CBS to Air Mack Trucks Episode of Undercover Boss
CBS announced that the episode of Undercover Boss featuring Mack Trucks, Inc. and its President & CEO, Denny Slagle, will be broadcast Sunday, Feb. 20 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT).
In production of the episode, Slagle worked side-by-side with employees at the Macungie, PA, plant that assembles every Mack truck sold in North America; the Hagerstown, MD, plant that produces every Mack engine sold in North America; and the Baltimore, MD, distribution center that provides parts to Mack dealers and customers.
“I came away from this experience with a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by our front-line employees,” Slagle said. “Mack people live up to the brand’s reputation – they’re tough, genuine, dedicated, and reliable. The future truly is bright for this 111-year-old American icon.”
Source: for construction pros
1 800 Flowers – Undercover Boss Draws Wrong Conclusions
The Productivity Goal
Chris McCann mentions that he wants to increase productivity in the plant from ten million pounds to 16 – 20 million pounds. Goals are set by management and the machines speed up. Contact centers are managed in much the same way by management coming up with targets for the number of calls taken in a day.
The whole idea of a prescription of how many calls a contact center should take, the allotted AHT per call, and the service level given are rooted in how contact centers can reduce costs. This prescription seems logical enough and most contact centers subscribe to this approach. The problem is that focusing on costs always increases costs.
This isn’t a matter of making workers part of setting the productivity goal as Chris McCann concludes. This is a matter of understanding targets drive dysfunctional behavior.
Incentives Will Make Things Worse
Chris McCann concludes not only that the problem is that of workers being involved in setting goals, but decides incentives will make employees happier and more productive. None of these things are true.
Working together on understanding customer purpose and demand and getting rid of systemic failure demand should be the appropriate response. New measures emerge that are associated with what customers want from service as these drive the lagging financial and productivity measures up.
Read the full story on Customer Management IQ
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Undercover Boss Looks to Wall Street Firms
Undercover Boss, CBS’ unexpected reality hit, is heading to Wall Street, according to the Wall Street Journal. The show has reportedly begun calling financial firms hoping to find a senior executive willing to appear on the show, in which CEOs go “undercover” to see what it’s like to be an low-level employee at their firms.
Source: NY Magazine
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‘Undercover Boss’ season finale recap: 1-800-Flowers wilts our sympathy
The season finale of Undercover Boss told us the thorny story of 1-800-Flowers. The show pumped up a rivalry between the two brothers who head up the company, Jim and Chris McCann. Jim (the CEO) asked Chris (the company president) to go undercover.
When we arrived at the show’s standard doling-out-the-rewards final segments, Undercover Boss seemed to address some of the criticisms that have aimed at the series. Instead of just giving Nciole, the employee lucky enough to come into contact with the (co-)boss, a raise, Chris announced an “incentive system” to be implemented for people throughout the company who exceed their goals.
Read the full recap on EW.
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- Brilliant PR Move for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM – Lessons from “Undercover Boss” (pamil-visions.net)
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Marist alumnus is ‘Undercover Boss’ on season finale
Chris McCann, president and CEO of 1-800-flowers.com and a 1983 graduate of Marist College, goes undercover during the season finale of the CBS television show “Undercover Boss” on Sunday.
McCann’s turn on the show features an unexpected twist when his true identity is discovered by one of his employees.
“I am so grateful for CBS providing me with this exceptional opportunity,” McCann said in a prepared statement. “The opportunity to experience our company at all levels makes me a stronger leader and enables 1-800-flowers.com to continue to be the best in the business. Also, the show reaffirmed my appreciation for all our employees and their hard work — they are invaluable to us in our mission to help deliver smiles every day.”
Read the full story on Poughkeepsie Journal
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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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