What a great quote by Mark Twain. Ask yourself, are you in denial? Are you in denial about what’s really going on in your dealership? Is it really the economy or is it partly you? Are you not looking in the mirror?
I’m probably one of the luckiest people in the world because I get to travel and spend time with some very successful automobile dealers, and some who are not so successful. One thing that separates them is that successful people don’t lie to themselves. They know they have faults and they seek to fix them. In other words they are not in denial. The not so successful ones are usually in total denial. The denial starts with having all the excuses they can come up with as opposed to taking an honest look at themselves and their organization.
Denial is an unrealistic hope that a problem is not really happening, and will go away by itself. It is an attempt to put distance between ourselves and our experience, and protect ourselves from the threat of danger. In its many forms, denial acts like a pain reliever. If we keep pretending it’s not there then eventually it will go away. Not!
Denial can become your worst enemy. It diverts your attention, and decreases your mental efficiency. As long as you refuse to accept the truth of your situation, you must, of necessity, refuse to give it your attention. Instead you will pay attention to every possible manner of distraction you can employ to support your denial. You keep reading the paper and watching CNN to reinforce your personal denial.
Successful businesses always get down to people and/or processes. Yes, you know these things to be true on the inside but you lie to yourself and your staff on the outside…you zip right into denial mode. I have an old friend by the name of Marvin Barnes. Marvin had a saying, “You can justify anything you want to justify.” Denial allows you to justify how bad the economy is and that’s why your business is so bad rather than face the fact that you either have the wrong people or wrong processes.
That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs