S...his way up through the ranks of the dealership, I am often asked how I did it, or how to do it. The reality of the automotive industry, in my opinion, what makes our industry so unique, is that performance pays off immediately and that tenure, although important, is no longer the reason one gets promoted.

For those who want to move up the ranks and who do indeed provide a high performance level, you will fall into one of two categories and ultimately your own category determines your promotability. In our industry and in all industries there are two kinds of people, I refer to them as 'Problem Solvers' and 'Problem Identifiers'.

The 'Problem Identifiers' see themselves as incredibly helpful by simply identifying an area that needs improvement or by identifying the cause of a problem. Although, it is extremely important to know where and what improvements are required, simply identifying the problem for their Manager or Supervisor really is of no great help and in fact sets in the mind of the Manager/Supervisor a feeling that this person is a complainer, or a squeaky wheel and rarely if ever do these types of people get promoted.

The 'Problem Solvers' are exactly the opposite, they may be able identify problems and in most cases they can, however rather than simply stating the obvious they bring to the Manager/Supervisor one or more potential corrective actions to that problem. In fact the true Problem Solvers take it upon themselves to indeed fix the problem and only then approach their Manager/Supervisors with an "after-the-fact" story about what was in need of improvement and the corrective action was implemented.

As a Manager, when the time comes to promote an employee, who would you choose: The employee who solves problems on their own and informs you or the one who tells you what needs to solved and walks away?

The challenge for those Problem Identifiers out there is that they do not realize, that they are in fact unhelpful. Take it from a Problem Solver, successful and even unsuccessful attempted solutions will always be worth more when promotion time comes!

Good Luck!