We have been watching CBS’s new reality show, UNDERCOVER BOSS, with great interest. The series purports to put “out of touch” CEOs back in touch with the day-to-day dealings of their companies. The undercover bosses (such as Hooters CEO Coby Brooks and Waste Management president and COO Larry O’Donnell) pretend to be part of a documentary about entry-level jobs in order to get out of the board room and down into the trenches.
As one of the title cards says during the opening credits: THEY WILL DISCOVER THE TRUTH.
On Sunday February 21st, the show featured 7-Eleven president and CEO Joe DePinto, a West Point graduate with working-class roots who worked his way up the organization. After a brief make-under in which he swaps snazzy suit for schlumpy jeans, five o’clock shadow and glasses, DePinto is ready to take on jobs ranging from making coffee to making donuts to helping customers to making deliveries.
What was nice about the DePinto episode from a Results-Only Work Environment perspective was that the CEO got to see firsthand what we’re constantly advocating whenever we meet with distrustful leadership. Contrary to what your paranoia might be telling you, most of the employees in an organization are not lazy, unethical thieves, but decent people who want to do a good job. (Obviously this truism doesn’t apply to the Hooters manager who makes his waitresses eat beans off a plate without using their hands before they can end their shift.)
In the DePinto episode, we also got to see how (surprise!) human 7-Eleven employees are, what with their problems (missing a kidney, never seeing their wife) and dreams (of being an artist, of not working at 7-Eleven). While DePinto isn’t completely insulting in his amazement at the fullness of their lives, he is “woken up” to the fact that they they aren’t getting what they need from the organization. As he tells his board toward episode’s end “Every single employee I met was amazing. What we have to do is support them.”
So far, so good. And then things go completely crazy.
For the “reveal”, DePinto meets with four of the employees who especially touched his life. He thanks them and praises them, and then proceeds to try to make their dreams come true and their problems go away.
To the employee who wants a career beyond 7-Eleven, DePinto offers to become his lifelong mentor. He gives another employee the chance to freelance his artwork for the company’s marketing department. The delivery driver who never sees his wife wins a vacation. The woman who is missing a kidney and is waiting for a donor will be honored with a system-wide donor awareness program to encourage customers to fill out organ donor cards.
This is not a knock on the 7-Eleven employees. They’re fine people. And if anyone is going to benefit from a television show, we’re not going to object.
But isn’t there something inherently arrogant about how these people are recognized? To hear the employees tell it, they were simply doing their job. They were kind and decent to DePinto (just as DePinto was kind and decent in return) because that’s who they are.
They didn’t ask for the CEO of their company to swoop in and make it all better. And while there is genuine gratitude on their part, they also give off an uneasy vibe as if they’re not sure what this all means. (How do you thank someone for such an improbable gift? How do you return the favor?)
UNDERCOVER claims to be about CEOs getting real, but it really trades in the same old myths that gets companies into trouble in the first place. The idea at work here is that the CEO–provided he or she gets the right information–knows exactly what to do.
The CEO is the smartest, wisest, most strategic–and in the case of UNDERCOVER BOSS magical–person in the entire organization. But the irony here is that with the exception of one moment where corporate wasn’t properly responding to a maintenance call, everything at the stores was working just fine. So hats off to DePinto for making the rounds, but don’t kid yourself. You’ve made a nice difference in some people’s lives, but you might not be as powerful as you think.
Scot Herrick | March 1st
Much harder to change a corporate culture that provides the support for employees to be satisfied in their jobs.
Much easier to hand out four gifts only you can give and proclaim, “Well, that’s done. Next?”
