Things That Used To Make Me Mad

I've been thinking lately about some of the things that used to make me absolutely furious when I was running car dealerships, and I've come to a somewhat embarrassing conclusion. If I could go back and watch myself during some of those moments, I probably wouldn't like the guy I was watching very much. Oh, I had my reasons for getting upset, and at the time I could have explained every one of them in considerable detail, but looking back after all these years, I have to wonder how many of those situations were really worth the aggravation I put myself through, not to mention the people who happened to be standing nearby.

I spent most of my adult life in the automobile business, and if you've never managed a large dealership, I can assure you there is no shortage of things that can go wrong on any given day. In fact, sometimes I thought the entire operation was designed specifically to test my patience. You could walk through the door at 7:30 in the morning feeling pretty good about life, and before you'd finished your first cup of coffee, somebody would be standing in your office explaining a problem that should never have happened in the first place.

A customer was furious because something had been promised that nobody could deliver. A vehicle scheduled for delivery wasn't ready. A salesperson had somehow managed to lose a customer who was practically begging to buy a car. The service department was backed up, somebody had called in sick, a manufacturer representative wanted to discuss another ridiculous objective, and the accounting office needed an answer to a question that apparently couldn't wait until I'd finished chewing my breakfast.

And it wasn't even 9 o'clock.

I used to get particularly irritated when somebody made the same mistake twice. The first time, I could usually understand. People make mistakes, and I made plenty of them myself. But when we had discussed a problem, agreed on how to prevent it and then found ourselves having the exact same conversation two weeks later, I had a tendency to become somewhat less understanding. I suspect a few former employees reading this are smiling right now because they remember those conversations, and they probably remember that I wasn't always particularly interested in hearing another explanation.

Then there were the sales meetings. I could spend an hour going over something I thought was critically important, carefully explaining what needed to happen and why, only to discover later that somebody had apparently attended an entirely different meeting. I would ask why something hadn't been done, and the answer would begin with those three words every manager learns to dread: "I thought you meant..."

No, you didn't. At least that was my reaction at the time.

And don't even get me started on the last day of the month. When you're running a high-volume dealership, the end of the month can feel like the final two minutes of a football game with the score tied, except everybody is playing a different position and half the team is asking you questions while the clock runs out. Cars have to be delivered, paperwork has to be completed, deals have to be funded, customers have to be satisfied, and somebody inevitably discovers a problem that should have been caught three days earlier. I took those deadlines seriously because there was a lot at stake, including the livelihoods of hundreds of employees and their families.

But I also remember getting upset over things that, in hindsight, probably didn't deserve nearly as much attention as I gave them. A vehicle parked where it shouldn't have been, a showroom that wasn't quite as clean as I wanted it, a salesperson standing around when I thought he should have been doing something productive, or a problem that somebody could have solved without involving me. I had high standards, and I still believe high standards are important, but there were times when I confused something being irritating with something being truly important.

That's a distinction I didn't always appreciate when I was younger.

One thing I've learned is that being responsible for a business can make you believe every problem is your problem, and if you're not careful, you start treating every inconvenience as though it's a five-alarm fire. The trouble is that when everything becomes an emergency, the people around you have a hard time figuring out which things actually deserve immediate attention. Worse yet, they can become reluctant to bring you bad news because they know what kind of reaction might be waiting for them.

I've thought a lot about that over the years, especially after getting to know people like Alan Mulally, the former Ford CEO whom I've written about before. One of the things I admired most about his leadership was his understanding that you can't solve a problem if people are afraid to tell you it exists. That's a lesson I wish I'd understood a little better during some of my dealership years. I always wanted to know when something was wrong, but I wonder whether my reaction occasionally made somebody wish they'd kept the information to themselves.

I hope not, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Of course, there were plenty of things worth getting upset about. Dishonesty, mistreating customers, taking advantage of employees or doing something that could damage the dealership's reputation were serious matters, and I make no apologies for expecting people to conduct themselves properly. When your name is associated with a business, you have an obligation to protect the customers who trust you and the employees who depend on you. I don't believe growing older means lowering your standards or pretending that everything is acceptable.

