‘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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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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On ‘Undercover Boss,’ Churchill Downs Exec Horses Around, Gets Hosed
On Sunday, CBS’s (CBS) Undercover Boss took a turn around the track with Bill Carstanjen, COO of Churchill Downs (CHDN). As the University of California–Berkeley and Columbia–educated Carstanjen cared for horses, helped dress a jockey, and tried his hand at the bugle, the show gave viewers an in-depth look at the inside workings of the horse-racing world.
While some previous “undercover bosses” threw themselves wholeheartedly into their entry-level jobs, Carstanjen is far less engaged — in fact, three of his five supervisors question his effectiveness and work ethic. Gillian, a horse trainer and his first coworker, notes his skittishness with the horses and his seeming inability to complete the tasks she gives him. After he soaks Gillian while bathing a horse, she tells the camera crew, “Right now, Bill’s future is not looking the greatest. He just has a lot to learn.”
At Arlington Park, Carstanjen works the night shift with Denise, an $8-per-hour employee who commutes 90 minutes to clean luxury suites. After showing Carstanjen the ropes, Denise grows visibly agitated at his slow, awkward progress: “Billy wouldn’t be good at this. He’s just not cleaning material. He’s slowing me down tremendously.”
Carstanjen’s inefficiency becomes an even bigger problem when he works with Kenny, a jockey’s valet. The undercover boss is quickly overwhelmed by the quick pace of the job, and ultimately, his supervisor has to give up on educating him, choosing instead to simply tell the hapless exec every single thing he needs to do. Later, when Carstanjen wanders off in search of Kenny, both become useless as they spend minutes wandering around in search of each other.
Of course, there are also up moments. In his second job, blowing the bugle, Carstanjen’s painful fumbling offers comic relief. His total lack of musical experience, paired with disturbingly insufficient training, yields a bugle call that could best be described as tragic.
…
When Carstanjen presents his big reveal to his gimlet-eyed, well-dressed execs, the upshot of his argument is that Churchill Downs needs to “get a little bit personal” with its employees. But he doesn’t seem to sway his fellow suits — and it’s unclear if Carstanjen himself is swayed.
Staying true to the show’s formula, he gives nice, mildly lucrative surprises to all of his former supervisors, but there’s little question that Churchill Downs will continue to squeeze every penny possible out of its workers, many of whom will have to struggle to put food on the table. If the purpose of Undercover Boss is to show the transformative power of working with the great unwashed, the Bill Carstanjen episode was a sad failure.
See full article from DailyFinance.
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Four new CEO’s become an ‘Undercover Boss’ on CBS
CBS announced today the four remaining companies who are participating in the first season of UNDERCOVER BOSS. The series airs Sundays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The remaining Season One companies are:
- Roto-Rooter (Rick L. Arquilla, President and COO): The largest plumbing provider in North America
- 1-800-Flowers (Chris McCann, President): One of the world’s largest florists
- GSI Commerce (Michael G. Rubin, Chairman, President and CEO): The e-commerce giant behind numerous top U.S. retailers
- Herschend Family Entertainment (Joel Manby, President and CEO): A leader in the world of family theme parks and attractions
The air schedule for upcoming episodes of UNDERCOVER BOSS follows:
- Sunday, March 14: Churchill Downs (Bill Carstanjen, COO)
- Sunday, March 21: GSI Commerce (Michael G. Rubin, Chairman, President and CEO)
- Sunday, March 28: Herschend Family Entertainment (Joel Manby, President and CEO)
*Airdates for the two additional episodes will be announced at a later date.
Each week, UNDERCOVER BOSS follows a different executive as they leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their companies. While working alongside their employees, they see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organizations and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their companies run.
The companies whose chief executives have already made the undercover journey during the first season are Waste Management (Larry O’Donnell, President and C.O.O.), Hooters (Coby G. Brooks, President and C.E.O.), 7-Eleven (Joseph M. DePinto, President and C.E.O.) and White Castle (Dave Rife, Owner/Executive Board Member). This week’s episode of UNDERCOVER BOSS (Sunday, March 14) follows the COO of the world famous horse racing company Churchill Downs, Bill Carstanjen, as he travels to the backstretch of his company where he will walk, wash and feed the massive thoroughbreds and discover what life is like for the cleaning crew after hours.
UNDERCOVER BOSS is the number one new series of the 2009-2010 season, averaging 18.74 million viewers, 8.0/17 in adults 25-54 and 7.1/17 in adults 18-49.
Stephen Lambert and Eli Holzman are executive producers for Studio Lambert, Ltd.
(source: CBS)
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Undercover Boss – Churchill Downs
Executive Bill Carstanjen faces his fear of horses while working under cover at Churchill Downs on the next episode of Undercover Boss.
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