In this episode of The Friction-less Workshop, Andrew Uglow shares a humbling story from his time as an apprentice that illustrates a major trap in workshop management. Many owners and managers track productivity and efficiency metrics without ever testing the premise behind the numbers. Andrew explains why financial tools are incomplete for managing a human-driven business and how to identify the cultural resistance that slows down your workshop. Learn why the traditional role of the foreman is changing and why you need new leadership tools to engage the modern generation of technicians.

Contact details:

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 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.

Co-host: Anthony Perl

Produced by: 'Podcasts Done for You'

Testing the premise behind the numbers.

2

Join passionate automotive trainer

and coach Andrew Uglow as he shares

3

a humbling lesson from his apprentice

days that reveals why your workshop

4

metrics might be misleading you.

5

In this episode, you'll learn why

financial tools are often incomplete

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when managing a human-driven

business, and how to identify the

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blind spots in your workshop culture.

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Discover the importance of zeroing

your meter before you start diagnosing

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performance issues, and along the

way, you'll hear stories about the

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changing role of the foreman and why old

management keys no longer open new doors.

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I'm your co-host Anthony Perl, and this

is the Frictionless Workshop podcast.

12

Let's get cranking.

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Well, Andrew, hello and welcome to

another episode of your podcast.

14

And I love it when you tell stories,

and I'm gonna prompt you to go back to

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some of the early days and a workshop

that you ran that I know you've got

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a little bit of a lesson for people

from those early days that you learnt.

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Andrew Uglow: It's funny how you can be in

a context and someone asks you a question

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and it prompts something that you hadn't

recalled for a long time, and that was…

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that's the case here.

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We were doing an electrical class

with some people who were fairly,

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like they were qualified, but it'd

been a while since they'd done

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electrical, and so they needed a

bit of a refresh, bit of a touch-up.

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And I ended up telling a story about one

of my first electrical diagnosis events.

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Again, I come from a different world.

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I come from a world where workshops

were fairly rough and ready.

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Cars were largely mechanical devices

with a few electrical circuits,

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not the highly networked electronic

things that we enjoy today.

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And I'd been given the opportunity to do

some diagnosis for myself, and this was

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sort of like, as a third-year apprentice,

it was like, whoa, this is really heavy.

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It had a lot of gravity.

31

And so, you know, they, they've

sort of let me loose on this car.

32

There's an electric window that doesn't

work, and they said, "Find out what's

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going wrong and come back and see me."

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And so I go through all the things

that I've been taught from trade

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school, and I'm using an ohmmeter.

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Now, an ohmmeter measures ohms, which

is a electrical resistance in a circuit.

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Anything that has too much resistance

either doesn't work or doesn't work well.

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And it- typically in a circuit y- you

wanna be under an ohm, and less is more.

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Less is better.

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And so the circuit has three main parts.

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I, I go to the first part and I measure it

and I get eight ohms, which is enormous.

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And it's like, "Yes,

I've found the problem."

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And because I've partly disassembled

the vehicle to get to where I needed

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to measure, I thought, "Oh, well, since

there's a part, I'll just measure the

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other two pieces just to be sure," right?

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I don't wanna look like an idiot

and only find half the problem.

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So I measure the second half of

the circuit, and it's also eight

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ohms, and I've gone, "Whoa."

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Like it's not just bad, it's doubly bad.

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And so I go to measure the last half

thinking that I'm pretty much done,

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but it's just a quick test and we'll

be right, and I measured the third

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part of the circuit and it's also

eight ohms, and I'm kind of blown away.

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I've gone, "Wow, 24 ohms."

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And so the OCD part of my brain

goes, "Andrew, why don't you

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measure all of the circuit?"

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And I'm expecting 24 ohms.

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So I measure across the entire

circuit, and it absolutely confounded

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me- Because I've got eight ohms.

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And it's like, hang on a

minute, let me get out my

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calculator and just double-check.

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Eight plus eight plus eight,

well, that's, that's 24, right?

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So wh- why do I have only eight?

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And so I remeasure.

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I do the first part, second

part, third part, same readings.

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Do the total circuit, same readings.

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And I'm not just, I'm not just a

little bit stumped, I am entirely lost.

