Our Company Values
These values must be built on a foundation of honesty.
We never intend to lie, cheat or steal.
Response-ability
An organization is an amazing thing.
For us it can:
- Pay Us
- Support us with tools
- Teach Us
- Lend us its credibility
- Surround us with like-minded people
- Be our support system, to name a few benefits
For our customers it can:
- Give confidence in the consistency of the work done
- Do more than any one individual can do alone
- Connect a customer in need of a specific set of skills to a technician or a sales professional with those skills and resources to name a few benefits.
Each individual is part of a complex process, and each plays an important role in supporting Garavel. In something as seemingly simple as a new car sale there are many hands involved – from the shipping company that delivers the car from Japan, to the port which receives and equips them, to the computer system created to keep track of their location, to the franchise agreement that gives us the ability to purchase them, to the HR professional tasked with making sure we comply with federal and state laws, to the bookkeeper who stocks them into our inventory, to the detailer who cleans them, to the sales consultants who matches up the right car with the right customer… you get the point. It is too complicated for any single person to do alone.
Everyone takes part in the experience and everyone deserves some credit. Eventually it is the customer who receives the ultimate benefit. The better we perform as an organization, the better the company will become for all. Our reputation will continue to get better so that we can be prouder of where we work. We will continue to make money so that the money is paid to our employees, reinvested back in our tools, our facility, our advertising and our training.
This organization which ties us together also ties together our responsibility to do a good job. It is our shared responsibility to make it do well. When you see a coworker in need of help, aid them. If there is something out of order, tidy it up. If you anticipate a customer’s need, deliver great service. If you observe a problem unnoticed yet by the customer, tell them and fix it. If you encounter a dirty car, see that it is cleaned – follow up!
There is no room for adversarial-ness here. When we are all working toward a common goal we perform our best. The ability (and choice) to respond in a positive way is an attitude. If we are not calibrated to each other, first we need to communicate better.
Excellence
It is not enough to ‘just get by’ here or ‘do your job’. Excellence is a constantly rising bar. Our customers’ high expectations are embraced. It is not our duty to lower expectations that are high – it is our duty to meet or exceed them. And usually we do.
We believe that if you are ‘coasting’ then you must be going downhill. That’s not us. If you are not growing you are dying. Our competition and expectations are constantly changing so we must get better every day.
Education is the foundation for progress. It can be done in a formal classroom or learnt on the job. The most important factor in education is our attitude towards learning and training. The more we learn, the more effective we will be able to accomplish our goals.
Our capacity for growth will largely be determined by our ability to see stress as a challenge, not a threat. When you are response-able you have this ability. It fosters receptiveness, not defensiveness. Know that mistakes are part of the learning experience. They are useful in the course of learning. Do not fear mistakes – fear only the absence of corrective responses to those mistakes. They keep us humble. With a receptive mind we can objectively evaluate ourselves and the most powerful type of change will result – change from within.
Satisfaction lies in the ability to exercise our full potential. We all want to be challenged.
Appreciation
In return for their patronage, we owe our customers friendly and proficient solutions. Whether coming to us to purchase a part, repair their vehicle, replace their current car, or buy a brand new car, we will retain the human element of the experience with pride.
Not only can we perform our duties more accurately and faster than others, but we can do it in a friendly way. We ‘can’ because we have a choice. We believe life is 10% what happens to you and 90% the way you react to it. While other businesses tend to just “get by” we can meet our customers demand for excellence by being relentlessly friendly – no matter the circumstance – and impressively capable – no matter what the challenge is before us.
When others give up, we push on.
Discipline
Sometimes the best way is the hard way. Discipline is the self-control and restraint that helps us to overcome our desires. When emotions make us contradictory to our original, planned action, it is discipline to our original commitment that keeps us driving towards our objective: to enhance the experience of owning one of our cars.
We must think of what is most important and prioritize based on it. Our day should be filled with important activities before they ripen to become so urgent that we must deal with them right away. Often we can trace the root of our problems back to a lack of proactivity. There is something we could have done in order to prevent this from happening. If we skip a step and take a shortcut, it will often surface as a problem later on. With confidence in our process (our way of doing business) and discipline pulling it off we can stock to our proven method to get predictable results.
It’s often said that there are only two types of excuses. Not knowing (see #5) and not doing (#6). We have the ability to solve both of those.
Side note: All of this doesn’t mean we can’t have an open-mind and suggest improvements when we think they are beneficial. It is important to stay pragmatic. Competition and an open mind are important for us continuing to get better.
