My husband and I recently made the seven-hour drive home from my daughter's softball games in Alabama. It was on back roads through small towns in Alabama and Georgia, the kind of drive where the speed limit changes every few miles and the signage doesn’t always keep up. We had Waze running through Apple CarPlay, and his truck also displays the speed limit right on the dash.
At some point, we started going back and forth about what the speed limit actually was. I kept pointing to Waze. He kept saying something different. I thought he was just being argumentative. I was confident in what I was seeing, so I kept pushing: “It says 65.”
But then I finally looked over and realized we weren't looking at the same thing at all. He was reading the truck's dash. I was reading Waze. Same road, two different sources. Neither of us was wrong about what we were seeing.
My belief drove my behavior. I was so certain I had the right information that I read his pushback as stubbornness rather than a difference in perspective.
I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since, because it’s exactly what I see playing out in collision repair shops all the time, just with much higher stakes than a speed limit sign.
What someone believes shapes what they do
A principle I've come to firmly believe in after years of leading my own shops and now working with collision center leaders across the country is this: Belief always drives behavior.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a shop owner about a leader on her team who had gone quiet in meetings. She was disengaged, but not in a confrontational way. She had simply stopped contributing during the staff meetings, she referred to company leadership as "they" rather than "we,” and after the meetings ended, she was holding a “meeting after the meeting.”
The shop owner called me to discuss how to address the behavior.
My answer had two parts. First: Toxic behavior cannot be tolerated. That's not negotiable. But second (and this is where most leaders skip a step), before you address the behavior, stay curious. Ask good questions. Create space for her to share where she is, what she’s feeling, and what she’s seeing from her vantage point.
Because until you understand what’s driving the behavior, no amount of redirection is going to create a long-term solution. The behavior is the symptom, not the root problem. You have to address both the behavior that’s showing up in the room — and the belief that's fueling it.
When a team member consistently acts in a way that doesn’t align with the team’s direction and values, there is a belief beneath that behavior that is worth understanding. Not to excuse it or let it go unchallenged, but because if you’re managing only the behavior without addressing the belief, you are treating the fever and ignoring the infection.
In the case of the leader I described above, she had stopped trusting that company leadership had the best interest of the whole team at heart. I don’t know yet whether that belief is based on something real, like a broken commitment, a decision that felt unfair, a pattern of not being heard, or whether it's a perception that has grown in the absence of clear communication.
What I do know is this: That belief is what's driving every behavior: The silence in meetings. The "that will never work" posture. The "they" language, and the meetings after the meeting.
Sometimes those behaviors are rooted in something that leadership needs to hear and own. But sometimes the belief driving the behavior isn't about the team at all. It's personal. It's about what someone wanted for themselves and didn’t get. And that distinction matters, because the path forward looks very different. What doesn’t change either way is this: Selfish behavior that undermines the team cannot be allowed to continue.
The “they” tells you something important
One place to start is to pay attention to the language in your shop. It sometimes tells you more than the words themselves.
When employees, and especially leaders, refer to company direction as something “they” are doing rather than something “we” are doing, it’s a signal of disconnection. They have separated their identity from the mission of the organization. They are spectators watching a game they don’t believe in, rather than being players on the field.
I’ve seen this language pattern show up in shops at every level: at the front counter, in the shop, and even in leadership meetings. And every single time, it’s worth asking: Why do they feel outside of this? What happened or didn’t happen that created the distance?
Sometimes the answer is about communication. A process change was rolled out without context. A decision was made without explanation. People didn’t understand the why, so they filled in the gap with their own negative story, their own belief.
Sometimes the answer goes deeper: A leader who said one thing and did another. A team member who raised a concern and felt dismissed. A pattern that’s been building for a long time. The quiet in meetings is just the most visible sign of it.
Whatever the origin, the belief is real, and real beliefs produce real behaviors.
I’ll share more on this topic in a future column.
