I once heard a professional speaker by the name of Nido Quebin, ask, "Would you want your daughter to go to school and receive sex education, or sex training?" That question vividly points out the difference between education and training. Training merely shows someone how to do something and usually is a short term solution. Education is permanent and helps the employee understand the process and allows them to use their best judgment in making decisions on how to implement the information or techniques. Training is a buzzword in the automotive industry today. Most everyone believes they must either begin to train or continually increase or improve their training of all employees. The biggest challenge is how to make the training become effective, results oriented education.
Every month I conduct several public automotive seminars, to which automotive employees have purchased tickets to attend. I am always amazed that a dealership can have their employees attend my seminar but not have one of their managers attend. What kind of message does that send to the employees? Is the manager too good to learn more? Is the manager too smart to learn more? Is it okay as a manager to say your too busy to go, but that the employee should take the time? Is it okay to tell your employees that they must invest in themselves, without the managers doing the same? When there is a lack of manager involvement in any formal learning session, the learning process is hindered.
Whenever I conduct a one day seminar, a typical comment or reaction from the attendees is that they received a ton of good information and it seems a little overwhelming at first. The end of the seminar should not be the end of the learning, but rather the beginning of the implementation process. If a manager attended a workshop with their employees, they can take back the information gathered and begin to discuss it with their employees, decide what and how to implement it, break it down into small modules to be reviewed in training meetings, role play sessions, and one on one or group discussions. I know that a manager could leave a one day session of mine or many other trainers and have enough training material to last a year. When I do follow up phone calls to a dealership that has had attendance at one of my programs, I am always amazed to hear that none of their managers attended or that the people who attended are really excited, but the managers have not had a chance to discuss the program with the attendees. Another typical comment from mangers, is that they have not had time to do anything with the information or they are waiting to see which one of the salespeople implement the information. Most salespeople will implement 10% or less of the information if it is not discussed, reinforced and reviewed on a continual basis. "Repetition, is the mother of all skill", and "Inspect what you expect", are both valid phrases.
In the book, Seven habits Of Highly Effective People, by Dr. Steven Covey, Mr. Covey wrote of the four quadrants of time and how the majority of people spend most of their time in the least effective quadrants. Education is always the most effective quadrant of time. Education pays dividends in both short and long terms. When managers become too wrapped up in the day to day process and put education on the back burner, they have tied themselves down to one of the least effective quadrants of time and have hindered future growth. If the managers are too busy, they must rearrange their schedule, or must delegate their more menial tasks to others. Managers should spend most all of their time with either customers, employees or planning. Time spent in other areas are time wasters and ineffective usage of some of the highest paid people in the dealership. As a Dealer, or General Manager, when is the last time you have asked to see the day planners of your managers? Do they have planners? Do they have a training schedule and long term plan for the week, month, year? Who is responsible for the planning and what do you want to focus on?
Employee involvement is the most effective way to increase retention of learning. One of the most effective ways to get involvement is to start a rotating schedule of training to be done by the employees. Let the employees train a twenty minute module on any subject from sales skills, people skills, or life skills. Items such as meet and greets, handling objections, proper dress, nutrition or exercise. Managers should not do all the training or the employees begin to tune them out. The training process must run both ways between management and employees.
When employees are shown that there will be an ongoing emphasis on training and that their involvement is needed and wanted, employee satisfaction will increase, which will in turn increase sales, gross profit and customer satisfaction. When the aforementioned happens you will then know that you have made the transformation from training to education at your dealership.
Training Or Education - To learn more about this author, visit Mark Tewart's Website.
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