I’m sure you’ve heard this theme over and over: the automotive retail world we work in today is in continual flux, requiring continual adaptation and an unprecedented acceptance of change. At the beginning of each of our NCM Instituteclasses, we ask the attending dealership executives and department managers, “What is your biggest single challenge?” Although it may not quite come out of their mouths this way, the answer we consistently hear is, “Managing change!” For example, here are three sample responses from a recent Used Vehicle Management class that I instructed:

• “How do I increase my traffic count by better promoting my dealership and my vehicles on the Internet?” (What she was really saying was, “The Internet has changed my business. How do I need to change, in response?”)

• “I don’t know how to motivate and manage the younger employees coming into our business…they seem to have a different work ethic!” (What he was really saying was, “The Gen X and Gen Y employees are different. How do I need to change my management style to become an effective leader of these younger employees?”)

• “I’ve always been focused on maximizing my $PVR. Now I’m told that my focus should be on my ‘Price-to-Sale Gap’ and we’re having difficulty adjusting to this concept.” (What he was really saying was, “The price transparency on the Internet has changed the way we need to price our vehicle and manage gross. I am (and each of my salespeople are also) having difficulty adapting to this change.”)

Shifting the center of my career from dealership operations consulting to dealership management training significantly altered the way I look at change management. When I was regularly visiting a client dealership, rolling up my sleeves, and working side-by-side with the management staff to improve the store’s culture, processes and accountability, I never got too wrapped up in the challenges of implementing and executing change. I was an active, visible part of the change initiative. It was easy for me to say to the dealer, GM, or involved department manager, “Don’t worry about it! WE will make it happen!” That seemed to make everyone pretty comfortable.

In the NCMi teaching environment, one of the mantras under which the faculty guides the students is, “Identify, recognize and admit what needs to change at your dealership, develop an action plan for implementing that change, and, most importantly, execute your action plan!”  As I’m sure you suspect, this is easier said than done. Typically, the NCMi faculty members face one of two scenarios:

1. The participating manager identifies, recognizes and admits what needs to change, but has no real understanding of change management, and is very uncomfortable about how to develop, implement and/or execute an action plan for change. (After all, he/she doesn’t have Garry House or another NCM Retail Operations coach to hold his hand!)

2. The participating manager is a bold, visionary leader who has the confidence to take his dealership (or department) in exciting new directions. But confidence can balloon into overconfidence (which seems to be an affliction many “car guys” suffer), and unless the student has a sound understanding of change management (which most don’t), this student will have difficulty executing his change vision.

Achieving and maintaining strategic momentum through change is a challenge that confronts a dealership organization and its leaders every day. Change management fails far more often than it succeeds in the retail automobile industry. I will address this challenge with additional articles in the future.