You have painstakingly constructed a talented sales team that truly understands how to demonstrate the value and benefits of your product — they really know how to sell cars. You have invested in your team's technology, training and continuing development to make certain you are positioned and poised for success in diverse economic climates.

With all this hard work, your customer service index scores (CSI) and per vehicle retail (PVR) numbers are still not exactly where you want them to be. You have thought a lot about what you and your team can do to move the needle. You have felt that something might be “wrong” on the sales floor, but you just can’t quite put your finger on it. You recently lost an exceptional salesperson (or perhaps even a manager) to a voluntary termination that really surprised and disappointed you.

You find yourself asking: What is going on in my dealership?

Whether this scenario describes your dealership dynamic or not, hidden conflict has probably had an impact on your sales department, your bottom-line profits, and it may be the root of some of your recent challenges. If you have been lucky thus far and avoided the costs of conflict, be aware that it most likely will impact your business in the very near future.

The fascinating reality about conflict is that it influences so many things outside of the simple visible disagreements or the discord and disharmony that you can feel between individual participants in a conflict. In fact, conflict can infect your team’s culture and can rob you of customer loyalty, your dealership’s reputation, and if hidden and allowed to exist over a long period of time, conflict can cost you a tremendous amount of money.

How much money you ask? Various factors have to be considered when calculating the real (and sometimes hidden) costs of workplace conflicts. In addition to the cost of wasted time and opportunity. It’s evident that employees who are impacted by conflict have lower job performance, customer service, motivation, and overall productivity. Conflict can also lead to absenteeism, vandalism, degraded decisional aptitude, and the loss of expensive (and thoughtful) investment in a skilled employee who comes to suffer from the dreaded “I don’t care anymore” attitude.

Often, hidden conflicts can lead to false whistleblowing allegations and lawsuits against your organization. It can also be the gateway to surprise bursts of attrition where previously well-trained and professionally developed employees choose to leave the organization for other opportunities.  Your dealership becomes an amazing training ground for the success of others.

The direct costs of conflict are, luckily for us, observable, measurable and accrue over time, making them easy to calculate utilizing a proven tool called the Dana Cost Calculator highlighted in a 2003 issue of HR Magazine. Let’s examine one example of the true cost of losing just one mid-level sales person in your dealership due to a covert (or overt) conflict within your organization.

1. Employee’s annual salary and commission: $80,000

2. Multiply by 1.4 (140 percent) as the investment you have in the employee: $112,000

3. Multiply by 1.5 (150 percent) as the cost of replacing the employee: $168,000

4. Multiply by .6 (60 percent) average role of conflict in voluntary terminations: $100,800.

Now, multiply times the number of voluntary terminations in your organization annually.

If you have a 10 percent turnover rate in a company of 100 employees that’s 10 employees. Calculate 10 times $100,800 equals $1,008,000.  Over $1 million of expense was wasted due to conflicts, which usually remains hidden, or ignored, until it is too late to do anything.

What to do when you find a problem

Now that we have determined that conflict can impact your customer service, culture and bottom-line in a very real and tangible way, what can you do about it?

Here is a brief blueprint to help you move forward through overt conflict, identify hidden conflicts and begin to adopt a plan that makes constructive conflicts a part of your successful and profitable dealership strategy.

1. Create a culture of accepting the reality of conflict.

It all starts with the creation of a culture where it is common knowledge that conflict exists and that any attempt to utilize conflicts constructively should be rewarded. This is where true leaders stop assigning blame, and instead strive to understand the causes of conflict, and buttress the replication of any successful strides made in constructive conflict resolution by their teams.

2. Take the lead and call out for conflict.

As your dealership’s leader, you won’t hear about any kind of conflict unless you demand to. Many owners and general managers have a hard time seeing the need for differing opinions (which can actually propel the dealership forward if fostered and supported) and instead, they encourage group-think.

This strategy creates a team of people eagerly waiting to know what their boss thinks, just so they can provide ideas and comments that fall in-line with this position.

3. Introduce constructive conflict training.

You have invested a tremendous amount of money in training your salespeople how to sell cars and your sales manager leadership on how to structure deals, assess car values, coach, counsel and train their teams. Why not add constructive conflict resolution techniques to your training and development repertoire?

If Google, Apple, and Microsoft have made communication and conflict resolution skills part of their core development and training strategies, it may be worth a second look and the small investment required, compared to replacing just one voluntary termination.

4. Adopt the Carnegie Hall approach.

Arthur Rubinstein was approached in the street near Carnegie Hall in New York by a man who asked, “Pardon me, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” Rubinstein replied, “Practice, practice, practice!”

