The Beatings will continue until morale improves!!!

Alexander H. Leighton says..."morale is the capacity of a group to pull together persistently and consistently in pursuit of a common purpose.

Something that has always been apart of the automotive industry is the group of tough love managers and owners... you know the ones that pull the team together for a meeting and all hell breaks loose, Screaming and Yelling and demoralizing the group like that is going to get them pumped up? I know everyone in the industry has seen it at one time or another a red faced guy,vains popping out of his neck banging stuff around and then expects the team to go out and "sell a bunch"...I never understood this process.

First of all the guy doing the yelling and screaming was probably a so-so salesperson that got put into management by default and took the title and it went right to their head, and you definitely do not want to disturb this guy if he is eating lunch with a petty thing like a car deal?? What times like these in the car business bring out are peoples true colors and potential. It's really hard out there right now to sell cars and make a living...If you are not properly trained and managed!!

The dealerships that are successful now a days are the ones that are run as a TEAM! Now i am not saying that things need to be Country Club Motors but , you can tell when you walk into a successful dealership there is something different about the people and how effortless the process looks when they sell a car when they are treated and TRAINED to be professional salespeople. I know this won't set well with some managers who read this, but just remember think about how you would respond if you were getting screamed at and cussed at and called out in front of your fellow employees how that would make you feel, We as managers are teachers and trainers...not drill sergeants!

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Comment by Craig Bunkoske on September 15, 2011 at 2:38pm: Great post and spot on! I always remember what I was taught by a very intelligent psychiatrist when I was a counselor for juvenile delinquent boys a few decades ago. For every 4 comments you make to an individual, 3 should be positive and the 4th should start out positive before evolving into the constructive criticism. I have tried to abide by that theory.

Comment by Stephanie Young on September 15, 2011 at 11:40am: I am getting you a gold gilded soap box!!!! LOVE THIS BLOG POST!!! I have never seen a home be built by tearing something down. Usually if you want something built, you have to build it up. People are no different. If you want them to succeed.....build them up!!! Thanks for sticking your neck out and calling out the red-faced, vein-popping yellers to task.

Comment by Tom Gorham on September 13, 2011 at 10:45pm: I remember when I was a salesman and I would go through a rough patch where I couldn't seem to sell anything. The more desperate I got, the worse it got. Then I would give up and sell a car. Managers who yell and scream and threaten make a salesperson desperate. They then have a harder time selling. Customers like confidence, not desperation. When you go out on the floor feeling like you can do anything, you do.

Comment by Marsh Buice on September 13, 2011 at 9:51pm: Wonderful message, brother. BRAVO!! I am sure the choir is quiet, but a slap post from time to time is needed. The times we were brought up on the floor are not the times we are to encounter on the black top. It's a new dawn, and new leadership is marching fwd. I was on my way to bed and something told me to read this. Now I know why :)

TEAM ...Teach (what you know) Encourage (each other in this rejection invested business) Ask (to become better) Mentor (if you want to move up, you've better teach those you lead; if you want to move out>>there's the door)

Helluva post brother.

Comment by Richard Stone on September 13, 2011 at 9:36pm: There was a Sales manager, when I first started in this biz that nearly made me quite. He would bully customers, staff and other managers - but the owner thought he was the man! And that's my point - this comes from the second floor. Lead from the front. Correct (in private) as you go and Manage by walking around.

Comment by CANDACE BENNETT MCRAE on September 13, 2011 at 8:42pm: Good sales management is like good parenting. Parental objective is to take babies and nuture them into productive adults much like a good sales manager take new hires and trains them to be productive motivated sales advisors. Screaming at children doesn't make children behave better nor does screaming at sales advisors make them better salesmen. It makes them desperate. It is a destructive de-motivator which underminds any concept of team. A screaming manager is a sign of inevitable dealership demise - your culture is broken and your future success is very questionable. Yet, dealers continue to promote and support destructive demotivating managers. Dealers endorse screaming sales managers promotion of negative competition, discord and tension within their sales teams but yet wonder why customers flee their showrooms.

Dealers should rid their dealerships of managers who scream at employees. They should promote an enviroment of confidence through consistant training and positive motivation.

Comment by Timothy Randell on September 13, 2011 at 2:09pm: Perfectly said. This is exactly what I experienced daily in my early months although most of the "heat" was directed elsewhere. It was embarrassing for those it was directed at and the rest of the sales staff. This type of unprofessional conduct is a shameful process that future sales managers will probably duplicate when they are promoted. Nurture your team and they will provide great dividends, beat them with whips and have a revolution on your hands.

Comment by Pete Grimm on September 13, 2011 at 1:48pm: Love the title of the post as well as its message. :-)

In this context, there are a couple of leadership principles that managers should keep in mind.

Everyone deserves constructive criticism from time to time, but it should be given one-on-one in private. Criticism of an individual before in a public is most destructive. Criticism of an entire group is rarely warranted.

Old School coaches would tear a player down leaving the player in an emotional position that required defending his/her ego by demonstrating improved performance. This technique works, but leaves emotional scars and can lead to a downward spiral of performance if the player accepts and internalizes the criticism.

The newer and more effective coaching technique always compares unacceptable performance to the expectation of, and theoretical capacity of the player for, good performance. Criticism or disappointment is couched in this context. By doing so, the coach always builds self-esteem and desire to perform in more than equal measure with criticism. An upward spiral in performance can result.

Finally, when coaching, controlled anger is not necessarily a bad thing to display. It gets attention, communicates passion and breaks through barriers in ways that conversation sometimes cannot.

Cheers,

Pete