“These are all things that may help you justify your results. But is your dealer any happier because of this?”

I just finished reading a powerful book titled “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, two highly decorated Navy SEALs who led key operations in Iraq. The book is all about how to drive and sustain superior performance in the military and the business world.

As I read through it, I could not help but think of how we in retail automotive make many of the same mistakes that are highlighted in this book. For example, how many times have we delegated ownership and blamed others for our results? How often do we point to vendors, the economy, leadership, weather, and a myriad of other factors to excuse our performance? I know I’ve made these mistakes hundreds of times so I started thinking of specific steps that we, as dealership managers or vendor partners, can take to improve.

An Example That May Sound Familiar…

As the month comes to an end, pressure starts building. We’re squeezing every lead in our CRM as hard as we can and we’re doing everything in our power to reach sales goals. As sales managers, we push our team as hard as we can. We call on prospects ourselves and do what is needed to get them into the store. Unfortunately, we know we’re unlikely to succeed so we start looking for an explanation as to why we couldn’t hit our targets.

We look at the performance of our team, the quality of our leads, or the way our conversion rate is calculated. These are all things that may help you justify your results. But is your dealer any happier because of this? Are your commissions any higher because you convinced your boss that this was not your fault? Wouldn’t it be more productive to focus on what we need to do to hit sales goals moving forward? Here’s where this book most resonated with me…It reminded me that there’s a better way to do this!

The Better Way

These two top-performing Navy SEALs propose that the three Laws of Combat are the path to success when it comes to managing the performance of a team in business. Here’s a brief explanation of the three laws and how you can apply to the example above.

Law #1 - Simple

As leaders, it is our duty to translate complex messages to simple terms. If we want your team to sell 100 cars per month, have we explained where this number came from and why we feel it is realistic? If we want them to improve their conversion rate by 3%, have we looked at our metrics and translated to specific areas they need to focus on to achieve that goal? Is our month end reporting process so complex and manual that it is impossible to identify what happened? The simpler your tracking process, the more effective your message will be!

Law #2 - Prioritize & Execute

Every leader deals with conflicting priorities. There’s always a thousand things going on and not enough time to take care of them. As such, it is critical for us to get our team focused on the one or two things that are most important to our long-term success. It is our duty and responsibility to prioritize objectives and communicate to our team in simple terms. Once we pinpoint those, it’s all about taking 10X action to go after our biggest opportunities! The next time you’re communicating a goal, instead of saying “I want you to increase conversion rate by 3%”, try focusing on the most important actions your team can take to achieve that goal (e.g. “Make sure clients are being called within 20 minutes of their Internet lead submission”). Tracking, inspecting, and holding our team accountable for prioritized objectives such as this one will ensure you’re moving the needle every time.

Law #3 - Delegate Command

Although every leader should take extreme ownership for outcomes and results, teams must be given the freedom to make decisions and operate within certain boundaries. Striking the right balance between freedom and direction is critical to achieving your goals. Your team must feel like they had a say in your objectives, this will create a sense of urgency and ownership in them as well. How are you empowering your managers to achieve their goals? Are you giving them all the information they need to make their message simple and prioritized? Are you giving them the tools needed to track their progress and execute?

Wrapping up…

Although these three laws of combat sound intuitive and simple, this book was a great reminder that we are constantly making these mistakes (many times without even noticing!) and that our businesses are suffering because of it. Taking these three steps can make an incredible difference!

What are your thoughts? How would you apply the principles of Extreme Ownership to your own work?