In this episode, we examine the common frustration of workshop leaders who feel they have to repeat instructions a

thousand times without seeing results. Andrew Uglow reveals why the issue is rarely the information itself, but rather the

delivery and the emotional state of the person receiving it. He introduces the TATS framework, which stands for Triage,

Action, and Test, as a structured way to ensure that instructions are not only heard but correctly understood and

implemented.

Andrew explains the critical importance of the triage phase, where the emotional state of both the foreman and the

technician must be managed before any meaningful communication can occur. He shares personal stories from his time as

a technician to demonstrate how a lack of clear instruction and testing can lead to embarrassment, stress, and repeated

mistakes. The discussion also covers the hidden costs of inaction and the importance of closing the capacity gap for

workshop foremen to prevent burnout and improve overall flow.

What You Will Learn:

• Why the meaning of a conversation depends entirely on the hearer's understanding

• How the TATS framework can eliminate the mechanical butt kicking machine

• What the triage phase involves and why it is the most skipped step in communication

• Why technicians need to know the why behind an action to be successful

• How to use the verbal test to ensure instructions are correctly installed in a technician's mind

• What the hidden cost of inaction looks like on your workshop's bottom line

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of building respect and rapport before giving instructions

• How to identify if a technician is in a state to actually process information

• The role of the Quality Information Model in improving service advisor to foreman handovers

• Why blaming technicians for mistakes is often a sign of poor communication delivery

• How to move from a reactive cycle to a proactive, friction-less workshop environment

Notable Quotes:

• "The meaning of any conversation is on what the hearer understands, not what the speaker said."

• "If my instructions are bad, my results are gonna be bad."

• "We want to test that what you heard and what I said are the same thing."

• "Meaning gets installed when they have to make sense of it internally before they can explain it externally."

Andrew has a variety of free downloads and tools you can grab.

Discover if your workshop is Retention Worthy here or visit his website, https://www.solutionsculture.com

(https://www.solutionsculture.com) where the focus is on bringing reliable profitability to automotive workshop owners and

workshop management through the Retention, Engagement and Development of their Technical Professionals.

This podcast was produced by 'Podcasts Done for You' https://commtogether.com.au (https://commtogether.com.au)

The TATS Strategy: Solving the Efficiency Crisis

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00:00:05,460 --> 00:00:08,349

with Triage, Action, and Testing.

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00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:12,560

Join passionate automotive trainer

and coach Andrew Uglow as he

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00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,609

exposes the hidden costs of poor

communication and ineffective

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00:00:16,609 --> 00:00:18,160

information flow in the workshop.

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00:00:18,570 --> 00:00:22,220

In this episode, you'll learn the

three pillars of the TATS framework,

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discover why your instructions aren't

yielding the results you expect, and

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understand how to align your team

to boost morale and productivity.

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Along the way, you'll hear

powerful lessons from the field,

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including a cautionary tale about

a heater box repair that highlights

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exactly why triage and testing are

non-negotiable for any business.

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I'm your co-host Anthony Pearl and this

is the Frictionless Workshop podcast.

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Let's get cranking.

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So I love a good acronym.

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Andrew, I know you've written one down

here for me too, as a talking point

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here, and we're talking about TATS.

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And at first I thought, "Wait, does it-

Are we assuming everyone's got tattoos?

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Is it, is that what it's all about?"

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But no it's not that, but perhaps this is

the thing, and you're gonna explain it.

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Maybe it should be emblazoned

all over everybody because

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this is the problem, right?

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Andrew Uglow: Right.

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So TATS is the strategy or the

structure that we use to address this

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issue of, "I've told them a thousand

times and I'm not getting a result."

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And so TATS stands for

Triage, Action, Testing.

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And again, I say this with empathy to

technicians, and I say this with empathy

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to foremen as well because for the

technician, when the foreman comes to

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me and tells me to do something and I

don't understand, or I don't completely

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understand, or I think I do, and I go

and do what I thought was the right thing

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and it turns out to be the wrong thing,

and now I'm the one that has to back up

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to the mechanical butt-kicking machine.

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Or I'm the one that looks like a peanut,

and I get the public humiliation and

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the shame and the shade because I did

what I thought was right, and it wasn't

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right, but I didn't know it wasn't right.

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And so for the technicians, I

have profound empathy because

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if my instructions are bad,

my results are gonna be bad.

