Marinucci: Self-awareness fuels self-improvement

Some automotive professionals may improve their careers and their work environment with a keener awareness of their own behavior.

Looking in the mirror and candidly appraising yourself is not the easiest thing to do, but simply recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses fosters the self-awareness needed to get along with others.

Or, at the very least, increased self-awareness may help you deal with difficult employees and testy customers more successfully that you have in the past. Identifying and working on those weaknesses may soften these otherwise brittle relationships.

Smoothing sharp edges from personal encounters — with customers up front or with technicians back in the bays — has a marvelous way of reducing stress and tension. Minimizing needless stress and tension creates a calmer, friendlier business atmosphere.

A warmer work environment enhances rather than hampers overall productivity. Best of all, this approach demands willpower instead of money.

Small change, big impact

According to savvy sources, improving seemingly small things earns them more respect and trust. (I believe that respect and trust go hand-in-hand with each other; these traits are synonymous with successful leadership.)

For example, owners and managers have told me how much people noticed seemingly small changes, such as maintaining eye contact during each and every conversation. Both employees and customers sensed more sincerity when the boss focused intently on them and their problems.

Exercising extra patience instead of cutting someone off in mid-sentence also telegraphs concern and openness. Rather than judging quickly, keep quiet until the other person has expressed their point(s).

Allowing an unhappy employee or customer to vent their frustrations tends to lower their blood pressure and reduce the risk of a longer, more heated encounter. More often than not, patience wins the day — especially with long-winded complainants.

What's more, these sources stressed that consumers associate traits such as concern and openness with personal service.

As I have stated in many previous columns, personal service is one of the hallmarks of successful retail businesses.

Like bodies repel

When people say a person has gravitas, they are referring to characteristics such as dignity, earnestness and seriousness. To put it another way, the kind of person who says what they mean and means what they say.

Effective leaders — including bosses of tire dealerships and auto repair shops — usually display gravitas to employees and customers alike. Although these owners and managers are amiable, they also say what they mean and mean what they say.

Based on my field experience reporting on the auto service industry, a trait such as self-awareness fuels other characteristics, such as dignity and earnestness. And you guessed it — gravitas grows from it, too.

Within any organization, effective leaders must recognize and address all sorts of bad behavior. Self-awareness and gravitas affect a boss' ability to identify and correct undesirable conduct or manners.

For example, some talented employees lapse into a routine of being chronically late for work. Sadly, the owner or manager of the business also may struggle to show up on time — forget about setting a good example by arriving early every day.

To paraphrase the scientific lingo, we have two "like" bodies here because both people are struggling to arrive on time. Scientists say that opposites attract each other whereas likes repel each other.

Although we are discussing human emotions instead of electrically charged particles, the results may be similar — if not the same.

For example, the boss tries to discipline a chronically late worker when his own behavior is nearly as bad as the employee's. Not surprisingly, these people clash over "like" behavior because likes repel each other.

The employee cries foul because the boss basically said, "do as I say, not as I do." Because he is oblivious to his own bad behavior, the boss does not understand what spawned the argument.

Likewise, the worker's outburst and blatant disrespect rankles him. Worse yet, the clash causes ongoing bad blood between manager and employee.

In many instances, the entire crew heard or witnessed the dispute because the dealership or shop is not that large. Co-workers formed opinions about this heated exchange.

Simply put, they took sides on the dispute and taking sides tends to divide a crew rather than strengthen bonds among the workers. During my travels, I have visited and worked in shops where these emotions have festered for a long time afterward.

I have encountered managers who outright overlook certain employee offenses because they behave the same way. Although they act like a hypocrite, they cannot stand the thought of an underling calling them one.

Candor, gravitas

I have witnessed situations in which a key worker lapses into lateness and basically ignores the negative impact on co-workers. For example, work often backs up because the late guy happens to be the top diagnostician or the lead transmission rebuilder.

The backlog brews tension among other crew members because it needlessly disrupts their schedules and job assignments. I recall times when techs said they could not decide who they disrespect more — the late guy or the manager who allowed him to get away with it.

A truly self-aware manager would confer with the top tech privately and firmly restate responsibilities: Without fail, the fellow must clock in by a certain time every morning and he is under a written probation for lateness.

As soon as he states those facts, the manager guarantees that henceforth, he will set the example by opening up every morning — well ahead of the crew.

Finally, the manager personally updates each crew member about those changes. Thereafter, workers know he says what he means and he means what he says — period.