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I, like I, I, I, I go to my cupboard

of options and it is absolutely bare.

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I've got no idea.

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Anthony Perl: Love it.

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I mean, that's the thing is that,

that that's, you get in that situation

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and you think you've got an answer,

and then, uh-oh, it's not the answer

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that you thought it was, and then

you start swimming out of your depth

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Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

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So I, I, like, my only option was,

well, just in case, 'cause usually…

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And this is true, I think, of most

technicians, we have this fairly

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negative inner voice that says, "Well,

you must have done something wrong."

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And that's the first thing that we

assume, and so we go back and check to

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make sure that we didn't do something

wrong, because if there's gonna be a,

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some consequences on the end, we don't

wanna be receiving the consequence.

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We want someone else to, or

the car or something else.

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So I go back and check

again, and it's the same.

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And so I end up losing, like, 30 minutes

rechecking, going, "Well, hang on.

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How can this possibly be?

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This is eight, and this is eight, and

this is eight, but I've still got eight.

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I should have 24."

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And so I do it backwards.

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I It didn't change anything.

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And so, like, like I say,

I, I, I'm, I'm just stuck.

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And so I do what all good

technicians do when they get

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stuck, is they call the foreman.

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And so I call the foreman over and

I go, "Can you help me with this?"

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And so he drops what he's doing

and, and, and comes on over.

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And he says, "Right.

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What's the problem?"

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And I show him the first

part of the circuit.

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I said, "Eight ohms."

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And he goes, "That's huge."

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And I said, "Yeah, I know, right?

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But here's the second part of the

circuit, and it's eight ohms, too."

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And he goes, "Hang on.

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That's a bit weird."

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And I go, "No, no, that's

not the weirdest part.

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Here's the third part of the circuit,

and that's eight ohms as well."

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And I go, "But when I measure the

whole circuit, it's eight ohms.

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I should have 24, and I'm, I'm lost."

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Anyway, the foreman goes…

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You know how sometimes you come

across someone and they just ask the

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perfect question at the perfect time?

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The foreman asks, "So did

you check your meter?"

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And I've gone…

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You, you have that little

Microsoft blue circle moment.

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You go, "Uh, no I didn't."

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And so he grabs the leads out of

my hands, and he holds one lead and

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touches the other lead to it, which

we call zeroing the meter, right?

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Anthony Perl: Mm-hmm.

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Andrew Uglow: And guess

who didn't zero the meter?

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Andrew, do you wanna guess how

much the meter was reading?

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Anthony Perl: Was it reading eight?

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Andrew Uglow: It was reading eight ohms.

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So all of the f- all of the…

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So, so here's, here's, here's

the, here's the crunch, right?

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Not only did I not find the problem,

I've just spent 30-plus minutes going

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around in circles where if I'd checked

the meter to begin with, I would've found

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exactly what was causing my eight ohms,

and I would've known to either test a

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different way or look somewhere else.

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And so Andrew looks like a right peanut.

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Now, to my defense, I'm

an apprentice, right?

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This is my first real live job on a car.

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And I just go back to, it struck

me the lesson from this, is that

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the numbers weren't lying It

wasn't like the meter was faulty.

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The leads had resistance

and they shouldn't have.

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But the, what it was

displaying was correct.

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What was the underlying problem that I

had entirely missed was that I hadn't

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tested the premise behind the numbers.

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And so I was just operating

off the numbers in front of

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me going, "Oh, eight ohms.

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Found it.

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Yay."

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And then when it didn't add up,

I didn't have a way of validating

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that what's really going on

versus what the numbers say.

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Anthony Perl: It's an

interesting one, isn't it?

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Because you immediately went

down a path of trying to go…

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I, I imagine your mind's going,

particularly when you get

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the first reading, is going,

"Okay, there's a problem.

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What is going to be the

problem in this section?"

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Because of this huge amount of

resistance that you're seeing, and

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you would obviously start trying to

diagnose what could be the fix for

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that, and suddenly you're blown out

of the water and go, "Hang on, I may

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not have found the problem at all."

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Andrew Uglow: Right.

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And so apart from being just a little bit

embarrassing , I think more humiliation

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than embarrassment, but anyway.