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It's just y- like you can get lucky, and

I've been lucky, but it's really hard.

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For the foreman, no one ever taught them,

quote unquote, "how to tell people."

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The issue here is not the information.

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The information is super

important, super, super important.

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But the issue isn't the information.

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The issue is how the information is

delivered, and the framework we use for

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delivering the information is TATS, right?

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We start with a triage, and

then we talk about the action.

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This is what I actually want

you to do and how you know that

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you're doing the right thing.

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And then we have at the end a test.

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We wanna make sure that what you heard

and what I said are the same thing.

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Just as importantly, we want to test

that you know what correct is So when

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you've completed it, you can, you

can use this test to know that you've

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completed it so that you don't spend

time you don't have to, or, or worse,

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do things we didn't want you to do.

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Which i- in both cases aren't

a good use of your time.

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Anthony Perl: Let's get a

couple of stories in here.

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Give me some examples of where

this has prevented what could

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have otherwise been a mess.

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Andrew Uglow: Well, let me

give you a personal example.

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When I was a technician, which is a

couple of years ago now, probably a

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couple of decades ago now, but we, we,

we don't wanna say that out loud- Yeah,

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Anthony Perl: it's time

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um,

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Andrew Uglow: I remember being

given a repair order and some--

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a- and the instruction was,

"Andrew, we want you to fix the..."

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It was the heater box.

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And so I set about fixing the heater box.

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What I didn't know was that

this was a repeat repair.

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I didn't know that the heater

box actually comes out without

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having to remove the entire dash.

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And I didn't know that I should

check that the part was actually in

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stock before I start doing the job.

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So I just got, "Here's my instruction.

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Andrew, here's your heater box.

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Car's on the hoist, off you go."

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Which can I offer is not an

abnormal thing in the workshop.

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So I go, "Oh, heater box, no problem."

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So I start disassembling the entire front

dash area of the vehicle, and an hour or

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so after doing this, and, and can I offer,

I'm doing pretty well, like I'm getting

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into this quite, quite efficiently.

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The foreman comes up and goes,

"Andrew, what are you doing?"

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Maybe not those exact words, but you, you

get the WTF, "Andrew, what's that for?

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What are you doing?"

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And I said, "I'm doing the heater core."

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And he goes, "That's not

how you do a heater core.

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You just undo this, this, this,

this, and it should be done."

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And I've gone, "Oh, well, that would've

been nice to know to start with."

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And so I then go to parts and

find out that we got the right

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box, but we got the wrong part.

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And so I've spent an hour

disassembling this car unnecessarily,

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only to find out that I now have

to spend an hour reassembling

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the car 'cause the part's wrong.

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And, and so I go back to...

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Now, here's...

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You ready for the cruncher?

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So here's the cruncher.

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Andrew's now stressed,

and not without cause.

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Andrew's now embarrassed.

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Andrew feels very small and

humiliated, and so they give me

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another job, and they said something,

but I can't recall what they said.

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And so Andrew looks at the repair

order, starts on this job, and

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largely repeats the same mistake.

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At least this time I checked

to see if the part was right.

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And so the cruncher was there was no

triage in any of this, and particularly

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for that second job, because Andrew

isn't in a state- That he can ac- I

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can see your lips move, I can hear the

sound that's, your voice is making,

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but I cannot connect what you're

saying with anything m-meaningful.

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It's, it's, it's eluding me entirely.

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And so this is- Can I- ... the

part of the triage I was gonna,

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Anthony Perl: I was gonna say that is

such a relatable little area there because

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that happens in day-to-day life, right?

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When something, something goes wrong and

your mind is distracted by a reaction

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to that problem, and then when someone

starts talking to you about the new

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thing, you haven't really been paying

attention, and suddenly you've skipped

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the crucial bits and you're trying to

fill in some blanks, but you're already

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in a negative space, and then it's

going to just exacerbate the problem.

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Andrew Uglow: Absolutely.

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I, I'm, I'm really behind the

eight ball, like internally with my

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internal dialogue, with my emotional

state, with my, my ability to

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access the resources that I have.

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I, I'm, I'm really facing some significant

barriers, and so my ability to perform

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in that state is really, really low.

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It's not quite at the level of

winning lotto, but it's moving in

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that direction in terms of likelihood.

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So we go back to the idea of triage

first, action and testing, which largely

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mitigates that situation from happening.

