TV Ratings: ‘Undercover Boss’ rules Easter Sunday for CBS
A holiday Sunday led to yet another low-rated primetime, but CBS’ lineup still triumphed, led by America’s love for the second half-hour of “Undercover Boss.”
In the 9 p.m. hour, CBS got a 7.3/12 for “Undercover Boss,” which also did a 3.9 demo rating. We’re a bit amused that “Undercover Boss” leaps from a 6.6/11 to an 8.0/13 half-hour to half-hour, as viewers tune in for the tear-filled ending. ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” was up to a 5.2/9 in its second hour, better than the first hour of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” FOX was fourth with a repeat of “Family Guy” (2.7/4) and a new “Sons of Tucson” (1.9/3).
Source: HitFix
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“Undercover Boss” Gets Emotional
Rick Arquilla, the president and COO of the plumbing and drain cleaning company Roto-Rooter, went undercover and saw the dirty part of his employees’ jobs – and revealed emotional parts of his own past – on Sunday’s “Undercover Boss.”
“This is probably more than I had bargained for,” the executive admitted after cramming a power water hose down a pipe leaking raw sewage in a New Orleans parking lot. When his co-worker, Chris, stepped away from the scene for a few minutes, Arquilla stopped working. Chris was surprised by his colleague’s lack of work ethic.
The revelation that Chris was a recovering alcoholic caused an emotional reaction for Arquilla, who admitted that his father, who had once worked on the factory floor at a Roto-Rooter plant, also battled alcoholism but died before he could turn his life around.
Read the full story on CBS News
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Des Moines Rotor-Rooter welder on ‘Undercover Boss’
Dan Nicholson spends his days garbed in heavy protective gear, enduring sweltering temperatures while melding metal together for machine frames.
The 48-year-old is a welder at Roto-Rooter, the plumbing and drain cleaning service founded in Des Moines 75 years ago.
On Feb. 12, Nicholson was asked to teach Hank, a newbie, how to wield a fiery torch. He was up to the challenge — the Indianola native has trained six welders during his 13 years at the company.
But things were different with Hank.
“I had a real hard time teaching Hank how to weld. I told him that I had an easier time teaching my kids how to weld,” he said, adding that he taught his own brood when they were just 8 and 12 years old.
What Nicholson didn’t know is that Hank was really Rick Arquilla, president and COO of Roto-Rooter.
“I had no idea he was a white collar worker,” Nicholson said.
Read the rest of the story on Des Moines Register
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Undercover Boss: Escaping GM’s Abusive Corporate Culture
BNET has an interview with Joel Manby, CEO of Herschand Family Entertainment, a privately held $300 million company with 10,000 employees and 24 theme parks around the country. Here are some of the Q&A:
Tobak: Tell me about the leadership culture at Herschend.
Manby: We have a common culture that we’re trying to create at all our properties. It’s a “servant leadership” culture; we have an objective of being a great place to work for great people. Servant leadership is actually a faith-based concept, but we adapted the behavior, not the faith. It has eight attributes that leaders are measured on. Half of their raise and bonus is based on how they go about their work, and half is based on hitting their numbers, so it creates a really strong culture. And as you know, every great company has a strong culture.
Tobak: So, what are the eight attributes?
Manby: Patience, kindness, honesty, humility, respectfulness, selflessness, forgiveness and commitment. You can dislike somebody, but you can still respect them, forgive them, and treat them with humility and honesty. We also have a phrase: “admonish in private, praise in public.” So you don’t embarrass people.
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Management Lessons from Undercover Boss
The new CBS reality show demonstrates that each employee has a story—and the importance of management learning what it is, says Kellogg School’s Michelle Buck.
After watching an episode in which William C. Carstanjen, chief operating officer of Churchill Downs, worked with three employees in varying capacities at Churchill Downs locations in Florida and Illinois, Buck spoke with Bloomberg BusinessWeek Management Editor Patricia O’Connell about the message of the show and the responsibilities managers have to create a culture of openness. Here is some of the Q&As:
Patricia O’Connell: Out of curiosity, what did you think of the show, Undercover Boss?
