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July 3, 2023
Limiting beliefs are indicative of closed minds. In the current automotive retail landscape, rapid change is inevitable. Open mindedness is critical when considering new technologies and processes that can lead to greater success.
No manager enjoys dealing with limiting beliefs, and I’ve coached hundreds of automotive leaders across the country! Limiting beliefs are frustrating for managers because they feel like their employees are making excuses, being lazy, or don’t want to grow.
This blog will teach you what a limiting belief is, and why a limiting belief exist. In addition, you will learn are the three biggest mistakes a manager makes that MUST be avoided when handling limiting beliefs. Since limiting beliefs work against progress, and the last thing you need to do as a manager, is make your job harder by trying to fix limiting beliefs the wrong ways. Finally you will learn some tactics on how to coach employees around and overcome limiting beliefs.
I decided to write this blog to support managers and their people. Because as a result of limiting beliefs, managers often give up on trying to drive positive change in their people, or give up on the employee altogether. So let’s dive in and define a limiting belief.
The coach Keith Rosen defined a limiting belief as a SCAM… a Story, Con, Assumption or Mindset, that is holding someone’s success back.
Here are a few real-world examples of limiting beliefs, that as a dealership manager, I was able to address and overcome through coaching:
– Mike the sales rep – Wouldn’t T.O. (Turn over unsold customers over to a sales manager) because the managers were always to ”busy”.
– Tim the sales rep – Wouldn’t send videos because he thinks he looked dumb on video.
– Karl the internet sales rep – Believed his internet closing was low because he gets “bad leads”.
Let’s examine each and determine WHY it’s a limiting belief.
Mike is conning himself and his managers into believing that he actually tried to turn customers over. Also, because managers always look “busy” he is using that to avoid the T.O. when in fact the managers would almost always prioritize a showroom customer leaving without purchase as top priority.
Tim is telling himself a story, based on his own imagination and perception. He didn’t have any customers telling him he looked dumb.
Karl had a poor mindset about internet leads, and this poor mindset came from poor results which came from a poor approach to lead handling. In reality, with proper follow up, he could close around 15%.
Why do limiting beliefs exist? Only by understanding this, will you be able to coach around the limiting beliefs.
Activities lead to results, and our brains decide in an instant if the result is a good result, or a bad result. If good, our brains reward us with certain hormones like serotonin. If we get bad results, our brains punish us with stress hormones like cortisol. After that, we try to duplicate the results our brains decide is good, and avoid the negative results our brains have decided as bad. The fear of negative input, causes people to avoid the behaviors or actions their brains have linked to the negative output.
From our experiences, we are always seeking cause and effect relationships and when we’re not certain that a specific cause created a result, our brains will try to fill in the gaps. These gap fillers are known as assumptions!
In short, limiting beliefs are formed from both our rewarded experiences, negative feelings about situations, our fears, and our assumptions about our world.
AVOID these approaches when handling limiting beliefs.
Here is what NOT to do, when an employee shares a limiting belief. This is critical because in any interaction with an employee you are either BUILDING or ERODING the relationship and employee. Here are some of the ways we erode an employee when addressing limiting beliefs.
The first way is to go on the attack. When you go on the attack, you are pushing against their beliefs, and when you push against someone it’s their natural reaction to push back. Push back often leads to frustration, escalation, and conflict. At the end of the day, none of those help the person overcome their limiting beliefs.
The second way, is to become sarcastic or passive aggressive. Passive aggressiveness is indirect, and as such, the employee doesn’t have a chance to learn what they need to change.
In addition, this type of demeanor lowers employee confidence, saps their motivation, ultimately sarcasm negatively affects the morale of your team.
The third way, is to ignore the limiting belief all together. This is the easy way out, and it’s not uncommon for a manager to take the path of least resistance. That being said, think of a limiting belief like a weed growing in your lawn. The longer you let it take root, the deeper the roots go and the harder they are to eliminate. Let too many weeds grow in the lawn and the entire lawn dies. By ignoring limiting beliefs, you will allow them to further solidify.
It’s time to get introspective, when you have an employee with a limiting belief, which of those three unfavorable ways do you find yourself most often reacting?
How to handle limiting beliefs. Now that you know what a limiting belief is, why they exist, and how NOT to address them, it’s time to learn HOW to coach around them.
Step 1: Instead of attacking, you must care and recruit. If you’re a coaching client of Car Motivators then you likely already know how to get “buy in” around difficult conversations, and how to recruit. If not, then here’s a quick guide. Just remember, you can’t win a war with a one person army. In the first five seconds of any conversation, people pick a side. Either they fight alongside you to achieve a common objective, or they go on the defensive and fight against you.
Here’s how to build a recruitment statement. First ask yourself this question, “What’s in it for THEM if they change for the better?” If the answer is something like, “Increase chance of promotion.” Or “Increase in sales and profit” then that’s your recruitment statement. Simply add, “What I want for you…” to the front of one of those positive outcomes. Finally, add “Is now a good time to discuss that?” after it.
Recruitment statement example: “What I want for you is to have the best chance for getting promoted. Is now a good time to have a convo about that?”
Step 2: Instead of sarcasm, ask open ended questions and seek to understand their perspective. You can’t solve for an issue if you don’t know WHY it exists, no different than you can’t solve a limiting belief if you don’t know how it arrived. Some example questions you could ask are:
1. Where is that belief coming from?
2. What got in the way of you doing that?
3. What outcome did you get when you tried?
4. How did you do it?
5. What was your approach?
6. What else have you tried?
7. How long did you do it for?
Step 3: Instead of ignoring, help eliminate their assumptions and give them a new story to replace their limiting belief. Then ask action-oriented questions and commit to driving change. One of my favorite sayings in coaching is “If they build it they own it if they own it they act on it.” Your goal is that they come up with an action plan that will give them the opportunity to let go of the limiting belief and form a new one that helps them and the business succeed.
1. What changes do you need to make to get a better outcome next time?
2. What else can you try?
3. Walk me through that approach.
Finally, commit to the plan. Remember, your employees will only ever be as committed as you are. This means you need to schedule a check in, follow up from this coaching conversation, and support them as they adapt to change. When people make a change, or try something new they often run into the pain and failure that comes with growth! This is when they’re most susceptible to revert back to their old ways. It’s critical that you as their leader supports them as they transition into their new approach, and mindset in order to eliminate their limiting beliefs.
1. When should I check in on your plan to see how it’s working out?
2. How do you want me to hold you responsible to your commitments?
3. What can I do to support you around this plan?
In this blog we covered at a high level, how to identify, get buy-in, and coach around limiting beliefs. This is a chapter in Sean Kelley’s upcoming book on Leadership and Coaching. Sean is an #1 Amazon Best Selling Author, and CEO of Car Motivators: The automotive leadership development company. If you believe leadership development and business coaching could take your company to the next level, text Sean Kelley anytime at 314-323-8234 or email him at Sean@carmotivators.com