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
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2e7fe27d-7054-46ed-a7a6-1e4cfa2c6437)
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.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=86945b27-c711-4aaf-952c-b2f7395d6fba)
UNDERCOVER BOSS “GSI Commerce” Episode 6 (Michael G. Rubin – CEO)
Watch a sneak peek of the new episode of UNDERCOVER BOSS “GSI Commerce” Episode 6 (Michael G. Rubin – CEO) which airs Sunday March 21 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Episode Synopsis: UNDERCOVER BOSS “GSI Commerce” Episode 6 (Michael G. Rubin – CEO) – Michael Rubin, CEO of the billion dollar e-commerce giant GSI, which provides customer service and product shipments for online orders to numerous top U.S. retailers, goes undercover in his own company where he discovers that rushing through a task can result in injury to others, and that his packing and shipping skills are not up to company standards, on UNDERCOVER BOSS, Sunday, March 21 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=224aab80-b768-41af-a7fd-4dbd905cc6f9)
6 Lessons from Undercover Boss – Week 6
The following are the lessons learned by Dave Sabol from the GSI episode, as posted on his blog:
- Ideas for efficiency come from the floor, not the HQ, if you want to know how to make things work better, ask the employees – especially those that are new(er) not “so-called” experts.
- Attitude, and aptitude, needs to be the key qualities you look for in employees. A good attitude can be contagious, but so can a bad one. Hire wisely.
- Don’t get so focused on growth that you lose track of cultivating what allowed you to grow in the first place.
- Hold employee’s to a high standard, be understanding, but also realize when they are simply compromising company values. It takes just one bad employee to make a great company look not as good.
- Life is so much bigger than business. Don’t think that development has to be professional only, improving yourself at a personal level is just as beneficial. Always be looking at those around you to see what you can learn from them that can help you be a better person?
- Rewards and recognition don’t always have to be direct, you can support an employee by supporting something they feel is important. Get creative and acknowledge them individually. Sure it may be more work but it will also gain you a lot more loyalty. People notice when you care about things that are important to them.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c6348f7f-e791-4238-af19-8e31d2e3fff0)
Montco CEO of e-commerce company to be on “Undercover Boss”
The top executive of a Montgomery County e-commerce giant is the latest CEO to go behind the scenes in the new hit CBS series“Undercover Boss” at 9 p.m. Sunday.
“I have missed the opportunity to be close to the day-to-day activities that are at the center of what we do and what enables us to deliver value to our clients and consumers,” Rubin says. ‘“Undercover Boss’ allowed me to better connect with the thousands of associates that make our company so successful. It was truly an amazing experience that I took to heart.”
Rubin started GSI in 1999 and at 37, he is one of the countries youngest CEOs . At age 12, he launched his first business in the basement of his family’s home.
GSI employs more than 4,500 people, rising to over 10,000 employees during the holidays and had revenues of more than $1 billion in 2009.
Read the full story on TV Watchers
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=198f7976-6014-4d9c-a6bf-4e92faacf77b)
‘Undercover Boss’ Spurs Waste Management New-Customer Inquiries
Waste Management Inc.’s president is learning that reality-television shows may be one man’s trash TV and another’s public-relations treasure.
Hits to the Houston-based company’s new-customer and career Web links surged after Lawrence O’Donnell, who is also chief operating officer, appeared on the CBS Corp. program “Undercover Boss” following the Feb. 7 Super Bowl.
“We got new business from customers who’ve said, ‘Wow, that’s the kind of company we want to do business with,’” O’Donnell said in an interview. “And you know, at first I said there’s no way I would do it.”
Waste Management saw a more-than-threefold jump in hits on its online “Become a Customer” Web link in the four days after the broadcast, compared with recent daily averages, Lynn Brown, vice president of corporate communications, said in an e-mail. Traffic to the company Web site’s Careers page almost doubled and inbound e-mails climbed 112 percent, she said.
