I recently spent some time talking to a friend who is a middle manager at a midsize luxury car dealership. It was brought to my attention through our conversation that some dynamics within your dealership are not working as they should and this has been stifling productivity. For example; salespeople bring you deals where paperwork is not completed or required information, such as a driver’s license, is missing from the file.

I asked the question, “Who holds these people accountable?” Well, the amazing thing is that, like most dealerships, managers are so busy that they don’t have accountability measures in place to counter this persistent problem. Managers are often so busy putting out fires because of the very things that require accountability in the first place.

Our conversation slowly gravitated to the service department and focused on how that department can’t meet the needs of the sales department. New and used car inspections are being neglected and not considered a priority. This type of damaging scenario needs to be stopped immediately by the management team as a collective before moving forward in a positive and productive manner. Considering that the sales department is the best customer in the service department and that potential customers who want to buy a vehicle are the bread and butter of every person employed at the dealership, you would think that the problems would be solved immediately.

I asked the question, why were the same problems repetitive and why did they keep appearing month after month constantly affecting this dealer? The response I received shocked me. Senior management had a meeting and brought up items as described above, including other issues such as low CSI and part obsolescence issues. Unfortunately, some of the middle managers pointed fingers, but didn’t roll up their sleeves and find out WHY certain problems were occurring. It turns out that these middle managers are also not held to a high enough standard for employees below them to meet any sense of the standards, and middle managers are not empowered to make strategic accountability decisions.

I truly believe that all of the items that we discussed that night can be rectified within a two week period if upper management would first hold middle managers accountable by providing a strict outline of WHAT needs to be done WITHIN WHAT time frame. The second step is to empower senior managers to hold their subordinates accountable in the same way. Unfortunately, top management at this dealership makes all the decisions and all the responsibility rests with that position, nothing will change until this particular manager relinquishes some measure of control to middle managers.

Meetings won’t do any good until middle managers take responsibility for making decisions and holding their departments accountable at all levels. I think you shouldn’t emulate your boss to become him, I think you should be yourself and make the right decisions for your department, be responsible with the business and let that principle guide you.

Too many people try to be someone else, just be yourself and bring that quality to work with you every day. Without a doubt, we all have leaders that we envy and would like to be more like them, practice the art of good judgment and good decision making and more leaders will envy you and want to be you.

In this particular case, if I were the sales manager or the service manager, I would have a meeting with my entire team to outline where the issues were, what we were going to do, and what was expected of each team member.

Accountability means nothing unless you follow through on your outlined list of consequences. Again, inspect what you expect! If you tell every one of your vendors, “if a file gets to the desk without the necessary required documentation, it will be written,” you better make sure you follow through on that threat! Once management writes to a few people, the message will have been sent and your problems will quickly go away. Put your money where your mouth is! Grab the bull by the horns and make good things happen, why wait for someone else to start the ball rolling? We as managers must be willing to do what is right for the business, the customers and the employees who are doing it right. Bring passion and a desire to bring about positive change in your department every day.

I bought an online audio book called Crush it by Gary Vanerchuk, had the pleasure of watching some of Gary’s online videos and have included one that fits the theme be yourself at work and make good things happen define who you are and you make correct and fair decisions using your own DNA. To view Gary’s video, click on the link box to the right titled Execute on being you.

Too many middle managers get caught up in the rut of playing follow-up. Don’t get me wrong here, we all have to follow our managers, when business gets bogged down, mix it up, try to change a few things on your own and see if it works. You will never know how great you or the business can be unless you try. Again, to make things happen, sometimes you need to grab the bull by the horns and ask for forgiveness later instead of asking for permission to promote positive change today. Change is underway, get on with it!

David