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Anthony Perl: So if we've got that,

tell me the positives as well.

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I mean, we're talking

about, you know, some of the

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negatives where those things...

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How do you, how do you describe what

it's like when it's actually working,

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when that system is, is happening?

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Because I think there's also the

opposite can also be true, right?

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That people may not realize that

they're actually doing the right thing,

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and that that is something that they

need to pass on and continue to do.

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All

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Andrew Uglow: right.

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So a great example of what it

looks like when it's right would be

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like for the foreman, when you get

really good quality on the repair

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order from the service advisor.

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So when the, the service advisor says,

you know, "Noise in left-hand front of

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car when turning left over speed humps,"

that's really high-quality information.

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It's explicit, as in there's

a lot of detail here.

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It's tested in that what the customer

said and what's on the RO and what's

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meant by the customer are the same things.

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Like, we know that what the customer

meant and what's on the RO mean the

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same things, and it's actionable.

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I know exactly how to

go about testing that.

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We call it the QIM,

quality information model.

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If I don't give my techs good quality, if

I don't give my techs good instruction,

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I, I'm making their life

hard, I'm making my life hard.

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What does it look like?

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It looks like when I ask my tech to

do something, they actually do it.

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They do it to the quality and the

standard that I was expecting because

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that information was transferred in

the instruction, and I don't have to

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quality check them because I can tell

straight up that it's right based upon

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the test that they did at the end I, I

don't have to go and fix it for them.

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I'm less likely to have a comeback.

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I'm going to have more time to spend on

the things that actually need me rather

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than th- the things that actually demand

me, and they're not the same thing.

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It makes for a smoother flow.

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It addresses a lot of the bottleneck

that we spoke about in previous episodes.

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Quality of information is king.

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So how do you know that you

have quality information?

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Well, at the service advisor level,

we use the quality information

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model or methodology, which is

explicit and tested and actionable.

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For technicians, when I'm giving

instructions for technicians, I use TATs.

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I triage first, and we'll,

we'll dive into that shortly.

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Then I give them correct action,

like exactly explicitly what I

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want them to do and why it matters.

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And then test how do they know

they've done it right and how do I

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know that they've heard me correctly.

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Anthony Perl: So talk to me then

about, we've talked about the

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triage part, but what happens

when the test part is ignored?

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Andrew Uglow: Oh, the short

answer is they think they've

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got it right and they haven't.

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They th- they, "Well, you told me

to do this, I did that, but I did it

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to my standard, not to the standard

that you wanted me to do it to."

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And so that, that creates

a lot of friction.

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You know, potentially

can result in a comeback.

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And so the car comes back,

worst case scenario, it's

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slipped through quality control.

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Customer gets the car, customer gets

upset and, and not without cause.

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Uh, comes back, gives the

service advisor a good serving.

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You know, "You're ugly and y- you smell

and y- your, your mother dresses you

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funny," and all these sorts of things.

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So now the service advisor's

all distressed and upset.

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They come back because in dealership,

and I don't mean to be rude when

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I say this, but the vast majority

of times it's about the blame,

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it's not about cause resolution.

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And so they come back and they

go, "Andrew, what were you

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thinking when you did this?"

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And here's the discussion with

the foreman, "Andrew, I told

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you to da, da, da, da, da, da.

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Why didn't you do it?"

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And I go, "Well, I did do it."

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"Oh, well, it's got to be

like this, not like that."

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Well, if that wasn't

communicated, how do I know?

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Like you, like I'm not a

senior tech, I'm not a foreman.

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I don't have that level of knowledge and

expertise if you don't unpack this stuff.

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And I usually get the pushback

from the foreman and they

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go, "Well, they should know."

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Yeah, right, they should know,

but if they don't, how are

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you going to address that gap?

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Because that's on you if you don't.

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Because all meaning, and I can't

say this loudly enough or strongly

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enough, all meaning of any

conversation is on what the hearer

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understands, not what the speaker said.

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Anthony Perl: The Frictionless

Workshop podcast is brought

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to you by Solutions Culture.

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For details on how to get in touch

with Andrew, consult the show notes

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below, and don't forget to subscribe

so you don't miss an episode.

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Now, back to the podcast.

