Life Coach Uses Different Approaches to Help Auto Body Shop Techs, Owners, Managers by Ed Attanasio
Claudia Morgillo has multiple titles, including certified professional leadership coach and trainer. She and her husband own six Fix Auto locations in the Ontario, Canada, area, two Novus glass companies and a centralized head office.
Q:
As a woman and a leader, what communication and other skills you’ve developed over the years to be a manager in a male-dominated industry?
A:
I have developed a lot of processing modalities, including learning how to communicate, train and motivate the people that I work with while being a female in this industry. I think as a woman, knowing how to communicate with different people in general is a real plus. My dad has been in the industry for almost 50 years and he introduced it to me; I followed him around at a young age and later worked alongside him in his jobber business. At this point, I’ve been in collision repair for more than 25 years. Thirteen years ago, my husband, Claudio Chiodo, and I purchased our first body shop, and have grown from that point on.
went back to learn how to build and for them? Do they want to be reuse the tools needed for these essen- trained and stay in our industry? So, my concerns will always tial skills and, most notably, the neuroscience behind them. come back to what we need to do I became a professional coach to find, hire and train all of these and a leadership trainer to motivate people and keep them motivated. all these people individually. Every Because as much as we want to conperson requires a different approach, tinue moving forward and pursue all so if you try to treat everyone the of these new advancements being same, it will likely fail. I have de- thrown at us, we can’t just tell peoveloped tools that are tried, ple they need to move forward. tested and true. But in the It’s about how do we end, it comes down to peosupport these people to do ples’ motivations and how these things? That’s always they feel appreciated. How my main concern—the peodo they understand caring, ple part of it. How do we because everybody underClaudia Morgillo keep them engaged and instands caring differently? Everybody’s going to helps body shop pro- terested in training that’s succeed respond to buy-in in their infessionals changing with the times and an ever-changing own way, so how do I crestill be motivated without industry ate that for them? That’s my getting exhausted? That approach—it’s individualized and is my concern for this industry bethat’s why I went back to school to cause everything else seems to fall find out about how I can achieve that into place if we can do that. for all these people. I’ve been doing How can you help shop ownthat for more than five years now full-time within my organization ers and managers to retain and for external clients as well. their workers with poaching ramI have also been working close- pant in some areas of the country? ly with David Luehr at Elite Body Shop Solutions, as well as different I tell people it all starts industry leaders, and owners of othwith leadership, including er shops to help them identify and self-leadership. So, we are ideally build their skills and grow into being going out into the world and showan MSO or whatever they’d like to ing other people what we’d like them to see and know about us, do. which of course, takes a lot of self What are your three main awareness to be developed. If we concerns about the collision can’t lead ourselves, we can’t effecrepair industry? tively lead others. So that’s why I help and support Everyone is talking about shop owners and managers by showsupply chain issues, hiring ing them how to lead themselves apand retaining good people, and how propriately. People want to work for to fix today’s sophisticated vehicles. empowered leaders and learn from My perspective on this is that it will them. If you’re leading by example, always come back to people. your people will follow you through Years ago, someone shared an good times and bad times. equation with me that said, “ProThe main causes of stress are cess plus people equals profits.” I often due to a lack of skills in those thought, what does that really mean? areas. For instance, weak time manSo, the process part is self-ex- agement skills are often a result of planatory, right? We’re always con- poor self-regulation and awareness. stantly looking at process building In my opinion, productivity is most and tweaking processes, but what often affected by gaps in someone’s are people doing about that? communication skills. You never get to check the box Those things get in people’s because it’s all about training, re- way, sometimes regarding attitude training and retaining people in this and knowing how you show up in industry. Where are their mindsets the world. How do you turn some-
Q:
A:
Q:
How do you motivate your people? Do you take different approaches with each person?
Q:
A:
A:
Four main groups are impacting our industry—Generation Z, ages 7-22 (born between 1997 and 2021); Millennials, ages 23-38 (born between 1981 and 1996); Generation X, ages 39-54 (born between 1965 and 1980); and our Boomers, ages 55-73 (born between 1946 and 1964). I went back to school and earned a lot of different training and coaching certifications to help and support my teams through the real challenges our industry was facing. In the end, it comes down to attaining the right skills to motivate people in general. For instance, how do you create buy-in, build comfort and trust, and all those things? So, I
38 AUGUST 2022 AUTOBODY NEWS / autobodynews.com
one’s perspective around when things are getting hard? Because we all get there eventually, but how we choose to go forward can make or break an entire day for some shops. So, it’s about creating that self-awareness and giving them tools they can put in their toolbox so that when they do get in the thick of it, they will be OK to get through successfully.
Q: A:
Why do some shops excel and others struggle?
I think it pretty much goes into that same sentiment, that some shops struggle because of culture and a lack of self-awareness. I feel it always comes back to culture. You can have all the OEM certifications and DRP relationships you like within your business, but if your team doesn’t know your organization’s “why,” they will sometimes struggle to understand “why” they are doing what they are doing every day, week, month and year alongside you. That’s trouble if they don’t know why they’re there and the culture isn’t being solidified. They know what they’re there to do and nothing more; that is where you run into gaps. I can see that some shops struggle because they don’t have the shop’s culture on their radar and don’t know what they don’t know. So, they don’t even know what is not working because they don’t even know what to look for. Ideally, we need to ask some basic questions. How do we communicate with each other? How do we want to communicate with each other going forward? Why do “we” choose to repair cars as a career? Do we feel like a team? What does our ideal team look and feel like? These are just some of the possible empowering questions we ask our teams to help support and build better cultures within our organizations.
FREE
4x Monthly E-Newsletter.
www.autobodynews.com
