The 10-Second Version (AI Summary)
What happened: Former Toyota Motor North America EVP and COO Jack Hollis joined Auto Collabs to talk leadership and dealership culture.
Why it matters: He says perks can't stand in for leaders who actually care, and culture without strategy won't last.
What to do: Ask whether your team would describe your culture the same way you would.
AI-generated and reviewed by the ASOTU team.
The night before we recorded, Jack Hollis boarded a late flight from Phoenix to Dallas after a long day of meetings. A woman he'd worked with for years at Toyota walked back four rows, hugged him, and told him she missed him. When the plane landed, she stopped him again and looked him in the eye.
"Thank you, Jack. I've always appreciated how you cared for me."
Jack got home and wrote it down. That's culture, he told us on the latest episode of Auto Collabs. You can't measure a moment like that, but you know it when you feel it.
Where does dealership culture go wrong?
Jack started at Toyota in 1991 as a management trainee, the lowest-level job in the company, and built his career working with dealers in the field out of the San Francisco region. He rose to EVP and COO of Toyota Motor North America and now works in mergers and acquisitions. After decades inside stores, he sees two places culture goes wrong:
The leader isn't living it. When a dealer's core is serving and giving, the perks mean something because they flow from who that dealer is. The free coffee and the pool table become an expression of care.
Leaders say "people first" and fill the gap with stuff. Without real care behind it, the perks become a substitute.
"[T]hey fill in the missing piece by buying dartboards, Nerf hoops, and special couches and a big screen TV for their lounge, as if that's culture."
His test is simple. An outsider might need two or three visits to read a store's culture, but the people who work there already know.
Why does culture need strategy at the same table?
When Paul asked whether culture is the most important driver of a company's bottom line, Jack answered "yes, and." Strategy is culture's lunch partner. Feel-good efforts fade fast if they aren't tied to where the business is going.
Underneath both is trust. Jack said that whenever he hears the word leadership, trust is the first word that comes to mind. The higher a leader climbs, the lonelier it gets, because fewer people share the same information. That's why 20 groups last: peers at the same level, with the same needs. The best leaders stay humble and pour into others first. Both sides win by competing over "who can out help the other person the most."
Does retail auto have a leadership problem?
Our vision at More Than Cars is to make retail auto an industry people fight to join. The industry has no shortage of fixes: new technology, new processes, doing it like Carvana. We think the bigger gap is leadership, and that most of us aren't ready for the reckoning it would take to change it.
Jack agreed. The first eight to 10 dealers who came to mind all live it, and if every leader did, the industry would have a completely different reputation.
Leadership is relationship, and you can't solve relationship with technology. Michael Cirillo put the call to action plainly: read a book on leadership, then do what it says.
Hear Jack's keynote live at ASOTU CON West on Nov. 18. The full conversation is on Auto Collabs.
