‘Undercover Boss’ tribute race part of Arlington Park opening
Since becoming a jockey valet in 1988, Kenny Rice has spent a lot of time in the Arlington Park winner’s circle.
His job has him there often to help collect the riders’ equipment when they dismount their horses after each race.
But when Arlington Park opens its doors to start its 2010 meet today, Rice will be in the winner’s circle for a very special moment.
Thanks to an episode of the CBS television series “Undercover Boss,” there will be a race run today in honor of Rice’s daughter Meghan Samantha, who was born with a heart defect and died in March 2009 at the age of 20.
While going undercover to work with Rice on his job at Arlington Park last summer, Churchill Downs Chief Operating Officer Bill Carstanjen bonded with the valet’s story about his daughter during the taping of the show.
Carstanjen noticed the picture of Rice’s daughter and then realized it was in memoriam.
Read the full story on Daily Herald
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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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“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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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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