200 - Live with Wayne Marshall & Lucas Underwood: Culture and Hard Conversations
April 14, 2026 - 00:57:08
This conversation explores the challenges business owners face when leadership culture and direction are unclear. It shows how a lack of vision and poor communication can make problems feel overwhelming. Real examples highlight how integrity accountability and honesty help overcome major setbacks. The discussion stresses the need for a clear destination and consistent leadership by example. It also explains how avoiding hard conversations creates bigger issues over time. Key takeaways include breaking goals into steps reducing noise and building a team aligned with the vision. Strong leadership is the foundation for long term success.
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
Wayne Marshall, CEO & Industry Coach
[00:00:00] – Wayne shares his path to leading the institute and driving change
[00:02:45] – A shop owner admits fear of failure and constant burnout
[00:04:00] – Most problems come from weak leadership and no clear direction
[00:05:30] – Wayne loses a million dollars but chooses integrity over quitting
[00:07:30] – Truth and honesty build lasting trust with everyone
[00:10:00] – Reverse engineering goals makes big problems easier to solve
[00:12:30] – Culture is built by actions not words
[00:14:00] – Success comes from team behavior not strategy
[00:20:00] – Avoiding conflict leads to confusion and poor results
[00:51:00] – Keeping the wrong people pushes great employees away
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at [email protected], and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
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Episode Transcript Disclaimer
This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at [email protected]. Lucas Underwood: What is up everybody? Lucas Underwood here. I'm here with Wayne Marshall. Wayne was just asking the question, how many profanities can we have in each a MA session? I'm gonna tell you that Cecil usually averages around 10, so as long as you get at least 10, we're in good shape. Wayne, you're the CEO of the institute.
Uh, welcome. Thank you for being here. And I think we should kind of start, first of all, we had planned to go one direction. Something happened last night. Yeah. I'm gonna shift directions on this a little bit. Want to, uh, talk about something that I think is important and, uh, Wayne, I would love for you to introduce yourself.
I know a lot of folks know you, but a lot of folks don't. Would you introduce yourself to the people?
Wayne Marshall: Sure. I'm honored. Hey, first, it's great to be here again, Lucas, we. Always enjoy our conversations, connections with you, David, as we work through many, many things. So, uh, yeah, I've been at the institute, um, I mean, I started off coaching and doing a little bit of other things on the side with them and helping 'em on, you know, bigger leadership things.
And ultimately, uh, was honored to be asked if I would step into the CE role and helping with a lot of transitional things. So I've been in this position for a little over a year now. Uh, we've made a lot of changes within the institute. Some you're aware of some. People in the market are aware of, you know, we did create a holding company, gear Group Holdings.
Uh, we're slowly building and we're gonna have multiple entities underneath that, more announcements to come in the future. It's an exciting time. This industry is doing great things and I'm just honored to be with the institute and helping and contributing to everything we're trying to do to make it a better place, a better industry, just like we say.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. Absolutely. Yes sir. And so, you know, here's the thing is I'm, I'm watching the Institute grow to this group of individuals, right? Yes. Like we talk about our core team all the time, and I'm watching this core team develop in some of the smartest people I've ever met or on this core team. Now, Wayne, you've worked in big business before and you've worked in some big dollar businesses.
And you've told a story in the past about some of the troubles in some of those big dollar businesses in the past and some of the stress and some of that. And, you know, I'm, I'm gonna tell you, I, I've been through struggles here recently. You know, the, the kind of 3:00 AM wake up where you're laying in bed saying, can I get through this?
Is it even possible for me to navigate this? And so we were supposed to be talking about the five Cs today. Okay. We will do an a MA on the five Cs, I promise. We're, it's an important topic. We're gonna cover it, we're gonna cover it in great detail at some point. But last night I had a gentleman reach out.
Now I'd been telling him for a couple days that I was going to call him, and I've been real busy and I hadn't been able to call him. And, and he sends me this message and it kind of struck at my heartstrings and he said, um, I can only meet after about 5 30, 6 o'clock, seven, somewhere around there where I'm finishing up my day in the shop.
And it, it just struck me as odd. That conversation went on a little bit and he said, uh, man, I, I just feel like my shop is going to fail. I, I, I don't think I can step away from the shop, and that is a warning sign. Okay, Wayne, I know you've seen it. I've seen it. Um, yep. If we get to the point with our shop that we can't walk away, we can't step back, we can't take a day off.
We have to stay till seven o'clock at night. We have to come in at 6:00 AM or everything falls apart. Something is very wrong. And chances are it's that we're trying to squeeze this sucker. Like we're trying to get blood from a turnip. We're squeezing so hard, we're causing part of the problems. And so last night I said, you know what?
I'm gonna go ahead and call him. And so I called him. We had a really great conversation and. As we began to talk, I, I just so related to my own personal life in this discussion, because he gives me a list of all the problems. This employee did this, this car did this, this happened, and this employee that used to work here did this, and the previous leadership did this and all of these things.
And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop. And he said, what? I said, you know, my first business coach, I gave him a list of very similar problems and we didn't fix any of them. And he said, what do you mean? Like all of these huge problems I've got going on? And I said, listen, I said, it sounds like we've got a void in leadership.
It sounds like we've gotta void in culture. And that the problem is, is your team doesn't know where you're trying to go and it's really hard for them to follow you somewhere that they don't know where they're going. We don't have a map, we don't have a destination. He began to talk about the fact he has this partner and the partner's kind of disengaged and not really involved, and the money is really falling on his back and, and me and you have had hard conversations about this because you told me a story one time about being in that spot.
And people that you trusted, people that you thought were gonna do a, an amazing job and help you accomplish all the things you wanted to accomplish. It didn't work out that way. Did it? Tell us a little bit.
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. It's, it's, you know, we've all had those. Unfortunate life lessons that we have to learn. And yeah, I mean, it goes back a few, well, more than a few.
It goes back, uh, about a dozen years or more. And, uh, I had a partner. We were rolling. The business was growing and come to find out outside of myself, but in his situation, um, he failed to pay the IRS. On his personal taxes. There was other things that came in and there was some other stuff and, and at the end of the day, he was not gonna be the best partner.
We decided it was best that we separate out. There was litigation, IRS coming, everybody trying to cross sue and do other things, and it was very hard and he ended up costing me about a million dollars. And that's not a hard one to come back from. And you know, as we were a growing business and we were able to recover, we were able to continue to grow.
And before I sold the company and got out, we reached 10 million in revenue. Um, so we, you know, we ended up being very successful. But that's where it really starts to measure who you are as a person.
