Episode 21

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Published on:

9th Mar 2022

When You are the Owner, Nobody Stops You From Making Bad Decisions - Nathan Bryant [E021]

When You are the Owner, Nobody Stops You From Making Bad Decisions - Nathan Bryant

  • What Nathan thought he was going to do, wasn't how it worked out when he opened his shop.
  • He was doing brakes for soccer moms and had very little diagnosis.
  • His first two years were challenging to say the least
  • He thought he knew how a shop worked from a mangers perspective. It is different when you are the owner.
  • When you are the owner, nobody stops you from making bad decisions.
  • He realized he had to get his ego out of the way.
  • Things change, not for the better or worse; they change
  • The change that happens when you go from being the technician to being the service writer. Or when you go from being the service writer to the service manager. Or when you go from being the technician to the owner. And then all of a sudden, you're the technician, the service writer, the service manager, the janitor, the accounts receivable, the accounts payable, the bookkeeper and the repairman.
  • I will pay good money for people that can do things that I can not do.  Web design, my lawyer, my accountant. These are people that can largely charge me. 
  • It's more education. Management classes. It's getting them to places like Vision KC  where they're going to learn something,
  • I was talking to a person who's the head of Lincoln tech. And she was saying we need to start talking to kids in the sixth grade about becoming auto mechanics.
  • Nathan and Matt love to solve puzzles
  • Solving problems are fun
  • And if we can get that across to, you know, six, seventh, eighth graders, you know what, maybe we get somebody excited about this because the jobs, are not the same as they were 20 years ago, it's not anywhere near as dirty, and it's not anywhere near as greasy.  We get to be software engineers sometimes now.
  • The key of everything is education, and we need to educate ourselves. 
  • We let things build up because we are afraid to confront them. When you do you have to be willing to hear things you may not want to hear, which could be criticism of you, and you must be willing to accept it and then decide if it is valid. You may own part of the problem.
  • Many people are not comfortable with conflict and dealing with your shortcomings. 
  • Clear lines of communications and job expectations, both ways, are necessary

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About the Podcast

Automotive Field Theory
From Automotive Diagnostics to Metallica and Mental Health
Automotive Field Theory explores the forces that shape automotive repair, including the ones measured with a meter or oscilloscope and the ones that cannot be found on a wiring diagram.

Hosted by automotive diagnostic specialist, shop manager, and instructor Matt Fanslow, the podcast begins in the automotive aftermarket but rarely stays inside its traditional boundaries. Diagnostics, electricity, technology, leadership, psychology, economics, game theory, history, music, movies, family, and human behavior may appear unrelated. Look closely enough, however, and connections begin to emerge.

A vehicle may arrive with a technical fault, but the work surrounding it is rarely technical alone.

Information is incomplete.

People make decisions under pressure and uncertainty. Incentives shape behavior. Standards gradually drift. Good intentions produce unexpected results. The official process may say one thing while the system quietly rewards another.

Automotive Field Theory is an attempt to understand those interactions.

Drawing from real diagnostic work, shop management, industry conversations, personal experience, and an occasionally inconvenient level of curiosity, Matt examines not only how things work, but why they work that way, how they became what they are, and what apparently unrelated subjects might teach us about repairing vehicles, leading people, running businesses, and improving the automotive industry.

Some episodes begin with a failed component. Others begin with Metallica, quantum physics, professional wrestling, a historical disaster, a round of golf, or a question that refuses to leave Matt alone.

Eventually, they all enter the same field.