Blackburn OEM Wheel Solutions

Next Article

Sherwin-Williams

REACH HIGHER WHEN HIRING

HOW TO REGAIN FOCUS AND HIRE GREAT MANAGERS

By Daniel Pearson

One of the most important decisions a business owner will ever make is who he or she hires as the second-in-command. A Gallup study found that companies “fail to choose the right candidate with the right talent 82 percent of the time.” Making matters worse, the study says just one in 10 people have a flair for any kind of management role, and two in 10 exhibit true managerial talent.

Those are disheartening finds for business owners, and they cast a spotlight right onto the often difficult decision-making process owners go through trying to find that No. 2 who is able to take on a lot of the day-to-day work so they can focus on big-picture projects. And clearly, it’s not always an easy position to define or train someone to do.

Lee Rush, manager of business consulting services for SherwinWilliams Automotive Finishes, spent more than 20 years managing multi-store operations in the body shop industry. He says the roles and responsibilities of an operations manager should be hands-on, meaning they are responsible for driving the vision that’s necessary to ensure the company has the proper operational and administrative controls and people in place to effectively grow the company.

“Finding great managers is one of the challenges in the automotive industry,” Rush says. “If you really step back and think about it, many body shops do not have a written plan to share with their staff. That makes no sense to me.

“Outside the collision world, it makes no sense to other businesses to not have some sort of business plan or operational plan, which drives the focus of resources, people, and actions to meet desired outcomes in sales, profitability, customer satisfaction—whatever you identify as most important. Without a written plan how can you possibly begin to groom someone intuitively? You can’t.”

The Dos and Don’ts Many body shop owners manage their business naturally, keeping everything in their head (a bad habit in the industry, Rush says) and when the time comes to hire a No. 2, they expect that person to step onsite and be capable and confident enough to perform all of the functions that they developed over 25 years. It’s an unrealistic expectation without an operations plan.

“Without one, you won’t be successful at developing and hiring a No. 2 who succeeds, the caveat being you could get lucky and stumble onto someone who intuitively is an outstanding leader and has the ability to manage day-to-day operations, train employees, produce budgets, et cetera.,” Rush says. But as the Gallup study shows, that’s remotely likely at best.

Beyond creating an operations plan, finding a talented right-hand person is a tricky task, and it should be time-consuming. It takes patience and determination and the end result shouldn’t be born from luck.

Mistakes many owners make when searching for that perfect No. 2 include: • Hiring someone you feel like you could hang out with or who is a good “cultural fit.” • Believing your new hire alone will improve your company’s performance or solve nagging operational issues. • Promoting from within just because an employee has been with you a long time or demonstrated loyalty. • Starting the hiring process only when you have an immediate need. • Never establishing a formal hiring process and “winging it” during interviews. • Rush says there are three principles every business owner should follow that will help him or her find the right candidate when searching for a second in command.

Focusing on Accountability Rush says that the first step for candidate interviews is to seek someone who can hold others accountable. He views this as a key skill that often goes unnoticed at the interview and hiring stages.

“When I talk about holding others accountable, I mean professionally and respectfully, not walking out on the floor and yelling and cussing, which unfortunately are the traditional methods many shop owners use for managing people,” he says.

It’s one thing for an owner to run one store and hold 15 employees accountable when he or she is present in that shop every day, constantly adjusting and reacting to every situation. Once a No. 2 is hired, that shouldn’t be the case. To keep your manager accountable in your absence, define what he or she will be accountable for and establish clear goals to be met with daily, weekly, monthly, or as-needed benchmarks.

And recognizing and celebrating progress should be a priority.

A Clear Interviewing Process Rush says many body shop owners are car people in the car business, and too often the people part of the overall equation comes second. It’s crucial to be interested in the kind of person someone is—how they think, feel, and behave—which should indicate his or her true talent even better than what skills show on paper.

The interviewing process should be threefold, which provides layers of protection to ensure you don’t hire the wrong person—a catastrophic mistake from which some businesses never recover.

“The first interview is a 30,000-foot overview where you’re trying to sell them on the opportunity,” Rush says. “The second interview gives you a better feel for who they are. In the third interview, you start drilling down into some hard questions and start pressing once you’re certain they are interested.”