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Making Time Travel Work

“So many people are taught that it's OK to quit, and my dad said to me once you quit, you'll never quit quitting,” Hotchkiss says. “... the grass isn’t greener on the other side. Why don’t you water your own lawn?”

Cialella sees leadership as a continuous learning process. He has taken what he learned along the way and implemented it, but he hasn’t closed the door to improvement. Ensuring that his feet are on the ground at Victory Lane locations allows him to see the full picture.

“It’s a constant game of learning. You can’t learn from our corporate offices here, we learn very little (when we’re) looking through reports and what have you,” Cialella says. “The truth into what’s going on in our business is really in the stores and in our locations.”

Cialella makes a conscious effort to be where the action is, and where he claims the greatest opportunities to learn can be found.

“You will find me more often than not in in stores, under cars changing oil (and) counting inventory...because I’m trying to understand (and I’m) trying to put myself in the shoes of the manager (and) in the shoes of the tech and then I learn from that,” Cialella says.

The transition from the corporate insurance world to the automotive aftermarket was another learning experience for Cialella, but it also served as a test of his transferrable skills. Cialella says one significant change that he noticed was the makeup of the workforce itself.

The automotive industry attracts a younger and more diverse group than he had previously seen in the corporate sector. Cialella says it was important to him that he understood the best way to relate to these employees and how he could best support and manage them.

“We implemented a lot of technology and process improvements here,” Cialella says. “We use an online app to do scheduling so that every employee can have the schedules on their phones, they can make changes, they can request time off (and) they can change their shifts. We found that works a lot better than hanging a paper schedule on the wall like it’s circa 1990.”

Meeting his employees where they are and recognizing their distinct needs has proven to be an effective strategy for Cialella. It allows his business to stay current and keeps his team productive.

“Your presence there, being there (and) being in the business, leading your employees and teaching your employees...being that example is really, in my opinion, one of the keys to success,” Cialella says.

Aim for More

A crucial component of leadership is the ability to remain flexible. The automotive world has been in a near constant state of change throughout recent years, and that is not slowing down anytime soon. Keeping things status quo may not cut it, and leaders need to be able to persevere despite any challenges or changes they may face.

Hotchkiss is no stranger to this kind of a itude. He points to one memory from his life that involved a game of high school football that resulted in him changing his perspective. Hotchkiss says he had played the best game of his life. Despite his team’s efforts, they lost the game. He was emotional and exhausted, but the support of his mother made all the difference.

“Her only words out of her mouth were ‘You can do anything you put your mind to,’” Hotchkiss says. “That’s all she said, and then she hugged me.”

The memory sticks with Hotchkiss and serves as a reminder to never give up. His mother, who has sadly died since the time of that conversation, offered him words of encouragement that still influence him to this day.

It’s an approach that he tries to take when parenting his own young son, and he sees its impact in a professional environment as well. Overall, Hotchkiss believes that all leaders can benefit from this idea of continuous improvement.

“They’ve got to work on themselves,” Hotchkiss says. “They think because they’re the boss, that’s the way it has to be or should be. But they don’t work on themselves.”

Hotchkiss says doing this type of internal reflection can offer insight into the elements of a leadership approach that may need work.

“If they can’t look at themselves in the mirror and see the faults, then they’re in trouble,” Hotchkiss says.

In a similar vein, Cialella says taking inventory of an organization’s structure by looking at it objectively is a surefire way to identify any outstanding needs.

Staying in line with Cialella’s previous description of leadership as a constant game of keeping oneself educated, seeking out the changes that need to be made—instead of shying away from them —becomes a key step toward learning and growing.

“You have to sometimes take a step back and look at your look at your organization, whether it's your shop or your company or whatever,” Cialella says. “You need to have that perspective [to] almost look from the outside in so that you can see things.”

From Cialella’s perspective, it is about more than being a good leader. It is about continuing with that leadership to effect positive change. Cialella says it will make a significant difference in the long run.

“You hear a lot of people say, ‘You need to set an example.’ I think you need to be the example. You need to live it,” Cialella says. “If you show up to your business and you’re in and out in one hour and then your employees never see you, I will almost guarantee that business is not doing as well as it could be.”