Michelle Buck: I was very interested, not just for our conversation, but as someone who teaches a class in managerial leadership. … It’s a look at how important it is for leaders to know what’s happening at all levels of the organization. As [William Carstanjen] said, “this is really a people business,” and everything is a people business. [Managers need to find out do] people have what they need to do their job? What are their hopes and dreams? Those are the factors that affect their motivation and their ability to get their work done.
If [Undercover Boss] that can trigger conversations and open awareness of these issues to the fundamental business practice, that’s a great thing.
What do you make of the idea that clearly a lot of employees have no clue what top management looks like? I realize they are showing situations where there are many, many layers between the workers and the top management. But still, I was struck that employees have no idea who their top people are.
I was at an event at Kellogg with an executive of a large global firm and we were talking about the show, before it had aired. He said the premise was scandalous. The ability of people to go undercover [and not be recognized] at a large organization shows the problem.
Workers likely would not have been as open had Carstanjen shown up and said, “Hey, I’m the COO, and I don’t know enough about the way the operation works. What’s hard about your job?” Even if you create a culture from the very top where this kind of conversation is important, and you want to give people the tools they need to do their jobs well, and you set it up so that cascades down throughout the organization, how do you make it safe for employees to be open with you?
Leadership is a relationship, and like any relationship, it evolves with trust and credibility. So a leader has to be consistent in showing desire for the input and acknowledging the feedback—but there has to be follow-up as well.
Too often people feel, “I made the suggestion, they said thank you and smiled, but nothing ever happened.” And that can cause a real decrease in morale ….
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Undercover Boss GSI Commerce Episode “Villain” Danielle Campbell Tells Her Side
Danielle Campbell, the call center employee that was deemed rude by GSI Commerce Undercover BossMichael Rubin this past Sunday night, shared her side of the story on Associated Content:
What is it that you feel was left out on the Undercover Boss GSI Commerce episode concerning your side of the story?
One, Mr. Rubin spent all of 10 minutes with me and never asked me about my personal life at all, or my background. Two, the call was almost 10 minutes long, and the woman had done some yelling and crying, as well. Three, Mr. Rubin had no control of the call and kept saying “umm,” which was unprofessional and did not sound confident. Four, at GSI, there is a chat software, and the managers were listening to the call, they could have IMd me and advised that there was something I could do for her. I only had a couple weeks of training on the job. In addition, in the reveal part of the show, he had mentioned to me that my managers had said how great I was, but it was cut out for television.
Were you ever told why you spent so little time with Michael Rubin at the call center? Were they looking to cast someone as “a villain” and your call with the woman was timed just right?
I believe my time with Mr. Rubin was cut short because he was not happy with how I handled the call. The call was not a set-up, it just happened, and there was no scripting.
What happened to you after you had your meeting with the CEO of GSI Commerce regarding the re-training you were supposed to get?
He had told me he was going to implement a retraining program, and in January I demoted myself. By the beginning of the 2nd week of March I was no longer with the company due to some “unwritten” policy (not in the company handbook that I could find) and procedure mess, not related to the show, so I never experienced the so-called retraining in the three months following the show.
You appeared happy at the employee rally with Michael Rubin. Is that because the GSI Commerce CEO told you that you’d did a good job off camera and even on camera, which you say was cut out?
As far as why I looked happy, because I was, due to not being canned. Mr. Rubin had said that the reason I was not canned was because my managers said what a good job I had done.
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“Undercover Boss” Amuses Theme Park CEO
Joel Manby, president and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment, the largest family-owned theme parks in the nation, learned that it takes a lot of hard work to keep the fun and excitement alive on CBS’ “Undercover Boss.
While undercover, he meets a kid-friendly captain who loves his job conducting the “Ride the Duck” tour and learns that it might be easier to run a boardroom than to keep the attention of a boat full of kids.
Manby also works the front gate at Silver Dollar City Theme Park, where he learns that first impressions and a warm welcome make all the difference.
He also meets a young man aspiring for his job. A roller-coaster enthusiast, Manby’s employee shares his passion along with some ideas he hopes to implement when he takes over the company.
“Albert does overwhelm me a little bit, but you can channel that,” Manby says.
