how this change will affect the KPI moving forward. This allows you to “dollarize” the potential benefits or to measure the potential costs / expenses which may be incurred to make an ROI decision. 

• Discover the changed process and compare it to the current process to discuss the impact the change will have on day-to-day operations and roles 

• Ask the team to “try it” and provide feedback on their impression and then brainstorm tweaks to make the change as positive as you can 

• Once you have tried it and tweaked the processes, it can be valuable to formalize the changes in your SOP 

• Then, long-term, you maintain the updated process to sustain the relationship with the partner 

Don’t forget to measure the long-term impact. That may be in time spent by the staff or KPI like gross profit. You need to keep an open mind and let data or logic prevail. In some cases, we may have underestimated the negative impact and have to go back to the partner and ask for concessions to keep following their changed process. 

Let’s use a real-life example 

To avoid picking on a specific partner who is initiating a change, I will use the example of implementing the CCC AI estimating tool called Jumpstart.  

The initial emotional reaction has generally been, “I don’t really find any value in doing this,” and “It will take extra work to get the customer to send images of their vehicles.” Then, they aren’t sure if an 82-85% accurate estimate really adds any value. “We are too busy to do this process,” or, “Who has time to do this on top of our workload today.” 

As we stated earlier, you need to stop and listen to these concerns. 

After you have allowed them to discuss their initial reaction and they agree there may be some logic to considering this change, it is time to switch to, “OK, let’s try this new tool. Who is willing to give it a shot? The key here is to see if you can get a volunteer. Forcing someone to try it may lead to poor results. 

At the next staff / continuous improvement meeting, our next step after they try it would be to hear what they learned from it and to brainstorm how we might integrate this so it adds value for us. It may be helpful to pre-plan some questions soliciting their feedback and write them on the flip chart in advance to stimulate conversation: 

• As you explain the AI estimating process, was the customer impressed that we have access to AI estimating to save time and get more accurate inspections to pre-order critical parts before drop-off? 

• Because the customer sent us images, do you feel they are more committed to come in for the “advanced inspection?” 

• Let’s try it and see if it does save you time writing the initial sheet. Assuming it does, share that feedback. 

• How did having an AI estimate advance play with the customer when they come for the “advanced inspection?” Were they impressed? 

This step of, “Let’s try it and come back to brainstorm what we found” is super important to build a culture of open communication and flexibility. 

Then, we can discuss how to formalize this new process. To help with this implementation with my MSO clients who cannot go through the entire continuous improvement process, I wrote an “Enhanced Advisory Selling” course, which offers roleplays to get the CSR and estimator comfortable introducing and implementing this idea in their shops. This gives them a chance to have a discussion as to what, why, the benefit and then practice encouraging them to try it themselves for each location. 

The result: our closing ratio went from 59% to 69% on all jobs and from 33% to 55% on customer-paid jobs! So, the change was worth the effort! 

Conclusion 

Nobody openly asks for changes that aren’t seen as immediate improvements. We as leaders need to be open to actively listen to the emotional reaction to the change and its possible impact. We have to then refocus on the why or the logic of the ROI for implementing the change. Then possibly “try-it” to see the actual impact and then openly brainstorm what was learned and how we can adapt our processes to work with the change. Then long-term, we formalize the change and measure its true impact to make sure the view is worth the climb! Change is coming daily; how will you adapt to it? 

Editor’s note: This article concludes the series Steve Trapp began with FenderBender two years ago. We are grateful to him for sharing his expertise. To read his previous articles, go to fenderbender.com/33016895.