Wayne Marshall: Choose to treat others. Uh, you know, we talk about culture as you mentioned a little bit, you talked about that leadership element of, and I always say, you know.
Problems are gonna happen in life. What really defines you as a person is what you choose to do next.
Wayne Marshall: And as the attorneys told me, they, you know, you just need to file bankruptcy. I said, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not going to stick vendors and others with a problem. That is not their problem. It was my problem.
And through hard work, we were able to make everybody whole. I didn't go to any of 'em and ask for discounts. I didn't ask for favors. I only asked for time. And one of the things that I learned from this, as hard as it is, and in some of the conversations when you deal and this comes even when you're dealing with those, talking a little bit about the five Cs, when you get that customer that comes in who's upset and not happy and whatever, I would always tell all our vendors and all our partners that we were working with to help get the company on the right footing.
If anything ever happens this year, you're always gonna hear the truth. You might not like the truth.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: I might not be able to pay you today. I might not be able to do this, but I'm gonna tell you what my plan is. I'm gonna tell you the truth, and I'm gonna tell you how I'm gonna continue to march forward to get us back to the right place.
Wayne Marshall: And I can remember when I was all said and done, one of our vendor partners was out of Ohio. I was at the manufacturing plant and the owner president, CEO came up to me and he goes, you know what? That was really hard. I wondered if I was ever gonna see, and I owed him hundreds of thousands and he said, I really wonder, but you, you did everything you said you're gonna do.
And he complimented me on my credibility and my integrity and at least being honorable. He didn't always like my answers. He didn't always like me when I said, I don't have any money, but I should have this and this. I'll be able to do this and do, and then we do. And it's no different when you deal with people inside.
Your company and be it a your, your team, your coworkers, uh, along with those customers that come in honesty and truthfulness. I mean, it's hard, but it's where we gotta stand.
Wayne Marshall: Amen. And sometimes you got bad parts, sometimes you gotta a guy who didn't do the job right, and you just, you gotta own it. And then you gotta say, but look, here's what we're gonna do next.
Lucas Underwood: You know, here's, here's what stands out to me. Right. And, and you know about all the stuff that I've been going through and, and I don't mind to share kind of the, the details, but, but the point is, is that I remember 10 years ago if, if I was faced with the challenges I have right now, they would've seemed insurmountable.
Right? And I'm talking to this gentleman and to him, these problems he's facing right now seem insurmountable.
Lucas Underwood: And the worst thing that we can do is lock up. Right? Yes. The worst thing that we can do is get stuck and locked down and say, I see no path forward. There's nothing I can do. This is just what it is.
I, I've heard the term before, fall in love with your problems, right? Like they, they fall in love with these problems. They don't see a pathway, and it's just like, oh, this is just what it is. But, you know, I listened to your story and I'm thinking, well, gosh, my problem's not nearly as bad as Wayne's problem was.
I mean, like his attorneys were saying, I am so sorry you went through that. My attorney's not said that yet. So it, it couldn't be that bad. Right?
Wayne Marshall: Yeah. Uh,
Lucas Underwood: I think that, that creating a pathway forward, at least taking a step instead of locking up and getting to the point that we just say, I can't see a way forward.
I can't see a pathway, it is so important to stop. And, and, you know, there is, um. A goal coach. He, he was famous years ago. His name was Jim Fanon, and Jim Fanon had this video, he is talking about true champions and one of the things he said in that video was, is he said, A true champion goes not from A to B, but in their mind they go to B and they illuminate a path back chronologically to a.
They don't, they don't look at me and say, oh my gosh, I gotta get there. I don't know how they build a pathway. One step at a time, right?
Wayne Marshall: Well, there's, there's a, you know, we all go through this and I use the comment and even when I'm coaching clients and we talk about this and I say, you know, here's where you want to go and we get it, but sometimes when you look at everything that's in between it, it just looks like it's insurmountable.
So I said, okay, time out. Reverse engineer it.
Wayne Marshall: reverse engineer. So stop and think about it. 'cause when you start to break down these steps, it never fails. When I've had some really, and even here since the time I've been at the institute, I mean, we've had some big things, some big hurdles to get over and we sit there and you just start reverse engineering.
It's like, okay, if I gotta do one thing or two things, what are they Before I can do numbers five, eight. Whatever the number is down, down the road. And when you start to reverse engineer, it never fails. You start to go backwards, backwards, and then you get, it's like, oh, well if I do do this and this, that's gonna help it and make it easier when I get to number five and number eight and number.
Well, good. So let's get started. Let's start doing something.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And do it
Lucas Underwood: if we don't have a destination though. Right? Right. Because that's what I found in this conversation last night. I said, where are we going? What are we trying to accomplish? He said, I don't know. You just, I show up in the morning and we just fix cars and like, that's what we do.
No, no, that, that's not a destination, dear. That's not where you're headed. We must have a destination. Yeah, we gotta be going somewhere. He said, well, I mean, I just don't know what other destination you could have as an auto repair shop. And I said, well, one day you're not gonna be able to work on cars anymore.
One day you're not gonna be able to be an advisor anymore. One day you're gonna have to retire or sell the business. What does it look like then, because that's kind of important to know,
Wayne Marshall: right? Well, I,
Lucas Underwood: I never, never gonna retire.
Wayne Marshall: Well, I, I mean, we all talk about it and when I've been, you know, when we're getting into coaching conversations, you gotta build your bench.
Yeah, I mean, if you, you've gotta sit here and say, I can't be all things to all people and do everything. So how do I build my bench and when I build my bench, how do I create that culture that if I'm not there. They know what to do. And as you start to work this through, I always suggest to everybody, I mean, we've got a client, I'll talk a little bit, and he was on your podcast, Jonathan here, just recent.
And you know, in some of the conversations with Jonathan, he buys his shop. He's going great. His numbers are, you know, really starting to build and take off. But one of the things I said to Jonathan, I mean, as you're building this team culture and you're building it out. To really find out if they got it.
Call in sick one day. Don't come in two days in a row on the whole, the process. Give them a little bit of a stress test. Let's see how the team reacts. Because one of the things when you talk about culture, and we were talking about this right before the podcast started. We all have handbooks. We all have these, you know, vision, mission, goals, all the things we're doing.
We put it on posters, it all looks pretty. All that tells you is what you can do. Yeah, but it never tells you what you should do. Yeah. And when you build the culture and you really embrace those words and you understand now you're doing what you should do, which is right for the business, it's right for the customer.
It's right for your vendors, it's right for your employees. And when you start doing all those things that you should do, you will end up on the right side of it. Absolutely. You will have success. You might not have all the success you want. But man, you're gonna start building on that and the energy will come and you'll start having success.
