Undercover Boss-nonsense or providing some sense?
I was one of the more or less 38 million people who not only watched the super bowl but also watched the debut of Undercover Boss. As a workplace consultant who gives advice (sometimes high priced!) to workers and their bosses it sort of seemed essential viewing.
It was rather odd to see the first boss Larry O”Donnell of Waste Management annouce to his leadership team that he was “going undercover”. They seemed stunned and apprehensive—and not particularly committed to the idea—or what would come from it. Rather than part of quality initiative or some other on-going HR initiative to understand the workforce and its issues in an ongoing and systematic way , this leadership team seemed rather unnerved but this idea which seemed to be a one of kind and unique attempt to “meet the troops” and be one of them—as if this were a new idea. We consultants tend to like things more organized than this and part of a greater effort at organizational change. We have also been preaching a version of this for more or less 30 or 40 years. But being of the mind that any attempt to connect leadership and workers is a good thing that can bring better processes and fresher views, I went with the program and watched on.
Let it be known that both The Street.com and Entertainment Weekly ripped the show—but although it can be obviously a little lame to see someone on the bottom washing toilets who just yesterday was in the corner suite, I found the show not exactly must see TV, but at least decent TV . One of the things that many people seem to be today is cynical or “hip”—-things that are “good” are tossed off as too “Hallmark Hall of Fame” . This show can easily be seen in that light as more than corny, but truly disengenuous. Maybe. But I found Larry O’Donnell to be a likeable, down to earth, kind, thoughtful person—-forget his leadership skills (which are good I would guess)—-he was a decent human being and acted as such in some pretty “crappy” situations. He listened well and seemed genuinely moved by experiences of those on the front lines of Waste Management. To me, he modeled behavior that is positive. if we can just get leadership people to be more natural, and real and less packaged we are ahead of the game.
Although some might legitimately ask —what did he think the ever pressing productivity attempts he mandated meant for people? Didn’t he realize his dictates meant tough and exhausting standards that would lead to crazy things like female truck drivers using a coffee can since they had no time to find a ladies room? Well sure he did at some intellectual level, but there is no replacement for experiencing things, being engaged in a real tangible way with things to make an impact on a person and give them insight into the effects of their decisions—sort of like President Obama going to view caskets from the war front. Larry may not have solved all of the problems of WM or even a big part of various employee issues by mixing it up with the front line troops, but he went far in gaining a fresh perspective and taking his experiences and responding to them in a positive way. He also acted like a gentleman and provided people otherwise ignored to have a sense of positive reinforcement and hope for their futures.
Like Larry I was amazed by the people we met in this episode—they were more than solid, they were truly employees a company can be proud of. Sure there were some errors of judgement—but with the exception of one middle manager who acted without much real reflection, it seemed most people had a balance of respect for themselves and respect for the company they worked for.
I guess I will never make it as a TV critic or a cynic—I LIKED Undercover Boss (and Larry O’Donnell)—because the gap between where most businesses are and where they need to be in terms of leadership and creating appropriate cultures that serve both individuals and organizations is so far from where they need to be. Any effort to make a dent in the system has to be a good thing. Plus, maybe more than one person will learn from Larry and whoever is next on the show that we all put our pants on one leg at a time and we all are in the workplace together. Maybe I am the odd ball, but I can’t wait to meet the next Undercover Boss.
I, too, was very impressed with the “undercover boss”, Larry, in that first episode. He’s a good man who cares about his people and his business, who went to great lengths to really understand both in his undercover position. His level of caring and respect was inspiring. How many managers really want to understand what’s going on with their people at the ground level. This man was committed to wanting to see for himself their challenges and issues, to take action to make things better for them and the company.
Great stuff! Your article really resonates with me!
Pat,
I liked Undercover Boss as well. Since you talked about the benefits to leaders of spending time engaged with the workforce, I’ll mention the benefit to workers of seeing their peers in their leadership role. Because the show is edited we saw frontline workers who were pros at what they do, as well as believers in their contributions to the company. The first takeaway for me is leadership on the frontline is not only possible but important for the health of a company. Each worker (perhaps with the exception of the woman using the coffee can) took pride in training Larry and could articulate the importance of getting things done. The second is the situation became a two way learning experience. Workers learned that they may blame faceless leaders for every thing that doesn’t work until they get to know the leader as a person and the situation as part of the big picture. It is the medium that focuses everyone’s attention on what can be done to make things better for workers and more productive for their companies. The third is the show offers the audience an insight into how things work on the front line. Many of us will now reflect on our work or organization and our role in making the workplace one that we look forward to spending most of our day at.
Pat, thank you for starting the conversation. I’ll bet there will be even more to learn if the series continues. Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of the episodes showed workers sitting in on leadership meetings as well? It could be called, “Undercover Worker”.