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And again, I go back to the lesson that

I learnt, it was like, ah, so I have

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to, well, we call it zeroing the meter.

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I have to make sure that what the

tool that I'm using to measure is

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in fact the right tool for the job,

and it's being used the right way.

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And one of the things that I hear

in technical training, I hear

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when I've talked to foremen, is

that very often in workshops,

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everyone is tracking the numbers.

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We've all got the metrics, we've

all got the KPIs, and the, the

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KPIs, the numbers are accurate.

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But what's missing is the

premise behind the numbers.

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And so we go, oh, well, you know, our

workshop productivity, our workshop

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efficiency, our parts per RO, labor per

RO, all of the metrics that we track and

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measure, and we should track and measure.

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It's important.

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But the numbers themselves don't

convey what's really happening,

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that, that you're kind of measuring

the end of the assembly line, right?

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But that doesn't necessarily give

you insight into the health of the

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assembly line or what's actually

happening on the assembly line.

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You just measure what it produces,

and that's kind of what stumped me.

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It's like, oh, well, how

can this possibly be?

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And I didn't have a way of

being able to test my premise.

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I didn't have a way to be able to

reverse engineer what the numbers

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meant other than it was bad

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' Anthony Perl: Cause the lesson that

people mostly would learn out of that

177

situation is probably going, "Ah,

okay, I forgot to do the thing at the

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beginning to get it back down to zero."

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And-

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Andrew Uglow: Right

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… Anthony Perl: and that's an

import- that's an important lesson,

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but it's not the main lesson.

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Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

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And again, the, the crunch is in

the industry, we love to use fairly

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vague generalizations because it's

convenient and we're always time poor.

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So if we can say it quicker

and faster, the better.

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But we talk about the skills gap.

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Oh, it's the skills gap.

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Why, why is my workshop performing?

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Oh, it's a skills gap.

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It's, it's a productivity issue.

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It's an efficiency issue.

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It's…

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And it could in fact be, but we

haven't actually done meaningful

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calibration, meaningful diagnosis on

the premise behind the skills gap.

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It's just like me getting eight ohms.

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Oh, it's eight ohms.

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That's the problem.

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Should be zero.

200

Yeah, but where did that

eight ohms come from?

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How do you know that you've

measured that eight ohms correctly?

202

How do you know that you haven't got an

inaccurate calibration to start with?

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And we go back, well, what

about your efficiency numbers?

204

What about your productivity numbers?

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What about all of the things

that we test and measure?

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How do you know what that's meaning?

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You're, you're just measuring the outcome.

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You're not getting any insight

into what causes that issue.

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And the issue is deeper, I think, than

what most service management realize.

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But the only tool they've

got, like me, is the KPIs.

211

They don't have an effective

way of being able to calibrate

212

other than using financial tools.

213

And if the financial tool isn't the

whole story, well, where do they go?

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They do what I did and, and just repeat

what we've done with the financial tool.

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Well, let's check it again to make

sure we got it right, you know,

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because the numbers don't lie.

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And that's true, they don't.

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But

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Anthony Perl: And I imagine it's

exactly the same as completely believing

220

a customer who, when they drive

in and say, "The engine's broken."

221

Andrew Uglow: Mm-hmm.

222

" Anthony Perl: And it's not performing."

223

Andrew Uglow: Or, "Engine

missing," is my favorite.

224

Anthony Perl: Yeah.

225

"It's not performing like it

should, and I'm pretty sure that

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it's 'cause this is broken."

227

If you operate on that assumption-

Mm-hmm … you're only gonna look

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for that problem, but that may not

have been the cause of the problem.

229

It may not be the only problem.

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Andrew Uglow: Yeah, absolutely.

231

And so I go back to when I see technicians

in training classes, very often they

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turn up and they have pretty good

foundations, generally speaking, but

233

they often miss the meaning piece.

234

And so they can use the tool correctly,

they can get the number correctly,

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they can read the scan tool correctly.

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But when we actually get down to the data

and we go, okay, what does that data mean?

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What's the pieces that are

resulting in that number?

238

Very often we come across that Microsoft

blue circle, where it just spins and

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spins and spins and, and, and they don't

have a means or a tool or a strategy or

240

a structure to be able to go and unpack

what's really happening behind that.