Yeah. And it, and it starts to build on itself.
Lucas Underwood: One of the most powerful CEOs I've ever met in my entire life, extremely successful, uh, extremely big dollar organization, and he said something I will never forget. He said, my company's success comes from the behavior of my people. It doesn't come from the strategy.
It doesn't come from the budget, it doesn't come from any of that. It comes from the behavior of my people. And I said, okay, well how do you get the behavior that you want in your people? He said, it's my belief system. It's the culture of the organization. And so I have a performance environment that is orchestrated in such a way that they understand why we're doing what we're doing and where we're going, and what we hope to accomplish by getting there.
Right. Yeah. And I think that's something that so many people miss. You know, I, I, there's a video and I can't remember exactly how they laid it out, but they said there's basically five questions every employee wants to know. Where are we going? What do you want me to do? How am I doing now? And I can't remember what the other ones were, but like, you get the point.
And we don't answer that in automotive.
Lucas Underwood: Right? No, I have seen this over and over again. What we're doing is we show up and it's like, Hey, we're gonna fix cars. It can't be about fixing cars, Wayne. It has to be about something bigger. You know, it's like this trust is earned through repeated behaviors and you have to be going somewhere, right?
We talk about this generation of employee, we talk about this generation as a whole, and everybody says, Hey, they don't wanna work. No. They want to be going on a journey. Showing up, you don't have a purpose. Take's not enough, right?
Wayne Marshall: You gotta have
Lucas Underwood: a purpose. It's gotta be more than that. How does a shop owner, so let's talk about that for a minute, because this guy's sitting here and he's saying, look, I've got one employee who's disgruntled about coming in early.
I've got one employee who's disgruntled about staying late. I've got one employee who's disgruntled about how many cars we work on. I've got one employee who's disgruntled because we're not working on enough cars. He said, I don't know what to do. I'm getting all this feedback. It's all this mixed emotion.
I don't know what step to take next.
Lucas Underwood: How do we pinpoint this? What's a good way to settle that emotion a little bit and find our way?
Wayne Marshall: First off, I would tell, um, when I've done presentations and, you know, I did a breakout session just at tectonic around culture and how to craft that culture, and it starts with the owner.
You've gotta own it. This, if you try to make this a team event to build culture. It'll never work. 'cause if one person isn't responsible and owns it, nobody owns it. And that's gotta start with you, the owner. And I, one of the questions I was asked, there was a husband wife in the session that I was at, they only have two other employees.
And she asked the question, he says, you know, we're not very big. We don't have the opportunity to stop and have these meetings and do this and do that. How do we start building culture? And I said, it's the easiest thing. Because when you are small, you start to lead by example. You develop that belief system.
And a simple thing to do is, is how, how you answer the phone, how you're treating the customers. You're walking through the back, you see the, the, the bay isn't very clean or whatever. Grab a broom, sweep real quick, help tech out. And all of a sudden you're gonna come by a couple days later and he's sweeping.
Because he saw you sweeping and people build on that example of, again, if you, if you just have it written out and here's our process, do this. Well, that's what you can do. That's not what you should do. But when you do it, you're showing what should be done.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And it, and if, and it starts with just the simple things.
And then you start having conversations that start to expand. And then you start to say, you know, well, here's what we're trying to get accomplished, and we wanna be a company of trust, integrity, you know, all the things we talk about and how a service advisor talking to a customer. You wanna build that trust because when you start building trust and you give 'em the information of that estimate of what needs to be done, that's gonna help you get their car and keep it safe because nobody wants to send Sally down the road and all of a sudden the brakes aren't what they should be.
And she goes through a stop sign where their kids in the back and someone gets hurt and you don't want to have that on you. So you wanna build that trust so we can deal with these things. So it takes time, but it becomes observable. Simple. Going all the way back to the beginning. If you see something, grab a broom, pick up the trash, pick up the empty parts box that you know the tech didn't have time because he's now going on a test drive.
Pick 'em up real quick, help him. And when you do things like this that are become observable, people notice. And you know, and again, it comes back to also when you see people doing good things, what gets rewarded gets repeated.
Wayne Marshall: So acknowledge it. Acknowledge it in front of others. For sure. Tell the tech, Hey, that was a really great job.
You know what the, the place looks awesome. You know, the day was over and man, that was awesome. You took 30 minutes to straighten up and ready. We're gonna hit the ground running in the morning. I can't wait to get started tomorrow. That energy builds. It does. Now you're changing the culture.
Wayne Marshall: exactly right.
And people feel better and they don't start complaining about, well, it's, what about this? Or, I don't wanna start early. I don't want. It, it feeds on themselves and they quit that other stuff and they start looking at the other things that you're showing
Lucas Underwood: and, and here's the deal with that and, and let's use the five C's as an example because mm-hmm.
That was kind of one of the things we were supposed to talk about. Yep. And when we talk about writing a repair order, I deal with this all the time with shops and I deal with this in my own shop. It's like we get away from the five Cs. And, and you say, well, well, why did we get away from the five Cs? Or, Hey, they won't do the five Cs.
Well, first of all, they have to see me do it, right? Right. I have to build that repair order and I show them what I expect. You see, thi this is. I'm guilty of this because what I want is I want the business to do what I want the business to do, but I don't necessarily wanna put the work in doing the things that I don't like doing in the business.
Right. Right. Like I was a tech, I love turning wrenches.
Lucas Underwood: Eventually I got to the situation like, Hey, it's not feasible for me to remain the technician. That means I'm gonna have to do some things I don't like doing, so I have to learn to be an advisor. I eventually fell in love with being an advisor, communicating with clients, doing all the things, but it was a, it was a process I had to.
Force myself out of turning the wrenches and into the advisor role. And then they started seeing the way that I wanted the tickets written. And so I would correct them and I would go back and I would say, Hey guys, this isn't working. Well, see, we, we don't often wanna face that conflict, Wayne, we wanna pull away from the conflict.
While I don't wanna upset 'em, what if they quit? What if something, right. But what if you, you keep them and they don't do the job they need to do. Yeah. Right. And besides what if they don't even understand, they're not meeting your expectations. What I would do is I would take the five C layout. I've got a sheet that explains what the five C.
Lucas Underwood: I would go through the five Cs and I would go item by item by item, and I would say, okay, now here's what I expect this to look like. They would send me a repair order. I would work with them. I would critique it. I would say, here's what we need to do. What do they do in school when they grade your paper?
