Bouchey is one of four Leadership 2.0 participants blogging this week from Northwood University’s campus in West Palm Beach, Fla. Members of the 2010-2011 class of the University of the Aftermarket Leadership 2.0 program reconvened Sunday on the campus for nearly a full week of intensive learning, problem-solving and networking. This year’s class includes 27 professionals representing virtually every level of the aftermarket, including manufacturing, distribution, association management and vehicle service.
Contributed by Dan Bouchey, Marketing Manager, Qualis Automotive
It stood out to me in the morning that everyone in this class is comfortable and enjoying their time with each classmate. Whether it’s at breakfast, lunch or dinner, I always see different classmates sitting together and discussing business and personal stories. There are no school cliques in this class.
Brian Cruickshank [director of the University of the Aftermarket] started out our morning session by leading a discussion on issues in our industry related to SKU proliferation, inventory increases and the demand on consumers for us to have their part (now). The number of SKUs in our industry today is enormous and will continue to grow. At the same time the consumer’s demand of having the product they need in a timely fashion continues to grow. How will we manage these converging issues/trends?
The morning session continued with Dr. Frank Morgan taking us through ethics. We dove into discussions on value and trust. We got together as teams and took an ethics quiz, which covered issues like dealing with an employee’s illness, gift acceptance from suppliers, employee harassment and others. The discussions on ethics were both informative and lighthearted. Adding a little humor into the discussions is a common theme with our group. Dr. Morgan left us with two things to take back to our work and personal lives to wrap up the ethics topic. First, it’s really what you do, not what you say, that counts. And second, write down your core values and live by them.
The afternoon session was allocated to team project preparation. Delivery of the team presentations on Thursday afternoon has been the “elephant in the room” this week. There’s a lot of nervous energy. In talking to some classmates about their preparation plans, I learned that one group was taking over a hotel conference room, one group got access to the school auditorium and another group chose to enjoy the Florida sun and head to the beach to practice their presentation. That sounds like a smart group. I look forward to watching six strong presentations on important subjects related to the aftermarket. Let the best team win!
Stay tuned tomorrow for more from this week’s Leadership 2.0 experience. Click on the links to read the blogs from Monday and Tuesday.
For additional information regarding Leadership 2.0 and other University of the Aftermarket programs, visit www.universityoftheaftermarket.com.
