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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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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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.
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