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The Fixed Operations Manager & I (GM) recently went to a breakfast seminar on Cultural Change. One point highlighted was the culture of complaint - that negativity, blame and justification can become a way of life. What do you when the DP complains? Can you ignore the leader's setting and operate positively, keeping staff motivated, keen & happy?

[This message has been edited by ABlair (edited 05-21-2007).]

I would say that you can operate in a positive environment but that is said without knowing how involved is your DP in the day to day operations.
I think one way to overcome this is by focusing on individuals on a day to day basis. For example, do you say good morning to each and every employee on a daily basis or do your dept. managers do this? Do you have tech/advisor/parts department meetings on a monthly basis? Are the meetings positive or brow -beatings? You could do employee of the month awards. Do you have employee barbecues on a monthly basis? Do all your people have an individual performance goal-that is discussed regularly?Do you practice the 10ft rule? It takes alot of work for culture change but usually it has to do with alot of little things then one big change in owner attitude.

You cannot, nor is it your job, to change the DP attitude, the only thing that you can change is how you and your people respond to it- and hopefully in time, you may directly or indirectly affect how your DP responds in the future by your actions or results.
Good Luck!

It's extremely difficult to operate in an environment such as that because he can truly set the tone for the whole store. I was in a similar such situation some years back and was able to counteract a lot of the DP's negativity within my department. We were quite successful in our own little world in spite of him. Unfortunately, it pervaded all other departments and made for not such a nice place to work. It prompted an oft repeated statement: " So and so knows what the problem is at the dealership, but he refuses to quit".

There's and old saying..."The speed of the team is the speed of the leader". This is so true when it comes to automotive retail dealerships.
BTK made a great observation. You can not control the attitude of others you work with, but you can control how you react to those attitudes and those individuals. Try your best to keep an upbeat, professional outlook, and remeber that in the Service business (and that's what we are), we can never have a "bad day".

Keep smiling!

Linda

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Linda Graham Hansen
Auto Dealer Focus
www.autodealerfocus.com