His employee speaks highly of Manby as well, saying, “He is an awesome guy.”
Read the full story on CBS News
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What ‘Undercover Boss’ Teaches Us All
With far too many Americans out of work, and employers cutting another 20,000 last month, many people have come to blame chief executive officers for not having the pulse of their own companies. Undercover Boss has done nothing to change that impression.
In the first episode Larry O’Donnell, the CEO of Waste Management, poses as “Randy Lawrence,” a construction worker supposedly being filmed for a story about down-on-their-luck Americans in search of entry-level employment. O’Donnell, who earns nearly $3 million a year according to company filings, experiences the backbreaking work of the company’s frontline employees. He’s even fired during his seven-day stint after failing to fill a trash bag.
During his undercover week O’Donnell sees an employee stretched impossibly thin by performing eight different jobs and also finds that he can’t keep up sorting cardboard and recyclables. “I’m going to approach the whole way I do my job differently,” he says on the show. “I don’t want to be doing things that are going to cause disruption. The things I’ve learned could change the way we do business forever … and make things better for our frontline employees.”
His experience shows why leaders who focus solely on the balance sheet can’t succeed. If executives look only at numbers, they can’t make the most of honest feedback, recognize the limits of their knowledge or avoid repeating mistakes. When leaders see their shortcomings as a chance to learn and grow, they gain the ability–and credibility–to help others do the same.
…
It will take a while to see if any of the leaders featured onUndercover Boss fulfill the promises they’ve made on the show, but that the program is on at all illustrates that CEOs are beginning to understand that they’ve got to change if they’re going to truly succeed in a postrecession world.
Read the full story on Forbes
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TV’s ‘Undercover Boss’ makes surprise visit to Camden’s Adventure Aquarium
Mercedes Franklin never noticed her new co-worker John Briggs bore a remarkable resemblance to the man whose picture graced the cover of every company newsletter.
“I felt kind of stupid that I didn’t put two and two together,” said Franklin, a cash control specialist at the Adventure Aquarium. “In the hallway, there’s a newsletter with his picture on it and I pass it, like, 100 times a day.”
It ends up John Briggs was really Joel Manby, president and chief executive officer of Herschend Family Entertainment, the aquarium’s parent company and Franklin’s boss.
Manby spent an entire day in July helping Franklin run the aquarium’s Creature Feature exhibit, a touch tank, and wiping fingerprints off the glass at some of the exhibits.
“They told us it was a documentary on a young man who was unemployed and wanted to go back into the work force,” said Franklin, who lives in the Parkside section of Camden.
Manby said he agreed to do the show because he wanted to know what it was like to work an entry level job at the company he runs.
“I was amazed by the dedication and hard work of the employees,” Manby said. “I have a caring heart. We had a lot of hardship growing up. I’ve always been concerned when I have to make difficult decisions.”
Manby spent two days at the aquarium and said interacting with his employees totally changed his outlook.
“At the end of the day, I was so run down,” he said. “Mercedes was such an amazing lady.”
Read the full story on Courier Post Online
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Why More CEOs Need to Clean Toilets
Lessons in leadership from “Undercover Boss.”
In the new reality show, “Undercover Boss,” executive leaders go “undercover” as new hires in entry-level positions, to better understand how their organization works.
The first episode featured Larry O’Donnell, President of Waste Management, Inc. cleaning porta-potties along with one of his employees. After each show the executives reveal their true identity and talk about what they’ve learned.
To some people this is a revolutionary concept, but I have to ask, “Why doesn’t every manager, executive or CEO take time to understand what their employees actually do at work?”
I’ve conducted numerous organizational assessments and have spoken to several thousand employees, during my last twenty years as a consultant.” My clients include; hotels and restaurants, high tech, facilities and waste management, airlines, transportation, beverage bottling and distributing, public works, and call centers.
The most common complaint and question I hear is, “Why doesn’t my manager/ director/ CEO, try to do my job?” followed by, “ if he or she tried to do my work, they would understand what I have to deal with everyday.”
This is a big “DUH!” The common mantra these days is, “engaged employees are productive employees.” Employees who think you have no idea or empathy for them are not going to be engaged.
Read the full story on Fast Company.
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