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And it's so important that because we've

all experienced this as well, where

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you've been in a conversation, there's

three of you in the conversation, maybe

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it's your partner and, and yourself

and, and someone else, and you get back

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after that conversation, and you and

your partner talk about that particular

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conversation, and you can interpret

things in completely different ways.

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You, you sort of sit there

and you go, "Well, that's not

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what I heard that was said."

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Yeah.

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And that happens in the

workplace all of the time.

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Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

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Anthony Perl: So which kind of then

begs the question, if you had to hammer

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this home and teach this quickly to make

an impact on them, how do you do that?

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What do you say?

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Andrew Uglow: All right, so here's

your Monday morning, this is how

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you do it short, short version.

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So just as a, a quick side note, I am

working on a cheat sheet for this that

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you can take a photo of on your phone.

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You can create prompts, whatever you want,

that will help you step through this.

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It will be available by the

time the podcast's come out.

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But it's, it's the TATS framework.

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So we start with triage.

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So the idea of triage comes from medical.

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Someone turns up with a broken

fingernail versus someone that comes

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in holding their own leg that's

no longer attached to their body.

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One of those is wildly more

life-threatening than the other,

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and so triage is about addressing

the critical stuff first.

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So the most critical thing when

I'm gonna give instructions is me.

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If I'm stressed, if I've just had

a very unpleasant conversation with

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whoever, it doesn't matter, and I'm

not in a good state to be able to

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give good instructions, I've got

to solve that before I go anywhere.

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That is step one.

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There's no point in me turning up angry in

front of a tech and unpacking instructions

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out of this internal stuff that's going

on for me be- 'cause it won't land.

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The second part is there needs to be...

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The, the tech themselves needs to, need

to be in a state to be able to hear.

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So if the technician is stressed,

is anxious, is frustrated, is having

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a bad moment, okay, I need to help

them manage their state, because

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until I do, they can't hear me.

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They might hear the words, but

they can't hear the meaning.

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They can't make sense of it,

and this is where a lot of

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the communication gets lost.

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The other element is, and this is

the thing that you fix before you

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even start to have the conversation,

which is a, a long-term thing, is

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there needs to be a measure of respect

or rapport between me and the tech.

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Because if the tech thinks I'm a

mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging,

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forward-sloping, picking on him the

whole time, evil overlord, when I give

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them an instruction, it will just come

across as a demand if I don't have

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respect and rapport with that technician.

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And so it's crazy important

that I cultivate that over time.

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So my state, the technician's state,

and rapport, I've got to have those,

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then I have to give them an outcome.

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What's the outcome?

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"Hey, Anthony, here's your job.

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It needs to be fixed.

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Here's the outcome.

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Here's the whatever it is, the job."

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We then move into the,

the action side of things.

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So action needs a couple

of different pieces.

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I'm not gonna dive into all of them

right now, but the first thing they need

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to know is what to do and why to do it.

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Because if I don't have why, I can't know

whether I'm successful or not, right?

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So, "Anthony, here's a,

here's a brake job for you.

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You need to change out the brake pads,

and you need to do it in a way that the

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customer doesn't die at the end of it."

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"Oh, okay."

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If I don't explain the why, or you

need to do it in a way that is fast and

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efficient without killing the customer.

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Usually there's a couple of parts to that.

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The next part with the action is how.

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I might need to give them how.

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I might not.

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Depends upon the level of skill.

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But I've got to start with what I want

you to do, why it matters, why it's

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important, and then we go into how.

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And then of course the last part

is the test, and the first chunk

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of the test is, "Now explain

back to me what I just asked."

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And they go, "Fix brakes."

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"Okay, good.

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We're, we're some of the way there.

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Fix brakes how?

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To what standard?"

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"Fix brakes in an hour

without killing the customer."

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"Right.

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Okay, great.

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You know what I mean.

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I know that you know what I mean.

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So when I come back and I check to see

if you've done your job correctly, I

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can come back in an hour and I can see

that it's assembled correctly in a way

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that it isn't gonna kill the customer."

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Now, that's a, a lovely generalization.

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I would like to be more specific,

but just for the sake of the

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podcast and time, there's my TAT.

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Start with the triage.

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What condition are they in?

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'Cause if they can't hear you

or if they can't hear what

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you mean, not gonna end well.

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Then explain the job, not just

what to do, why it matters, and

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maybe how if they need the how.

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And then test.

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"What did I just ask you to do?

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Explain back, give me, feed

back to me what I just said."