Most of your employees are innately uncomfortable with conflict and their overall confidence in being able to handle conflict appropriately is likely very low. The only way to earn their stripes and become skilled in constructive conflict techniques is to gain experience through the actual hard work of experiencing how to deal with conflict through practice.

So, I have gotten your attention and you are thinking to yourself, “OK, I’m sold.” If you are ready to commit and adopt a strategy to uncover and constructively solve conflict in your dealership, what should you really expect?

• Increased employee satisfaction

• Lowered employee acquisition costs

• Increased employee productivity and performance

• Increased employee retention

• Streamlined processes and increased company cohesiveness

• Increased customer service and customer satisfaction

• All of this with the added knowledge that satisfied employees save you money

Let’s get started

To get you started and show you just how easy your dealership’s first steps toward a new way to consider conflict (and its impact) is outlined below with a simple process and procedure that has been shared with sales teams throughout the nation.

Introduce these techniques in your next sales meeting or reach out to a local organizational development or conflict resolution expert to visit your dealership and share some similar methods.

Step No. 1: Cool off.

Conflicts cannot be solved in the face of hot emotions and exasperation. Take a step back, breathe deeply and gain some emotional distance before trying to talk things out. Take the time to regain the focus required to create an opportunity to choose a response rather than to simply react.

If you try to skip this step, your words may be too emotionally loaded and may escalate the conflict. Take a break, take a walk around the lot, or breathe deeply and calm down before you say a word.

Step No. 2: Share what is bothering you using “I messages.”

“I messages” are a tool for expressing how we feel without attacking or blaming the other party. By starting from “I,” we take responsibility for the way we perceive the problem and the conflict. This is in sharp contrast to “you messages,” which immediately put others on the defensive and close the doors to communication.

When making “I” statements, it is important to avoid put-downs, guilt trips, sarcasm and negative body language. Your “I message” needs to come from a place inside that is non-combative and shows a willingness to compromise.

In conflict resolution, it is “us against the problem,” not “us against each other.”

Step No. 3: Each person restates what they heard the other person say.

Reflective listening demonstrates that we care enough to hear the other person out, rather than merely focusing on our own point of view. It fosters empathy and understanding. Remember, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Let the other party know that you have heard them. Some examples of ways to start a reflective listening conversation are below.

“This is what I think I hear you saying…”

“I’m picking up that…”

“As I hear it, you…”

“I’m not sure I am with you….Do you mean….?”

Step No. 4: Take responsibility.

In the majority of conflicts, both parties have some degree of responsibility. However, most of us tend to blame others instead of examining our own role in the problem.

When we take responsibility for our own culpability within a conflict, we shift the resolution process into an entirely different gear; one where a win-win resolution is possible.

Step No. 5: Brainstorm solutions together and come up with one that satisfies both people. Resolving conflict is a creative act that can be stimulating and satisfying for both parties.

There are many solutions to a single problem; just make sure you enter this step with the willingness to seek out compromises.

Step 6: Affirm, forgive or thank.

A handshake, hug or kind word gives closure to the resolution of a conflict. Forgiveness is the highest form of closure available to us in conflict resolution.

The affirmation of reaching out to the other party or extending the hand of understanding and friendship creates a mood where animosity and bitterness disappear and the rehabilitators can move forward and focus on animal care.

Final thoughts

Congratulations! You have seen for yourself the expensive impact of hidden conflict in you dealership and how, if left unchecked, it will affect your customer service, culture and bottom line in a very real and measurable way.

A brief blueprint to help you move forward through overt conflict and tips to identify hidden ones was provided here, but this is just the beginning of your journey. To make the most of this new way of considering conflict will require you to adopt a plan that makes constructive conflict management a part of a successful and profitable long-term dealership strategy.

It sounds like a massive challenge, but you will find that if you take the lead, create a culture that accepts the reality of conflict, add comprehensive constructive conflict techniques to your training regimen and award attempts and the practice of resolving conflicts constructively, you will soon see higher profits, better CSI scores, and more productive, satisfied and engaged employees.

George Ewing is the vice president of sales strategy and development at Flagship Credit Acceptance, a national independent auto finance company headquartered in Chadds Ford, Pa. George has spent the last 15 years building a career in the retail automotive industry in roles that include finance, dealership management, underwriting, training and development and marketing. He is a graduate of the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. George is an accomplished trainer, speaker, motivator, and university lecturer. He enjoys living on a working horse farm in Highland Township, Pa., with his best friend and wife Tara and their two children.