They critique it and they come back and they say, no, we shouldn't do this. We should do this instead. Right. And so over time you build that process. Now I'm gonna tell you something, you stop doing it. Okay? Guess what happens? It all falls apart.
Lucas Underwood: And culture is the exact same way. Yep. If we take and we put the wrong person in our culture, Wayne.
They will destroy it. They will have their culture. I've heard time and time again, the most dangerous thing is that someone in your business is going to be a leader, whether it's you or whether it's somebody else. And there's a lot's of people you don't want leading your people. That's
Lucas Underwood: You know,
Wayne Marshall: I, I set it on, I set it on, uh, Friday at my breakout session.
Every company has culture. Yeah. Either you designed it or it was designed for you.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. It's a choice. Listen, this is not some like buzzword gonna, it's real. It's gonna happen. It exists in your business. And if you aren't the one who set it up, somebody set it up, I promise.
Wayne Marshall: And if it's, and it's just like you said, if it's this employee and there may be a little toxic, they're doing this well, then they're gonna drive and they're gonna establish.
Wayne Marshall: that culture.
Lucas Underwood: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And, and it's gonna put it in a tough spot. Um, you know, one, one of the stories, I shared this story, I love to share this story because. You know, sports is very, very emotional. I mean, we watch it on tv, we see that, you know, that energy that's being done. I had the privilege to officiate football, and I had the privilege to officiate it at the college level and got up to doing D 2D one, did some D one games.
And when you talk about at that level, and there's. Thousands of people in the stands. Nobody likes the official and I can remember the whole thing and it's, and it's no different than what you talk about when we deal with the five Cs.
Wayne Marshall: because we're sitting there, we're running the game. Visitors have first in goal.
They didn't score because they had a holding call. It backed it up. He only got a field goal, so instead of getting seven, he got three. Well, I'm on his sidelines. We're lining up coaches over. They're just screaming and yelling because you know. We had a holding call, wasn't my call. So what do we do? I'm listening to the complaint.
I confirm it. I mean, we've got headsets. We're talking. I'm, you know, talking to the umpire called, yeah, what did you see? I complain. You know, I tell the coach, here's what we saw, here's what we did. But then we talked after the game a little bit and it's like, well, what was the cause? Were we all in the right positions to see and make the right call?
No d what we do every day in our shop.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And then if we weren't in the right positions and we had bad mechanics, you know, with the mechanics of where we need to be and the keys we're looking at all the stuff to make a good call and to make sure the game's going well, then what's the cure?
Then we obviously, you know, you confirm our correction as a crew. But the key thing that started with this whole thing with this coach, he is just going on and on and I'm just listening, which to me is one of the other Cs is good communication.
Wayne Marshall: And the thing of it was, is I found something that we could agree on, and all of a sudden he tells me, he goes, man, we lost all our momentum.
And I'm like, there's my point.
Wayne Marshall: And I turned to the coach, I said, coach, you're right. That was a big call and you did lose all your momentum. He knew I can't change the call. We can't change the broken card. It is what it is. Yep. He wanted someone to understand, so I waited for a moment. I'm looking at him and he didn't say anything, so I turned back.
I'm getting ready for the kickoff. He literally slapped me on my ass and said, I'm glad you understand, and walked away.
Wayne Marshall: What's the lesson here? He knew we couldn't change anything. Most of our customers acknowledged customer know that sometimes those cars, the bad part you got from the store or whatever it is, they get it.
They want someone to understand and you know, and find that place that you never give up your position when you deal with these things that you can say, you know what customer, you're right. That is terrible. That part should not have failed. Yeah, but lemme tell you what we're gonna do exactly. Lemme tell you how we're gonna go forward.
They want someone to listen to 'em and they want them to understand and find something that gives you that place.
Lucas Underwood: But, but all the time, like, what are we doing? When we answer that phone and there's a concern, the first thing that we do is we start plotting in our minds how this wasn't our fault and how I need to explain it wasn't our fault.
And how I need to, you know, the, the great I know great video of Simon, I know where he's talking about the airline. Right? Yeah. And he said, you, you can have two different experiences. I call up the airline and the airline representative answers the phone. I said, Hey, listen, I'm done with my conference a day early.
Is there anything you can do to get me back? No sir. You have this class of ticket, there's nothing I can do. Now at this point, I think we all know Simon Sinek is not flying on any commercial airline. That's
Lucas Underwood: Right? Yeah. But still, and he said, you know, that, that creates one experience. Whereas if they pick up and they say, oh my gosh, I, I definitely wanna get you home to your family.
Let me make some, some adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, let me make some other adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, let me make these adjustments. Oh, that didn't work. Oh, hang on. I'm gonna get my supervisor. Let's see if there's anything I can do. And they come back and they say, Mr. Sinek, I'm so sorry. I have tried everything I can.
We've tried multiple different options. I asked for a supervisor override. Even with that override, we couldn't do it. It's really because of the class of ticket you have. I'm sorry. There's nothing I'm able to do. He said it's a completely different experience because it sounded like you tried, right? It sounded like you understood my position and, and see, I think that's what we miss so often, Wayne, is because we don't think about that other person as a human being.
No. We think of them as the trouble that's coming to bear. We think of them as the car that's got the problem. We think of them the as the telephone call. That's annoying when I have all this other stuff going on. The reality is, is what's on the other end of that phone is a human being who's experiencing stress and frustration right now.
And if you were in their shoes, you might feel the same way. And so if we can at least extend some level of kindness and human understanding to them, we can get a better benefit for all. Right. And if you knew the number of times that I'm having that conversation and somebody says, I'm so sorry. You're right.
I shouldn't be screaming, I shouldn't be yelling, I'm going through this. Right. And, and if we can offer a little bit of compassion in that moment,
Wayne Marshall: little bit
Lucas Underwood: of grace. It's not just not keeping exactly.
Wayne Marshall: Extend a little grace, a little understanding.
Lucas Underwood: And it's
Wayne Marshall: not just about
Lucas Underwood: them buying something, it's about being a good human.
Wayne Marshall: we, but we, we tend, when someone comes in, and we talk about this briefly, but that communica communication turns into a competition.
Wayne Marshall: Because at that point, we're trying to control it. In our mind, we're not really listening. We're already thinking of our response because we're competing. And if we're competing in that, we're not really hearing what they're saying.
We're not extending and you know, but at the same time, and I, I know I've shared this with my, my kids or adults now, and married kids with their own. If you want good customer service, you gotta give the person on the other side an opportunity to give you good customer service. And I love the airlines and I, I can remember I was, it was late at night.
