Beyond the Numbers: How to Turn a Quarterly Recap into a Learning Event

Quarterly recap meetings have a bad reputation. Too often, they become little more than someone reading financials aloud while managers glance at their phones, waiting for it to end.

At Leif Johnson Ford, we recently ran a quarterly session that was different. Yes, we reviewed the numbers, but what made it successful was not the spreadsheets. It was the learning.

Here is what worked, and why.

1. Creating Shared Language Across Departments

One of the biggest barriers inside a dealership is that each department speaks its own dialect. Sales managers talk in terms of closing percentages and PVR. Service managers focus on absorption, hours per RO, and effective labor rate. Parts managers live in obsolescence and fill rates.

When we brought them into the same room, something unexpected happened. They wanted to understand each other’s metrics. Sales leaders leaned into fixed ops KPIs. Service leaders asked about front-end gross. Everyone became a little more fluent in each other’s world.

Proof point: According to a McKinsey study, organizations that prioritize cross-functional collaboration are 1.5 times more likely to report revenue growth of 10 percent or more compared to peers. Shared language is the first step to collaboration.

2. Turning Curiosity into Engagement

Meetings fail when participants are passive. They succeed when participants are curious.

At this recap, managers were not just listening. They were asking questions. Why does finance measure it that way? How does service absorption really work? What does that parts metric mean for the rest of the store?

That curiosity created dialogue, and dialogue built engagement.

Proof point: Gallup research shows that engaged employees are 23 percent more profitable and far less likely to leave. Curiosity is one of the fastest routes to engagement.

3. Moving from Reporting to Learning

The typical recap answers the question, “What happened?” A stronger recap also asks, “What does it mean?” and “What can we do with it?”

By framing numbers as conversation starters rather than conversation enders, we transformed a recap into a classroom. Each manager walked out knowing more about their own department and about the dealership as a whole.

Proof point: Harvard Business Review reports that companies fostering learning organizations, where reflection is built into operations, are 92 percent more likely to develop new products and processes. In automotive retail, that translates into creative solutions for margins, CSI, and retention.

4. Backed by Leadership Support

None of this happens without buy-in from the top. Credit goes to Jeff Buhl, President of Leif Johnson, and the store leadership teams for supporting the kind of meeting where real learning can take place. Without leadership’s commitment, recap sessions risk becoming just another calendar item.

Proof point: Deloitte found that companies with strong leadership support for learning are 46 percent more likely to be leaders in their industry.

The Takeaway:

Dealerships do not get stronger just by tracking numbers.

Dealerships get stronger when leaders create environments where people want to understand those numbers, and each other.

A recap meeting can be more than a review. With the right facilitation, it can be a catalyst for:

• Shared language across departments

• Genuine curiosity and engagement

• Deeper learning that drives better performance

That is how you move a room full of managers from passive listeners to active learners. And that is how you turn quarterly numbers into lasting organizational strength.