Leadership 2.0, the University of the Aftermarket’s annual Leadership Development Program, officially began its second session Sunday at Northwood University’s West Palm Beach, Fla., campus. This week, several participants in this year’s class will bring us their firsthand perspective on the experience. Today, we present blog entry No. 2, from Ray Weidmann, regional sales manager at Tenneco. 
The first full day Leadership 2.0’s second session has just concluded and it was, in my opinion, extremely thought-provoking and stimulated a great deal of discussion among the class. Much of today centered on the idea of group performance.
As a bit of background, in the fall we were placed into six groups. Each group was responsible for researching a different aftermarket topic. For the past six months, groups worked on these projects, developed content and built presentations to be delivered later this week. Each group is a cross-section of the industry, representing every level of the aftermarket with varying levels of experience.
My group’s project is called, “The Effects of Loyalty in the Automotive Aftermarket," and will be presented on Thursday afternoon. My group is comprised of John Capela, account executive with CARQUEST; Lindsey Ehlert, program groups representative with NGK; Jean Hernandez, owner of Coyote Auto Center; Dan Gatins, financial analyst with Tenneco; and me.
Early on, we discovered the challenges of working together as a team, with everyone in different parts of the country, having only email and conference calls to communicate and work together. Most importantly, we learned that while today’s electronic means of communication are becoming a bigger part of our daily work life, face-to-face contact is still critical.
Dr. John Passante started off the morning with a presentation on leadership and mentoring. Dr. Passante is always very entertaining in the way he delivers a topic, and he has a keen way of keeping your attention. The lessons he taught today were very informative and are definitely tools that our class will be able to use in our daily work life. One example Dr. Passante used was how the newest generation of young people now entering the aftermarket may do tasks differently than we would and how they may view things differently than those of us who have been in the industry for a long time. It’s not necessarily the wrong way to do things; it’s just different. Often, the reason people underperform or don’t meet expectations is because our expectations and goals haven’t been clearly communicated. As leaders we have the power to make a difference in people’s lives, but the worst thing we can do is focus more on the negatives rather than the positives of an individual, which can skew our thinking. It’s also easy to fall into a trap where you can take people for granted.
He wrapped up the morning by outlining a concept of getting results by using a pyramid. The base for gaining results starts with trust. Trust then leads to the need for healthy debate, then to commitment, and finally to accountability. Only when you have successfully gone through the first four levels of the pyramid do you reach the top – the point at which you achieve results. It’s these results that in turn equate to both professional and personal growth, but it all starts with trust.
The program’s academic coordinator Dr. Frank Morgan spent the afternoon discussing leadership in group settings, and the dynamics that affect groups. He made it clear that leaders set the tone. It’s acceptable to have debate in a group and members should always feel free to present their views. A key takeaway is that you can’t surround yourself with people who agree with you 100 percent of the time. This becomes even more critical as you move up in your career. You need to surround yourself with people who have differing opinions if you are going to be successful in completing projects and problem solving. In the end, it’s putting people with diverse opinions and differing personalities together that truly make a team.
Each group did a number of exercises, starting with an analysis of what they did well in preparing their class projects and where they could have improved. We then completed a group exercise that underscored how groups nearly always reach better conclusions and achieve goals more successfully than individuals. I think everyone agreed that today was a very productive day, as we discovered a lot about ourselves and our ability to be successful leaders. Tomorrow’s session will cover ethics and also begin a deep dive into aftermarket finance.
Finally, I would like to thank the following people at Tenneco for making the investment in me by giving me the opportunity to attend Leadership 2.0: Bill Johnston, eastern division director; Jeff Koviak, director of U.S. sales; Susan Ulrey, executive director of customer service and sales operations; and Joe Pomaranski, vice president of Tenneco North American Aftermarket.
To read yesterday’s blog entry, click here.