It was one of the last flights out. Everybody's tense, and here's customer stand in front of that ticket agent who would just not in it was just unrelenting.
Wayne Marshall: she's trying to do and solve this problem and she was being very calm. But the problem is the guy on the other side of the desk wasn't giving her an opportunity to give her good customer service.
Yeah. All he did was just peppered away and I finally couldn't help myself. And I said, sir, if I could please. I'm just gonna tell you, if you give her a moment, she might be able to give you great customer service. Yeah. She's working at and try and I tried to and it diffused it a little, but it didn't calm 'em down a lot.
Yeah. But it's like if you want good customer service, give 'em an opportunity to give it to you. And as consumers, we've gotta be able to also just as much extend that graze as you want them to extend it back to you.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, absolutely.
Wayne Marshall: And we don't always think about it that way. So I always share those Ty in the stories too, because.
You're running your shop and how are you when you talk to your vendors when they didn't deliver you the right, right part on time? And man, that car's not going out today. And what are you doing when you're calling them up and they're saying, you know, Lucas time, I'll try to fix it for you, but you gotta gimme a chance.
Lucas Underwood: I tell 'em all the time, Hey, listen guys, I, I see the, the people who jump out here and they beat up software companies and they beat up coaches and they beat up everybody else, and I just ask 'em like, Hey, I just want to know if you put yourself in their shoes, if this was a client of your shop doing this, tell me what would you be on Facebook saying right now about them?
Right. Yes. Well, they would be effing crazy.
Lucas Underwood: yes. Like exactly like you look like a psycho man. And I'm guilty of it, right? Like in the moment, the emotion can be high and, and I tell people all the time, emotion has no place in business. We use data and facts, and I, I'm an emotional guy. I have to watch that emotion because it will get away from me sometimes.
Yep. Especially on a really stressful day. I, I have to keep it in check because if I don't, it'll run away. And, and that's another thing. When we're dealing with these clients and we've got these folks coming in the front door and they're heated and they've got things going on, we have to stay in check.
Right. We have to be able to control ourselves because we have to remain in control. And if we are getting upset, if we're allowing a motion to drive us, we're no longer in control of the situation.
Lucas Underwood: So it's so important for us to take a step back, you know, talking about this jet who has this shop and he's got all this stuff going on.
He's a, he's got a business partner and the, the business partner is really not engaged at the level he wants. This guy's over here trying to make this business work. He's trying to develop the business, make it run. You know, he's, he started this business with this belief system, right? 'cause he bought the business.
It's a multi-generational family deal that he bought from the family. And now he comes in as somebody who had worked in the business for 20 years. Okay. And he's in this situation where he is saying, but this is the way we've always done business. This is what's always happened. This is exactly what we do.
Lucas Underwood: And I'm saying, okay, I understand that. But the modern automobile is not the automobile of 1970 when this business opened. You're not gonna be a situation where you can fix every single car in the same day because they're pushing to get every car out exact same day. I said, that's not realistic. And he's saying, well, but, but my business partner doesn't see it that way.
So Wayne, you've been through some tough business partner dealings.
Lucas Underwood: How can he communicate back? With that business partner and say, okay, we're not in alignment. Because what I'm sensing from this gentleman right now is, is I'm really, really afraid to have these hard conversations. I'm really afraid to, to put my foot down and say, no, this is where we have to go.
And, and me and you both know what happens when that happens. Unfortunately,
Wayne Marshall: yes. Falls
Wayne Marshall: unfortunately. Yes. Um. The first off is you've gotta be able to sit down and be honest with each other. And you gotta be able to sit at a table and say, you know, whatever, look here, here's where we are.
Wayne Marshall: And we have different views.
Not that we're not all wanting to get to the top of the mountain, but you know, we use that knowledge analogy. I can come up this side, you can come up that side. So we're gonna take different paths. But let's first make sure we in the same alignment of what that top of the mountain looks like. Yeah. If it does, now let's start breaking down.
How do you look at it and where do you think this starts and goes? You might find out out of the, let's just for say, give argument 10 things, five of 'em. You're in agreement. Okay. Now let's talk about those five. We're not. Where do we differ? Where can we find compromise? Maybe we can't find compromise, but at the end of the day, we have to get back here and say, holistically, what are we gonna do that we know?
And, and more times than not, we all know what's right.
Wayne Marshall: We know how to get and we know how to get there. And that means I might have to set my ego aside a little bit. And the most, the two most dangerous words in, in business is always and never, we never do it that way, or we always do it this way.
Wayne Marshall: Because as soon as you say, we always do it this way, a new, you know, something new comes out, we test different, we fix it, different, we do something changes. And as soon as you stand on that hill of always you're gonna lose. And when you say, well, we never do it that way. We've never done it that way before.
That is just as dangerous as this is how we always did it.
Lucas Underwood: Putting blinders on
Wayne Marshall: and you can't do this. And, and we get into this, and especially if you get into longer term partnerships, if you're not having some ongoing checkups of where our goals and ambitions are. Then you're, you're gonna have a challenge.
And I know what I did and the, and I had more than one partner in the, one of the business I had. And we would get together and we would have an annual meeting. We would look at, through all the financials, we would then update all our bases, our net worths, everything we had so we could see as where that that number is going.
Because we didn't get into this as a hobby.
Wayne Marshall: true. Get into this. To be successful, we made sacrifices financially and family and you know, life in general to build something bigger better. So if we can't sit down and have that honest conversation of how that looks and where we're gonna go, then I've watched too many companies.
Really, really struggled. Then some other consulting work I've done and sat down that, you know, another story I share, I mean, I worked, talked to a company that wanted me to do some consulting work. They had three partners and really at the end of it, and when I, they were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin went up and we met, we visited, we went through everything and I left and I'm like, you don't need someone to help you with operations and everything.
You guys need marriage counseling.
Wayne Marshall: your, your problems were so deep and rooted that you've gotta change your thought process because if I came in, I could help you on some of your operations, but it's never gonna fix this other. So you gotta have honest conversations, and at the end of the day, if the honest conversations is, and maybe you aren't gonna be partners, then.
You know, it's all, it's every, any company that's been put together that's got a good operating agreement, you've got the context of what to do and how to do it. And sometimes there's a place you just gotta say, you know what, we had a hell of a run. Shake hands. Yep. Let's be friends.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Wayne Marshall: Just business.
Lucas Underwood: A hundred
Wayne Marshall: percent. And we're gonna take the next step.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Aunt Tanika or Aunt Nika, as we all call her, just jumped in, said, happy. I know. Happy facts over feelings. Feelings. Don't fix cars. She's exactly right. Amen. And, and you know, I'm gonna tell you right now, listen, here's the deal. If we don't have these conversations, right, like these conversations can be really scary because there's a lot of what ifs.