241

And part of the reason for that is

that we run a human business with

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financial tools, and financial tools

are awesome, and they're necessary,

243

and they're important, but they're, in

and of themselves, they're incomplete.

244

And so where the driver is a

human driver, you know, we look at

245

people's behavior in here, they're

lazy, they're this, they're that.

246

Well, okay, what's causing that?

247

What's driving that?

248

Because at the end of the day, it's

the humans that get you your KPIs.

249

It's the humans that get you your metrics.

250

And so if we don't have

good human diagnosis of…

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And better, if we don't have good

human intervention, if we don't

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have the equivalent of sticking

my two leads together and go,

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"Oh, what's really going on here?"

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And getting a good baseline, a good

calibration to start with, we'll

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just keep measuring the metrics.

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We'll just keep measuring the financial

outcomes and do what we've always done

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faster, harder, longer, quicker, more.

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And it can work, but

it's also very limiting.

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Anthony Perl: What's the big message

if you're listening in to this

260

now and going, "Yeah, that's me.

261

We're, you know, in our workshop,

we are pretty much driven by

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bottom line only, and so if we're

seeing, you know, this happening

263

financially, we move this way or that"?

264

You know, 'cause the message

isn't abandon all of that

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Andrew Uglow: No.

266

No, that would be insane.

267

That would be quite literally throwing the

baby out with the bath water, wouldn't it?

268

At the end of the day, if you don't

make a profit, you're in a world of poo.

269

And if you don't have good insight

into the numbers and tracking them

270

daily, weekly, as we do, like test

and measure everything, you're

271

at a significant disadvantage.

272

But we stop there.

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We just stop with those tools.

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And I go the industry, generally speaking,

hasn't been given good human tools.

275

Like, we have human resources, and that's

okay, but HR is really about compliance.

276

It doesn't really delve into performance.

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Good HR does, but I'm not convinced

that the automotive industry

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generally and most dealerships or

workshops have access to good HR.

279

And so because we were never given the

tools, 'cause we don't have the faculties

280

for being able to install good human

performance, we do what we've always done.

281

And because in the past it's

worked, we keep doing it.

282

But the things are dynamic,

like in any business.

283

Not just the business being

dynamic, people are dynamic.

284

Culture has changed.

285

People have changed.

286

Drivers have changed.

287

You know, we hear the lament from

pretty much everyone in any sort

288

of leadership position in the

dealership, "Oh, kids these days.

289

Oh, apprentices are terrible, da, da, da."

290

Yeah, yeah, that's … Yeah, take a hint.

291

The- people have changed.

292

They're not the same.

293

And so trying to use old keys to open

new doors, well, it's just not effective.

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And so essentially what we need

is new tools, and the new tools is

295

really what we're gonna be talking

about in the next couple of episodes.

296

Anthony Perl: I'm just imagining that

very young Andrew there and talking

297

to the foreman, and even then there

are a few different things that

298

could've happened at that point.

299

I mean, I could see that the foreman

just walks over, takes a look at a couple

300

of the readings, clips you over the

head and says, "Andrew, go work it out.

301

You're being stupid."

302

You know, "Get back to the basics."

303

But that's not what happened, which is

a good thing, uh, you know, obviously.

304

You had a really

305

Andrew Uglow: good foreman.

306

Yeah.

307

No, I was fortunate- Yeah … to have

a really good foreman at that time.

308

I've had others that had

opportunities to improve.

309

Anthony Perl: And, and … But

I think that's the important

310

thing here, too, isn't it?

311

That when you've got people … And

we were talking about it a little bit

312

before we started recording today,

is that it's easy to assume a level

313

of knowledge that people have, and

you want them to have some basics.

314

But sometimes, for whatever

reason, there's a gap.

315

And you can embarrass them or

you can show them and get them

316

to move forward and to learn

317

Andrew Uglow: Yeah, and this I think

is one of the pieces that has been,

318

what's the word I'm looking for?

319

Been, I don't know,

overrun or lost perhaps.

320

Certainly in my early years as

an apprentice, the foreman's

321

responsibility was really about

making sure I knew what I was doing.

322

And so there was a lot

of transfer of knowledge.

