Mending the Broken Team

Team cohesion, sounds easy to create, right? Yet, if it were easy, it wouldn't be one of the greatest challenges for car dealers cross functioning departments and managers I coach across the country! In our Car Motivators Inspired Satisfaction(tm) survey, team cohesion problems are the #2 cultural challenge of all time. (Only second to having a lack of career growth opportunity, but I tackle that in another article HERE)

After serving on special ops teams for over two years in combat, and leading top-producing sales teams for over a decade, I learned a little about team unity. Then having led both a sales and account executive team as a C-suite level executive of a CRM software company, I learned a lot more. Now, after facilitating hundreds of coaching conversations with executives to mend broken sales teams, I want to help you improve your team cohesion by challenging you with five coaching questions and giving you some simple actionable items that can help you mend your broken team.

How is being the perfect manager, salesperson, or employee who can do no wrong, damaging your reputation and eroding your team?

Trust is the foundation of success for any team and business. Some of the more insidious ways of eroding trust are when you aren't open to criticism, have all the answers, hide from feedback, and avoid being coached because of ego. No one on this planet is perfect and everyone knows this, thus when you try to be perfect, you may be perceived as a liar.

Instead, honor your humanity, give yourself a chance for improvement, and strengthen the foundation of trust among your team by doing the following:

1. Ask others where you can improve!
2. Admit your mistakes and share how you learned from them.
3. Apologize when you know you've wronged someone, even if they didn't approach you about it.
4. After you improve from someone's feedback, thank them for helping you!
5. When you don't know the answer, admit it, and commit to learning the answer, then check back in with them later to share what you learned.

Where are your career blind spot detectors?

We all have those pesky blind spots, and we all know what happens if we change lanes at 80 MPH on the highway with someone in our blind spot... We crash! Candid, direct, positive, impactful communication is the only blind spot detector for your career. 

Without candor, your best blind spot detectors (your co-workers/people) can't/won't save you! To protect your ass(ets) and surround yourself with people who will protect you, take the following actions:

1. Tell everyone you want your blind spots presented to you asap!
2. Give them instructions on how they can share them positively and constructively.
3. Be willing to grow by addressing the blind spots or risk losing the value of approaching you when you aren't willing to change.

This process will earn trust, which will help you achieve the next level of team cohesion!

How can you win the game if you don't know the rules?

After conducting thousands of coaching conversations, I've found most people want to exceed expectations, and everyone wants MORE of something! More time off, more money, more vacations, more financial stability, more job security, more confidence, more trust from leaders...etc. A big reason they aren't getting more of what they want is because of unknown expectations.

Now that you're communicating effectively because of our last coaching question around candor, it's time to put that communication to good use.

1. Share with your employee or manager precisely what it takes to get what THEY want! 
2. Create an airtight plan by asking, "How will you get that done? What will you have to do? When will you get started? How can I support you?" (If the plan won't work, be direct with your newly found candor and address it now)
3. Give recognition when people exceed these expectations to reinforce the positive and ensure they know WHY they succeeded!

Give me the rules to the game, and I will find a way to win every time!

When did your accountability go bad?

People fear the word accountability like its the coronavirus. We say that "A" word and think of stressful conversations, demotions, docked wages, write-ups, PIP's, and termination... In reality, accountability isn't something negative you do to someone (or that someone does to you) at all!

Change your lens, and you change your reality. What if you look at accountability as a way to increase your standards on yourself? People who want growth value accountability!

1. Ask for accountability from your peers, your manager, your coach, and anyone else who is willing to make you better.
2. Schedule check-ins on specific action items to ensure everyone's getting it done.
3. Give yourself and other consequences for failing! It doesn't have to be ruthless, I have one dealership that does push-ups when they are late or when they forget their culture card (Not my idea for the record even though I am ex-army).

If someone holds you to a high standard, it's because of the VALUE YOU! If you have a mindset of accountability, it's because you VALUE YOURSELF! I think you deserve more, so adopt that accountability mindset.

You're not an ostrich, so why are you burying your head in the sand?

When you avoid dealing with bad results, it doesn't make them go away. If ONLY it were that easy! The three E's will eat away at your profit and success: Ego, Extrospection, and Excuses. Does it sting to fail? Absolutely. Does failure teach us our most valuable lessons and help us get a better result next time? ONLY under one condition, you pull your head out of the sand and face the music.

Instead of puffing out your chest and getting defensive, blaming others, and complaining about your environment for low results, try this instead:

1. Objectively look at your results and ask yourself, what could I do more of, and less of to get a better result next time?
2. How can you do what you did even better?
3. If you cant answer the questions above, who will you reach out to and share your undesired results with that can/will help you?

Car Dealerships across the country are getting massive results through their people by building #winningcultures with the Car Motivators Inspired Satisfaction survey. We can help you predict and prevent employee turnover and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in new hire profit loss each year with Car Motivators D.R.I.V.E.C3(tm) coaching. Call 1-888-921-0221 or book a FREE 30-minute strategy call HERE and we can determine if a cultural assessment could mend your team.

Sincerely,

Sean Kelley

#thecarbizcoach