But if we don't have those conversations, we, we often try to avoid conflict, but conflict is where we actually make progress, right? We don't grow in our comfort zone. That's not gonna happen. And so we have to edge out of that a little bit, and we have to have these discussions. We have to have these conversations that might be on hard topics with people that don't want to have them and, and listen.
I'm gonna tell you this, I, I am not afraid to say this. All of this crap going on with the family business. Years ago, I would've said, this will kill me if I had to go through it. And I'm looking at it now saying, you know what? I see that this is just another challenge. And if I can learn from this, if I can develop from this, if I learn new skills and new ways to navigate, and hey, what if this ever happens and what if that happens?
If I can develop from that, it makes me a master of dealing with this type of problem. Yep. So now I can go even further. I can get even bigger. I can do even more. But see, we, we, Trent, we tend to shirk away from it. We said we don't wanna, we don't wanna upset people. We don't wanna encounter that drama. We don't want to encounter that trouble.
No. See, that doesn't do anything but cause bigger trouble down the road because you didn't have the damn conversation.
Lucas Underwood: Right. And that's exactly what's happening in this case.
Wayne Marshall: I agree. No, it's, it's, it is so important and you know, just because you figured out and how to do it under pressure and respond and, and because you didn't develop, you know, and I know it's always that guy, the tech that bailed you out of this problem.
Well, why did the problem happen? And he had to bail you out because you didn't have process, you didn't have procedures, you didn't have communication. I can go down a list of all the things. Yeah. And what do we do though? We go back and, you know, if you were the tech I'd go, man, Lucas, you, you saved my butt.
You bailed me out. You worked two more hours tonight. You did this to get that car done so we can, you know, yeah, customer can pick it up in the morning, but why did we have to do that? And just because you become really good at managing crisises. That's not a trait you wanna to be. That's called being a firefighter.
Right, exactly. I don wanna be
Lucas Underwood: fire, I wanna get rid
Wayne Marshall: of it. And, and we've all done that, but we've gotta build on it to where we end up praising, uh, something that wasn't really good. Yeah. Now it's good to acknowledge the effort, but then if we don't go back and do the analysis and figure out why and what should have happened and you know, we, as everybody talks about, you know, running a shop's like a relay race.
The car comes in, you get the baton, you get it, you get it written up, you give it to the tech, it comes back to the service advisor. You do the estimate. I mean, you're, you're constantly handing that baton off to the next person in the relay race. And eventually, as you hand it off enough times, you get it to the end and you, you know, the race is over.
You deliver the car back. But do we ever look at all the little things that come into, and if anybody's watched a relay race? We've all watched the Olympics. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of science of when you hand off the baton, you can't hand it off too early. 'cause if you do out of the transfer zone, you're disqualified if you hand it off too late.
What happens? You're disqualified if you drop the baton. If you drop the ro
Wayne Marshall: you're disqualified. Exactly. And, and it's no different. I mean, if we just stop and take a moment and say, you know, I don't have to do, you know, this horri uh, uh, oric things to get the thing done because we didn't really think about those steps and processes and the facts of what we're doing and how we're doing to build that culture.
Lucas Underwood: I asked about that, right? That was one of the discussions we had is I was asking questions, yeah, Hey, what, what is the process flow in the shop? And I, he said, well, what do you mean? And so I went through my process, Hey, we have a morning meeting. We lay out who's gonna work on what we talk about. What happens if something doesn't show?
What do you go to how many hours? Right? Because I've seen a lot of shop owners go out here and dispatch 75 hours to attack. And at the end of the day they're like, well, is this not all done? This doesn't make sense. Uh, they, they didn't realize it was 75 hours. They just saw jobs and they're like, oh, I bet they can get all that done.
And they just put it out there. And, and so we talked about the fact that there was no process, there was no procedure, there was no structure behind what they were doing. And they said, well, it's always been done this way. Well hold up now. Because one of the that always that, right? Well, one of the things that, that we're, we get in trouble with in that scenario is, is because he is buying this shop from someone else.
Lucas Underwood: And it's like, okay, we've always done it this way. Or you just don't know that it was ever done differently. You just don't ever know that there was a structure behind it, that they had a plan. You just didn't see it. You weren't exposed to it. Now Wayne, you, you touched on some things that I think are really important here.
Because most shop owners are visionaries, right? Mm-hmm. I've actually seen a study that said most blue collar business owners have some form of A DHD, right? And And usually fairly severe. Most I would agree.
Wayne Marshall: I would agree.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Are visionaries, right? Because they have these big dreams, these big visions of what they could accomplish and how big it could be, and how great it could be, and all these wonderful things.
Right? Now you've walked into a role in the institute. We're gonna call Cecil straight out here. Okay. We're not gonna let him listen to this part. So everybody cut this part out. Like if you talk and please don't share it. Don't, because I think I'm
Wayne Marshall: being set up
Lucas Underwood: Yeah know, right? But, but Cecil is a visionary.
Yes. And, and if you talk to Cecil one time, you recognize Cecil's got huge dreams and huge visions and all of this stuff, and we're gonna do all of these things. That at times because I, I deal with this in my shop that at times can turn into noise and it can be this technician saying, oh, this is wrong.
This is the problem. This is what's going on. And the advisor can be saying, this is the problem. This is wrong. This is, this isn't right, and this isn't working. And you all of a sudden stand up as the leader and you're like, oh, this noise, I can't pinpoint what's really wrong or where I'm going, or how to.
Find the problem. How do I move us forward when it's all this noise coming at me? Wayne, how do you isolate the noise? How do you deal with the visionary and bring it back a touch?
Wayne Marshall: So the first thing I like to do, and I'll, I'll use Cecil as an example. Um, in the early weeks of being here, we had many a conversations and one of the questions was, is, Cecil, what does success look like?
Wayne Marshall: well it looks like, you know, we, we'd start talking and we'd, you know, we'd talk numbers, we'd talk, well, it would be having this many clients, it would be having this many people coaching. It would be having this many, you know, different intensive at events and, and we'd be doing this, we'd be doing that.
I said, okay, I get it. So let's talk again. What does success look like? Because there's gonna be observable actions that have to happen in between. So if this is your vision of success. What do we do to get there? So we started having even bigger conversations and that's why we now have a holding company and we're doing some other things and we're gonna have other entities underneath and other.
