What we can learn from “Undercover Boss”
Okay, so I just got around to watching the debut of the new CBS reality show, Undercover Boss, which I recorded after the Superbowl on Sunday evening.
I am really not a fan of reality shows, although I did watch the first season of The Apprentice back in 2004 since it had project managers competing to secure a single lucrative position of overseeing the building of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois.
After watching the first few episodes of The Apprentice, I actually felt anxious. I think that The Donald’s continual criticizing, interrupting, and “you’re fired” climaxes of each board room episode of The Apprentice struck a little too close to reality for me. I have never been fired, but I have been in my share of meetings and board rooms where politics are at play, people’s defenses are bristling, and at times career paths are changed. I have found that these corporate situations often have an appearance more like a scene from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, than that of a group of people with a common corporate goal. And at times it has been me who has put the boar’s head on the stake!
However, I felt the first episode of Undercover Boss to be almost the “anti-Apprentice.” It took a much different approach to getting the most from people.
In the first episode of Undercover Boss, Larry O’Donnell, president and COO of Waste Management, works incognito in various “undesirable” entry level jobs, including picking up litter, sorting recycled material, and even cleaning port-a-potties. Mr. O’Donnell was assigned various trainers for each job and each of his unassuming mentors came across as very professional and for the most part loyal to Waste Management.
Now, at this point my spidey-senses were tingling a bit thinking that this could very well be contrived by the show’s producer to help Waste Management come across as a very friendly and happy place to work. But, to my surprise they showed a bit of the underbelly of the company as well, including expecting garbage truck drivers to use a coffee can instead of pulling off of the route for a potty break, having pickup trucks follow trucks at a distance to monitor worker performance, and docking workers 2 minutes for every 1 minute that they are late.
Now here is the part that really made me take notice. Once he discovered each of these rather draconian policies, Larry O’Donnell held himself accountable for his company’s tough productivity goals turning into something he had not intended. At the end of the show, after revealing his true identity to each of the workers under whom he had trained, he gave his personal commitment to each that he would focus on improving those undesirable situations he had himself indirectly created. He didn’t blame the economy, company shareholders, customers, or his executive team. He held himself accountable and vowed to make it right.
Larry did have a firm discussion with the middle-manager that had directly created the 2-minute docked pay policy. But, even here, Larry empowered his employee by asking him “Can I count on you to fix this situation?” Larry’s approach didn’t belittle the manager… Here was the COO asking for his help!
This first episode has made me wonder about the policies and atmosphere that I have created on my own project teams… Do people enjoy working on my teams? Are there team policies that I have created that have caused team members to actually become less efficient and less productive? How do my team members treat their internal and external customers as a result?
These are areas, where as project manager, I need to step up, snoop around a bit, and find the person accountable for those areas that need improvement on my team. And that person starts with me.
Is it time for you to be an undercover boss on your project? Start by paying attention to the people on your team. See how they do their jobs. Ask them what things make them frustrated or less efficient. Find out what things about their job prevent them from maintaining a healthy life-work balance. Then hold yourself accountable for doing whatever it takes to address those areas. It may not only improve your team… it may also change your life.
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[...] Ryan Haidet wrote a very interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt:I am really not a fan of reality shows, although I did watch the first season of The Apprentice back in 2004 since it had project managers competing to secure a single lucrative position of overseeing the building of Trump International … [...]
Great article! I watched this on Sunday and had a very similar experience.
I agree the first program was a great show and vastly more enlightened than “The Apprentice”.
Something that seems to have escaped Larry’s notice was the readiness and eagerness of the manager’s to agree with Larry, once they know his identity. It’s hard to tell from just this handful of episodes, but is Larry open to suggestions, questions, alternate points of view? The guy who manages the paper-pickers at the landfill even mumbled flattery of Larry when he found out Randy’s true identity, saying “Randy did a good job.”, even though he had fired Randy for doing a bad job. Though I hope otherwise, it looks to me like this may be a top-down company in which nobody expresses a point of view that differs from that of the boss.
Spicetrader – I agree, that this show really doesn’t show necessarily the true culture of WM or management style… If the looks on the faces of the executive staff were any indication, I think you are correct that Larry pretty much drives the ship.
However, I wonder if we still can’t learn something from his actions… Perhaps his actions (and those of his trainers) were contrived for the camera, but that doesn’t mean that the show didn’t have perhaps some merit. What if we tried to learn more about the jobs of those on our teams? Would we learn something that we didn’t know before?
Ron
I think you are spot on, Ron.
Has anyone watched any additional episodes of “Undercover Boss?”