What I do believe is that age gives you a different perspective on what deserves your emotional energy.

Think about how many things upset you last week. Somebody cut you off in traffic, a restaurant got your order wrong, a customer service representative kept you on hold, an employee made a mistake, your computer refused to cooperate, or somebody said something that rubbed you the wrong way. At the time, you may have been genuinely angry, and perhaps you had every right to be. But how many of those things will you remember a year from now? How many will matter next month, or even tomorrow?

I think back to the enormous pressure I put on myself to hit sales objectives, outperform competitors and keep growing the business. We had some extraordinary years, and I'm proud of what we accomplished. There were months when we sold more cars than I once thought possible, and there were months when the numbers weren't what I wanted them to be. Back then, a disappointing month could affect my mood for days, and I would replay every missed opportunity and every decision that might have changed the outcome.

Today, I couldn't tell you the sales total for most of those months if my life depended on it.

What I can remember are the people, the laughter, the friendships and the moments when we accomplished something together that none of us thought we could do. I remember the excitement of a packed showroom on a Saturday, the satisfaction of seeing a young salesperson finally figure out how to succeed, and the pride of watching people I'd hired grow into positions of responsibility. Those memories have stayed with me long after the financial statements and monthly objectives stopped mattering.

I also remember some of the times I got angry, and I wish I could revisit a few of them with the perspective I have today. I might still be upset about the underlying problem, but I suspect I'd handle the conversation differently. I'd ask a few more questions before reaching a conclusion, spend a little more time listening and remind myself that the person standing in front of me probably wasn't having a particularly good day either.

That's one of the interesting things about getting older. You don't necessarily become a different person, and I certainly haven't turned into somebody who floats through life without getting irritated. I still have my moments, and anybody who knows me well could probably provide a fairly recent example. I still don't like incompetence, I don't appreciate people wasting my time, and I have very little patience for somebody who refuses to take responsibility for something they've done wrong.

But I'm getting better at asking myself whether whatever is bothering me is worth carrying around for the rest of the day.

There is a cost to being angry that we don't always consider. Sometimes it's the stress we put on ourselves, sometimes it's the mood we bring home to people who had nothing to do with the problem, and sometimes it's the way we make another person feel over something that could have been resolved with a calmer conversation. I don't think I fully appreciated that when I was younger and trying to build a business, because I was so focused on getting everything right that I occasionally overlooked the effect my frustration might have on the people around me.

And here's something else I've discovered: Most of the things that irritate us aren't personal, even though we often react as though they are. The person who made a mistake at work probably wasn't trying to ruin our day. The driver who cut us off may simply have been distracted. The waiter who forgot something might be overwhelmed, and the customer service representative who can't immediately solve our problem may be dealing with rules he or she didn't create. None of that means we shouldn't expect better, but it does mean we can address a problem without automatically turning it into a confrontation.

If I could go back and give the younger version of myself some advice, I wouldn't tell him to stop caring so much about the business. That passion helped me accomplish things I'm still proud of, and I wouldn't want to lose it. I would, however, tell him that not every problem deserves the same reaction, that the people working for him will remember how he treated them long after they've forgotten the mistake they made, and that being the boss doesn't mean you have to personally absorb every frustration that comes through the front door.

I might also tell him to go home a little earlier occasionally, because the dealership will still be there in the morning, and whatever catastrophe seemed so important at 5 o'clock probably won't look quite as catastrophic after a good night's sleep.

I doubt he would have listened. He was pretty convinced he knew what he was doing, and he had a lot of cars to sell.

These days, I still care deeply about doing things right, whether it's answering a listener's question, writing this newsletter or helping somebody avoid an expensive mistake when buying a car. I still get frustrated when something goes wrong, and I probably always will. But I try to remember that the goal isn't to eliminate every irritation from life, because that's never going to happen. The goal is to recognize which things deserve our attention, which ones deserve a little patience and which ones simply aren't worth letting ruin an otherwise perfectly good day.

After all, I've already spent more than enough of my life getting mad about things I can't even remember.

I'd rather spend whatever time I have left enjoying the things I know I'll never forget.

Straight Talk and Honest Answers — always.

-Jerry