Things we're gonna launch here in the coming months, um, into 27. But my my point is, as we look at all this, and you start to say, and it says, okay, if we're gonna build that vision, where do we start? Now, in the case of the institute, one of the things that we started have a long talk on. It's, it's, it's structure, it's governance.
Do we have all the right pieces in place? Do we have all the right legal docs in place? Do we have all the right legal entities in place? Do we have this, do we have that? And we just started really working through, and it's not then there, that's, that's one side of governance. Yeah, when we talk about it, but from a business standpoint, I don't care what size business you are, you have to have certain level of governance of how you operate on your side, what your leadership look like.
If you're not there, who takes over? 'cause it's gonna happen as the owner. Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: Who's your, who's your lead guy? If I'm not in the shop, is Lucas my lead guy? Is Lucas gonna be the one that steps up? Does Lucas have my vision? Does, does Lucas understand what that is? So when he makes decisions. He's doing the right things that he should be doing because he has this better understanding.
'cause we've had this conversation of what does success look like? Yeah. So. Break it down to, to, you know, this was talking about Cecil and the institute and what we're doing, but take it to the service advisor. What does success look like? Yeah. Service advisor's gonna say, well, that the tech did his job, right?
He, you know, he put on the right parts. He did it in the right timeliness. We told the customers gonna be ready at three o'clock. It was ready at three o'clock. We didn't have a cost problem. We, you know, everything came together. That when they come in and they write that check or run the credit card for whatever the bill is.
They're happy. We hand them the keys. The client gets in, the customer gets in the car. It's not dirty. There isn't a greasy hand print on the, the steering wheel. You know, all the things. I mean, the list just keeps going. That's success. Okay. How does that look to the tech? Well, for the tech, do I got all the right parts?
Are they in the bins? Am I hunting for that small gasket that fell off the, you know, the parts shelf that got delivered? Because we don't have a bin system or we don't have something that the little parts and those little things are missing and he's spending 30 minutes and he's frustrated because he couldn't find that one little part.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Yeah.
Wayne Marshall: He can always find the shock. It's in a big box. What about, you know, that one bolt or you know, as, yeah, I work on BMWs and that's my hobby, but you know, they always have those crush washers and the things when you do the oil change, it's that small little washer but that you can't find, never fail.
That you need fail to complete the job.
Wayne Marshall: but I can't finish. But it's, let's define what success looks like and if you can define it and start breaking it into your process is it becomes observable. And it becomes observable. Then other people see it and they're like, I get it. We're very, we're very visual in this industry.
'cause you're right about that vision and how we're very visual and if we can see it and we can put it in that context, we can execute it. We can execute it.
Lucas Underwood: You know, what I've found is. Is if the, if the noise gets loud, if the if, if the vision, you ask them. So if I go to Cecil and I say, Cecil, what are we trying to accomplish?
And one day it's one thing. The next day it's another thing. And the next day like, Hey Cecil, what problems are we trying to solve? And every time it's a different problem. You ask Cecil what the solution is. It's a different solution every time. And I'm not saying Cecil's ever done that. Don't get me wrong.
I'm just using him as an example. Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: it. Except for every day. No, but here's the thing. Is that if, if we get to that point, I have found that it's we don't have a destination. Yeah. And that they either don't have the destination, they don't know what the destination is, or it's not clear what their part of getting us to the destination is.
It's not clear what their role in accomplishing the desired outcome is. Right? Mm-hmm. And if we, if we get to the point that it's just noise after noise after noise, and it doesn't make sense, and we're having a really hard time keeping up with it. It's because we've not clearly laid out where we're going.
And, and you know, I David, years ago told me, he said, look, he said, I, I wanna build a shop for done with Care auto repair that is set up to where they have guardrails. And it says, you can't go past this and you can't go past this, but anything in here, as long as you're taking us in the desired direction, you're on the right road going in the right direction.
As long as you don't go off the guardrails, I'm okay with that. Right? So here's what the guardrails look like. And so to do that. You have to develop a team of people who believe what you believe, who have the values that you have, and, and listen. That doesn't happen by just going out and hiring someone.
It's hard enough to find somebody just to hire period. And, and listen, I'm gonna tell you something else. People say it's a technician shortage. It is a worker shortage, okay? Has nothing to do with technicians. It, it is really hard to find good employees right now. And it is. So you go and you bring these people in.
You have to coach them. You have to guide them. That's why you are the leader. Because you have to lead them. That's your job. Yeah, but I get, we signed up to be a, a technician, but unfortunately when you own a shop, your job is to lead your people to battle. You know,
Wayne Marshall: one of the, um, when, when I was hiring more people, I mean, other people are at the institute are doing more of the interview and hiring.
I'm not as involved in, but my, when I was doing it, I always said, I wanna hire for. Personality and attitude, you know, other things that. People say, well, this guy's really talented. He's certified, he's an a, SC, master tech, all these things. But if he doesn't have some of the right things from that, you know, personality aspect and their value ubstance, all the others, that they could easily be very toxic.
And if I could find a person with the right attitude and all the right things, I always said I can teach 'em what they need to know. We can build them up. 'cause they started with the right attitude. And if you get that out of order, you're, you're opening yourselves up for a lot of challenges. And, but it really comes down to, and we gotta also understand, and I mean we've all said that sometimes, you know, not all customers are your customers.
And we've gotta be okay with that. Not all employees need to be your employees.
Wayne Marshall: And we gotta be okay with that. Understood. And the other thing I've always said, and I learned this from a really strong mentor of mine from, uh, many years ago, and he said, you know, you gotta look at bringing an employee.
It's almost like. You teach 'em, you develop 'em. They're learning new skills, they're growing or whatever. The company's growing. I mean, everybody's doing what they need to do, but sometimes you get an employee, you've taught 'em every they can, they can learn. They're not growing anymore. They're not doing all the things they need to do.
They don't see your vision. They knock, and you gotta ask a question, is Tom gonna help get me to where I want to go?
Wayne Marshall: And if you're honest with yourself and you start saying, you know, Tom's not gonna get me there. Yeah. And then my mentor said to me, the guy said to me, he says, you gotta look at it like high school.
You graduate 'em, you get 'em outta your business, you let 'em go to the next employee, promote
Lucas Underwood: them to client,
Wayne Marshall: to promote them to client. But you gotta let them move on. And you gotta be at peace with that because you gotta sit here and start saying, what's that vision exactly? And how do you wanna get there?
And if that person isn't gonna help you get there, then you're just delaying the inevitable.
Lucas Underwood: We've, we've always just,
Lucas Underwood: we, we've, in this industry, we've held on to people because it's hard to find help. Right. And I'm gonna tell you that's one of the most dangerous things you can do is holding onto somebody that's toxic.