323

There was a lot of, "Are you sure, Andrew?

324

Show me how you're doing this test

and measure," at a skill level, at a

325

knowledge level, at an ability level.

326

And we see less of that now simply because

the foreman has so much on their plate.

327

And so the opportunity to actually

go and do that, and let me back the

328

foreman a little bit, when did we

last teach foremen how to do that

329

effectively with kids these days?

330

That they just do what we're

taught and it works fine for

331

them, but kids aren't the same.

332

They don't have the same

references to draw on.

333

They don't have the same experiences.

334

They don't have the same value set.

335

And so I go back to the

idea of old keys, new doors.

336

You know, it's like using an old skeleton

key on a swipey passy pad on the…

337

It's, it's not gonna work

338

Anthony Perl: I think you only start to

realize some of these gaps that occur

339

when you have incidental conversations.

340

I recall years ago employing someone and

huge age gap difference, and there was

341

a third person that was working my team

who was similar age to me, and we were

342

having a conversation about old TV shows.

343

And the person that we-- that was newly

hired is looking at us completely blankly

344

at all of these references that we're

making and suddenly realize, yeah,

345

they're not growing up with the same

kind of things that you've got going on.

346

Mm-hmm.

347

And they don't remember it.

348

You know, younger people don't

remember a time when there

349

were no computers, for example.

350

Andrew Uglow: Or no internet.

351

Anthony Perl: Whereas you and I do.

352

Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

353

Anthony Perl: So Andrew, just as we,

uh, wrap up this particular episode,

354

I think it's important that we set the

scene for what's to come because we're

355

going to get into a few different things

that's gonna relate from all of this.

356

So do you wanna just set that up

a little bit for people because

357

we've got a few good topics to go

through in the coming episodes.

358

Andrew Uglow: So essentially what I want

to talk about is, is the things that cause

359

resistance, if you like, in the workshop.

360

You know, we talked about ohms being

a- an obstacle or resistance to

361

electrical flow, and when you have

resistance, it's harder or it doesn't

362

work properly or it doesn't work at all.

363

And so there is a gap.

364

It's almost a blind spot, can I offer,

in most workshops where we talk about

365

the foreman capability gap and i-

it isn't measured, it isn't tested.

366

We don't have a KPI for it.

367

It doesn't sit as a, a line item in our

balance sheet, but it has some really

368

significant impacts, and I know that we've

mentioned this before, but what I'd like

369

to do is to go and unpack some things that

we can do that are going to firstly give

370

us some clarity about what's really going

on because how do you fix a problem if

371

you don't know what's really happening?

372

You can throw parts at it, get

lucky, but that's not the most

373

effective way of doing things.

374

So the first thing we're

gonna cover is awareness.

375

The second thing we're gonna cover

is, well, here's some strategies

376

and then let's get into a couple

of hands-on brass tac- tactics for

377

what we can do, like first steps.

378

And very often first steps give me

more-- give me a good bit of leverage.

379

They don't solve everything,

but it's a great place to

380

start and positions me better.

381

Anthony Perl: Well, that's all

for this episode of the podcast.

382

But if you realize today that you've

been measuring the outcomes of your

383

workshop without testing the premise

behind the numbers, it's time to

384

calibrate your human diagnosis.

385

To help you put these ideas into

gear, we've put together a dedicated

386

workbook that includes a breakdown

of today's episode and specific

387

activities to help you identify the

resistance in your own workshop culture.

388

You can download a copy right now

via the link in our show notes.

389

And as we discussed in this episode, the

numbers themselves don't convey what's

390

really happening because you're just

measuring the end of the assembly line.

391

So take the time to look at the

human drivers behind your KPIs.

392

Coming up next time, Andrew explores

the profoundly cruel reality of

393

promoting technical experts into foreman

roles without proper preparation.

394

We love your comments as they help

us frame future episodes, so don't

395

forget to also like, share, and

subscribe so you never miss an episode.

396

Please check the show notes for

contact information for Andrew

397

and his team at Solutions Culture.

398

This podcast is produced by my

team at podcastdoneforyou.com.au,

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helping professionals share

their expertise through

400

powerful podcast content.

401

Until next time, keep your workshop

running smooth and frictionless.