Read the full story on Business Week.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cdee2bcd-fab9-48b9-8f0a-fdc066a44266)
‘Undercover Boss’ teaches a valuable management lesson
MBA lesson coming from Business Matters:
At Hooters the CEO saw a manager abuse the serving staff, and at White Castle, the CEO observed the lack of teamwork that existed at many of the restaurants. Additionally, White Castle CEO David Rite saw how policies and procedures imposed by his top staff just did not work in practice.
The lesson is that for the CEO, your perception of the business is vastly different from that of your employees. Further, the problems you think staff is having are a whole lot different than their actual problems. In one case, a manager at Hooters thought he was doing a great job because he was making his sales numbers, but his staff despised him and morale was in decline.
It is amazing to me to see entrepreneurs who conduct their regular visits to various parts of their operation, see everything looking great and staff appearing so happy, then leave thinking everything is going well. However, management knew the owner was going to visit, so of course the place was cleaned up and everyone was on their best behavior.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2cb267c9-e7ca-4171-aa16-b0ae102e0c75)
Bad economy boosts CBS hit ‘Undercover Boss’
Phil Rosenthal from the Chicago Tribune shares some of his business thoughts on Undercover Boss; here are the highlights:
A significant number of the 38.6 million viewers who got a taste of “Boss” after the Super Bowl came back for more the next three Sundays. The most recent episode — featuring the head of White Castle working menial jobs in his restaurants, a company bakery and a frozen food plant — drew more than 15 million viewers opposite Vancouver’s Closing Ceremony.
But the true lure simply may be the way “Undercover Boss” demonstrates that, as hard as the executives think they work, those under them work just as hard or harder with less compensation and less support, a message that can’t help but resonate.
“The principle of the boss who doesn’t really know what it’s like on the front line is a principle that is strong,” Stephen Lambert, the show’s executive producer, told a group of reporters a few weeks back.
The most understandable but least satisfying aspect of the program is that no one has gotten fired for what they have said or done in front of the CEOs. The boss of Hooters, for example, was inexplicably forgiving to a manager who demeaned his wait staff in a variety of galling ways on camera. He wasn’t even written up on camera.
“The reward, punishment and future course of action for the employees is determined by the chief executives at the participating companies,” CBS spokesman Chris Ender explained, although producers have editorial control.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3fe9c87b-6e75-4cf2-9380-80a7b9ec8c56)
CBS’ Undercover Boss: Management Is Out of Touch With Employees
- Image via Wikipedia
Mark Holmes from Manage My Employees shares some thoughts about Undercover Boss. Here are some of the highlights:
…the Hooter’s CEO episode was sad.
Cody Brooks/CEO was not only out of touch with some essential perspectives from his employees and customers, but he had failed to visit one of their more important food manufacturing facilities since taking over as CEO in 2006.
Furthermore, Brooks admittedly hadn’t been “out in the field personally” for 20 years! How can you run a company that way?
How can a CEO be that far removed from his/her people? That far separated from the daily operations?
How can one climb the ladder of success as a leader yet fail to understand the ramifications of a basic leadership tenet: that employees support mentally and emotionally what they help create, not what gets jammed down their throats!
…
Bottom-line: Immunization from honest dissonance as a leader leads to dangerously myopic, endogenous decision-making. The organization’s sacred cows live on as leaders control ops from a mink-lined rut. CEO’s, all leaders for that matter, must get out, get involved and get their hands dirty once in awhile if they expect to grasp reality.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0ca6f47a-1f8d-4062-a84c-ad2c56c4d0b4)
Local 7-Eleven official discusses reality show
NewSok talked to Jim Brown, CEO of Oklahoma’s 7-Eleven stores, which are separate from the Dallas-based chain, about his thought of the show:
“It resembled a one-hour commercial,” the chief executive said.
The two companies are remarkably dissimilar, he continued. At the end of the show, several employees were given opportunities within the company — in the marketing department or ownership of a new store — that they didn’t think were available.
“Our employees are taught about the opportunities on their very first day with the company,” Brown said. “We promote our operations management staff from within. The positions with the most responsibility are occupied by men and women who started with the company working in stores, including me.”
Read more: on NewSok.com
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b2f92926-16e2-4ada-b5ce-7a13fd860c53)