Yeah. Holding onto somebody that's not a good fit for your organization. Now over, over the years, you get good at pinpointing who those people are. And so you get a little bit better at not allowing into the, into the hen house to begin with.
Lucas Underwood: But if you can craft and select the perfect selection of people who believe what you believe, who are on fire for what you're on fire about, right.
Like the direction you want to go, and they can see that and they say, Hey, I see value in the direction we're. You can build an unstoppable team that doesn't need your constant oversight that they do it because that's what they want to accomplish, right? Mm-hmm. And if we are constantly fighting, and, and I, I've talked to so many shop owners, and then they're like, I feel like I'm in a boat and I'm trying to paddle upstream in the rapids, and I'm going as fast as I can, but I'm not getting anywhere.
What do I do? And I'm gonna tell you right now, that's usually an indication that we have the wrong people on the team.
Wayne Marshall: Wrong person on the wrong seat on the bus. Sometimes
Wayne Marshall: gotta stop the bus and let 'em off.
Lucas Underwood: You know, the ES it's
Lucas Underwood: It is. And, and I'm gonna tell you something, I, I've been on to Cecil about this.
I've been saying to Cecil four months now I want. The, the institute to pick up some of the EOS, uh, you know, kind of material and develop some stuff like that as implementers in the automotive space. 'cause I'm gonna tell you the one thing about EOS that's life changing. As we set everybody around the table and we have the hard conversations, we're forced to have the hard conversations.
It's not about your comfort anymore. That's correct. It's, this is the process. This is what we have to do, and we're gonna grade one another. Oh my. That's uncomfortable, right? But the, the option of sitting here and saying, oh yeah, but Tom's a great guy, is gone now. Because if we want our organization to grow, if we want our organization to develop, gotta have the right people in the right seat.
And, and sometimes we're letting the wrong people drive the dang pu. Right.
Wayne Marshall: Well, and it comes back to sometimes we are rewarding the bad behavior and the things that we shouldn't be rewarding. Yeah. And we need to start being, you know, and holding, you know, coming back to what you said about, you know, the tech shortage and, and this got talked about in some of the panel discussions, that tectonic and bottom line is, is many people are saying, we really don't have the tech shortage.
We have. We might have training and we might have some other things that, you know, we have inefficient shop owners who don't understand running at 72, 70 3% efficiency. That, that's a lot of hours. You're leaving on the on the counter. If you just used your, you know, we're better organized and ran a tighter ship, would you need another tech?
No. 'cause you'd be used and they'd make more money. Everybody's happier. You're happier. Yeah, but I say all that, to go back to this and you look at it, is that we gotta be really careful because when we get into those situations with people, the next thing you know is you got that tech who's working next to a guy who you, you can't afford to lose, but you don't hold him up to that high bar of expectation.
Yeah. Because he's too hard to replace. Yeah. So what happens is you're really good tech. Leaves
Lucas Underwood: or Yep, exactly.
Wayne Marshall: And this stay guy stay or they start to
Lucas Underwood: lower, they start to become toxic,
Wayne Marshall: but, but they leave because they can get another job. Yeah. This guy doesn't leave 'cause he can't get another job.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, exactly.
Wayne Marshall: up with the
Lucas Underwood: worst we're
Wayne Marshall: everybody else ends
Lucas Underwood: up with the best
Wayne Marshall: and it does and it becomes a really slippery slope. So, uh, you know, all these things that we talk about is true. And it's about how are we gonna build on this and how are we going to develop and how are we gonna develop as leaders? And there's a difference of being a manager and a leader.
So, you know, how do you develop to be that leader? How do you do to inspire and lift up and make a difference? So,
Lucas Underwood: yeah, exactly. And, and that is
Wayne Marshall: the, you get it. No
Lucas Underwood: that you
Lucas Underwood: You gotta have a destination. You gotta know where you're going. You have to inspire your team and help them understand why that's what's best for them.
Lucas Underwood: You have to walk them through the process of how we're gonna get there. Here's our steps, here's the steps we're gonna take today. Here's what we're working on. And then you have to motivate your team. You have to be there and, and look, eventually the system can become self-sustaining. You can get there.
Yes, you can get the system to self sustain. I'm not saying you can't, but I'm saying that you're often gonna have to do the work that you don't necessarily want to do to get it there. You're gonna have to commit the time to doing the things you may not like doing.
Lucas Underwood: because so many of us love turning wrenches, but I hate to tell you, as a shop owner, your job is no longer turning wrenches.
Yes. That's not what you do anymore. That's correct. You lead and inspire your people. You set the destination, you hold them accountable. Right, and see that's another big one in this industry, we don't like holding people accountable because that's uncomfortable. No. You see what your employee craves is accountability because they want to know if they're doing a good job or not.
Wayne Marshall: That comes back to, again, like we said, do you wanna sit here and, and 'cause you're afraid you need two texts. You know, or whatever the number is, your top tech is working next to a guy who isn't living up to where you want him to be. And after so much of seeing the empty boxes, the trash, he doesn't clean up.
He doesn't do this. You know, we, we've all seen those techs. This guy does it at a high level. He keeps his space clean, his tools are clean, his boxes organized, all the things. Pretty soon he just gets tired of this. Because you didn't do anything to raise the bar.
Wayne Marshall: exactly. So he leaves. 'cause again, he can find a job.
This guy can is easy. A hundred
Lucas Underwood: percent.
Wayne Marshall: So he stays and now you're really paying a bigger price.
Lucas Underwood: That's exactly right. You got the one guy that you didn't want to keep. That's not gonna lead your organization to the winning the winner circle, if you will. Right? That's
Lucas Underwood: And that's the guy that we've got in the bay now.
Wayne, thank you so much. I don't know where the past hour has gone, but I sure have to like that. It was
Lucas Underwood: Thank you. So we always have a good
Lucas Underwood: Yes, we, we always
Wayne Marshall: have a good time.
Lucas Underwood: I can't wait for the next one. We've got another one coming up soon. We are gonna cover the five Cs in depth, in detail at some point here really soon.
But I thought this was too important. I thought we need to cover some of this because this is something a lot of shop owners are fighting with and I, I gave this poor guy an hour and a half lecture last night. Didn't even mean to, you know, feel really bad for the guy. I'm sure. Off the phone. He's like, oh my God, that guy never shut up.
Wayne Marshall: we all need a little tough love sometimes.
Lucas Underwood: That's it. That's exactly right. So Wayne Marshall, thank you so much for being here and folks, we can't wait to see you at the next a MA.