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Da, da, da, da, da.

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And the reason we want the feedback,

and this is really important, is when

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they say it out loud, they're also

saying it in their head, and so they

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have to make sense of it internally

before they can explain it externally.

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And so this is where the meaning part

gets installed in the person that

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I'm expecting the performance from.

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Anthony Perl: Drew, we touched on in

a previous episode the hidden cost of

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what you're not measuring, and I think

it's something that we've got some great

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feedback on and we want to expand on.

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So let's unpack that whole

concept a little bit more.

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What are we not measuring,

and what is the cost?

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Andrew Uglow: Oh, dear.

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So bit of context.

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There is an organization in America called

Wrench Way, and they are specialists in

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helping quality technicians find quality

businesses, and helping quality businesses

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find quality technicians, but also helping

both technicians and businesses that are

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working towards their quality get there.

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And so it's a kind of a, a

technician advocacy for want of a,

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a, a fairly gross simplification.

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They published a state of the industry

paper not so long back, and some

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of the results were heartbreaking.

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Can I offer-- I read this and I've

gone, "You've got to be kidding me.

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Like, really?

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That was the result?"

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But back to the question and,

and I say that by way of context

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'cause we're gonna dive into that.

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One of the things that doesn't get

measured in a dealership, and one of the

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big things that doesn't get measured in

the dealership is the cost of inaction.

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Okay, so we didn't do this.

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What does that cost us?

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And the reason that we, we don't

measure that is because it doesn't

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have a line item in the balance sheet.

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In the P&L there isn't a, "We didn't do

these things and it cost us $7 million."

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Th-that, that isn't the methodology.

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It's akin to not tracking

your lost part sales.

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You know, so customer comes in and

says, "I want a, a widget for my

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thingo," and you go, "Ah, let me

check to see if one's in stock."

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And parts go, "Sorry, we're all

out of widgets for thingos."

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Well, that was a lost sale, so that,

that was lost part, that was lost labor

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that like if we'd stocked that part,

maybe we could have got that sale.

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But we don't track that, and so

if you're not tracking what you

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didn't get, you might have seven

or eight or nine inquiries for

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people wanting widgets for thingos.

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You only have anecdotal evidence.

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You don't have any reasonable measure

for going, "Well, gee, we're getting a

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lot of demand for widgets for thingos.

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Maybe we should keep a

couple on the shelf."

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And so I go back to the cost of inaction.

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Because I didn't train my person,

because I didn't my foreman, because

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I h- I'm, I'm not closing the foreman

capacity gap, well, we don't have a

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measure for what that impact is, but we

do have the consequences all the same.

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So this still shows up in foreman burnout.

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It shows up in a higher number

of comebacks, of silly errors, of

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things that quality control missed,

of upset customers, of all of

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the things that then go ahead and

consume my time- That would be better

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spent otherwise on being proactive.

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And so I slip into this

nasty reactive cycle.

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Anthony Perl: Well, that's all we have

time for in this episode, but if you

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realize today that your instructions

are not landing because you're

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skipping the feedback loop, it's

time to implement the TATS framework.

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To help you put these ideas into

gear, we've put together a dedicated

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workbook that includes a breakdown of

today's episode and specific activities

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00:20:52,519 --> 00:20:56,489

to help you improve communication

and reduce costly workshop errors.

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00:20:56,749 --> 00:21:00,069

You can download your copy right

now via the link in our show notes.

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00:21:00,309 --> 00:21:04,379

Grab that workbook and start

testing for understanding today.

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00:21:04,799 --> 00:21:08,789

Make sure you join us for the next

episode where Andrew reveals the

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00:21:08,789 --> 00:21:12,849

single most expensive event that

could ever happen in your workshop,

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00:21:13,169 --> 00:21:18,539

and surprisingly, it's something that

never shows up on a standard report.

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We're diving deep into the massive

hidden costs of losing key technicians

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and service managers and how

you can stop that drain on your

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bottom line before it's too late.

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We love your comments as they

help us frame future episodes,

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so please leave them wherever

you're listening to this podcast.

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00:21:36,650 --> 00:21:40,650

Don't forget also to like,

share, and subscribe so you never

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miss that crucial conversation.

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00:21:43,419 --> 00:21:47,809

This show has been produced by my

team at podcastdoneforyou.com.au.

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Until next time, keep your workshop

running smooth and frictionless.