Wheel Alignment Lessons

Wheel Alignment Lessons

I dropped my vehicle off to get serviced recently and the dealer advised that I would also need a new set of tyres. I picked my jaw up from the floor when he told me the cost of a decent set of rubber. “I could buy a decent 2nd hand car for that amount.” (no joke)

My dealer doesn’t sell tyres, they contract with a tyre shop down the road, and he said I could pick up my vehicle at the end of the day from the tyre shop. 

5pm rocks around, I paid the bill to the tyre shop for a set of tyres plus wheel alignment. As soon as I drove onto the road, I noticed the vehicle pulling to one side. The wheel alignment is out. Like, really bad!

I drove around the block and went straight back to the tyre shop to complain. It was too late in the day to fix it now. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll redo the wheel alignment for free”, the tyre shop manager said.  

I live in a rural area, 30 minutes drive from town. Getting a 2nd wheel alignment required me to block out a half day, which I could not do until the following week. 

Anyway, the tyre shop performed the 2nd wheel alignment the following week. “We put our best guy on it this time”, the manager said. On the drive back home I noticed the vehicle was still pulling to the side. Not as pronounced as before, but still noticeable to me (and I am very fussy about these things).

When I got home I emailed the tyre shop manager (and cc’d the dealer) to inform them that I was unhappy with the quality of their wheel alignment service. I did not give them another chance. I booked into a competitor tyre shop to get a 3rd wheel alignment done the following week. Thankfully, they got it sorted first try. 

During my 2 weeks of driving around with poor wheel alignment, I tried to keep myself amused (and stop myself from being grumpy) by coming up with business alignment analogies.

Pulling in different directions.

The wheels are not all pointing straight ahead. One or more wheels wants to go in another direction.

Business Analogy: The team is not 100% aligned. You agree on a small handful of priorities at a planning session, but someone tries to undermine the decisions after the meeting. Perhaps they disparage or second-guess the decisions behind your back? Or they only deliver the bare minimum level of support in a passive-aggressive manner? 

Robust debate should be encouraged when exploring the options, but everyone must fully commit to the final decisions. The principle to follow here is, “Disagree, then commit”. If people don’t 100% commit, your team is not aligned. 

Business lesson: Anything less than 100% alignment leads to suboptimal results.  

Slowing you down.

You want to drive in the fast lane, but the vehicle keeps drifting into the slow lane.  

Business Analogy: You have B-Players on your team. In my article “Drivers vs Passengers” I wrote that B-Players are like passengers who come along for the ride, adding extra weight that slows your vehicle down. They show up and do the work, but they deliver a mediocre level of performance. 

Even when you give B-Players a “tune-up” by providing corrective feedback, it typically only creates a temporary spike in performance, which I call, “The 3-Week Surge”. After 3 weeks the person typically reverts back to their default mode of operating. 

Business Lesson: B-Players cause your vehicle to drift into the slow lane.

Continual course correction. 

Poor wheel alignment requires constant effort to hold the steering wheel and fight that sideways drift. This makes for a fatiguing journey. 

Business Analogy: The manager has to continually provide corrective feedback and remedial coaching to get B-Players up to standard. (For me, the standard is when the person hits their Metric targets 9 times out of 10, and gets tasks done, on time, to the agreed standard 9 times out of 10). 

Let’s face it. It’s draining for a manager to continually nag B-Players to get stuff done on time, or provide corrective feedback about below-standard performance. Life is so much easier when you have a team of aligned A-Players to whom you can delegate the work, and be fully confident that they will deliver.  

Business Lesson: A-Players don’t need a lot of course correction.     

Costs more in the long run. 

Poor wheel alignment leads to accelerated or uneven tyre wear, which costs you more in the long run.

Business Analogy: The project is not planned and scoped properly at the beginning, leading to time and cost blowouts, or doing a half-assed job and then having to go back and fix your mistakes. 

Business Lesson: Do it right the first time!

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Let me know if you can think of any other business analogies to having a poor wheel alignment?    

Until next time…
Stephen