Sigh…
Persephone K | March 1st
I was wondering when/if you guys would tackle this show! My primary response to the show in general has been… I’m underwhelmed. Maybe its because aside from the first one, they’ve all been about the food service industry and therefore, kind of the same, but I think mostly its because of the “reveal” for the same reasons you mention. But also because it had a very “parental” tone to it. The “fixes” the CEOs implement aren’t really fixes at all, but they are rewards to their employees. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice, but what about the employees doing great work that didn’t get to be part of the undercover experiment? In the episode with the female manager of Hooters who was awesome, I expected the CEO to promote her, or give her a raise…. instead I think she got a vacation and we found out that she later took a “less stressful” job in the company. That seems like she took a voluntary demotion because her job was so stressful and she wasn’t getting any support even though she was awesome at it… though I could be wrong. The CEO basically recognized that her job role was ripe for high burnout, but what did he do to address that aspect? Nothing that I could see.
At the end of the day, I had hoped the CEO’s would take more of a ROWE-minded approach to solving the “problems” in their company and find ways to give them more power and control over their lives.
Howie | March 1st
You hint at the real purpose of the “improbable gifts” – to get the CEO, and through him or her the TV audience, off the hook.
Without the clean & neat resolution, pressure might build to actually change the status quo (very dangerous and threatening!). It’s a lot harder to keep the pressure on someone who’s giving away vacations and starting organ donation campaigns than on someone who’s seen firsthand what front-line employees are going through, has the power to help, and has to stick around and do the hard work.
Same with the audience; we get vicarious relief from responsibility through the CEO’s gifts and nice, pretty ending to the drama. We’re left with the feeling it’s all been taken care of, which completely saps our will to advocate for real changes. -h
Lily | March 1st
I watched the three shows mentioned, and I think that the bosses were truly enlightened. I would recommend this type of “field trip” for any boss – office, construction, schools, hospital, retail, etc.
The question remains, though – how to give the employees what they REALLY need. That’s where Cali and Jody can swoop in with Part 2 of the “reality” series, and introduce the bosses (CEO, Board, Superintendent…) to ROWE
Michael Salamey | March 2nd
There is something very poignant here. I like that Cali and Jody call out the perception of the CEO as “magical”, as if the CEO is The Wizard behind the curtain, able to bestow Courage to the Lion, brains to the Scarecrow, and a heart to the Tin Man.
Of course, the reality is these are but a few employees in an organization of thousands. The CEO is extremely (though understandably) out-of-touch with his employees. In a misguided gesture of goodwill, he offered temporary solutions to permanent problems.
The guy who never gets to see his wife is awarded a vacation. What happens when the vacation is over? The woman who needs an organ essentially gets alms—they’ll put up a few posters in the breakroom for her. Even if she finds a donor, how will she afford the expense of the surgery and the recovery… while working at 7-11? The CEO offers to be a life-long mentor to the guy who wants to escape 7-11′s corporate confines. Is that even actionable? Does the CEO actually intend to know this employee the rest of his life? About what shall the CEO mentor…how to be the thing the employee struggles to avoid? To the artist, the CEO offers a “chance” to sell his art… to 7-11.
This, to me, is where the power of a Result-Only Work Environment becomes apparent.
What would life be like if the guy who never sees his wife had complete control of his life? If they could vacation together at their leisure, whenever his work is done?
What if the woman needing the organ was freed up after achieving her work results each day? She would be free to create her own community-supported program and grow it far beyond the walls of the 7-11 corporate office. She could become an activist for organ donors while still meeting her commitment to the Company.
Would the guy who wants to leave 7-11 even care to leave… if he could do his job from anywhere, at anytime—and spend the rest of HIS time doing what he pleased?
What opportunities might open for the artist if he had “time” to really market and sell his art (to 7-11 or the highest bidder), while still working for 7-11…?
The fallacy here is that the CEO is vested in any meaningful way of truly “supporting them”. He is interested in supporting them inasmuch as it relates to 7-11.
This is no fault of the CEO; he is likely a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes 7-11. I believe his intention was to do the right thing, to somehow improve their lives and show a commitment to their well-being. The problem is that he only sees them in the context of being employees for 7-11, not in the context of being people in their lives–of which, 7-11 is only a part and, presumably, not the most important part.
These people have lives, not logos; they are meant to be free to achieve as much as they can, to produce all they can, to reach for the highest dreams they believe they can attain, to live the American Dream.
This is what I see as possible in a ROWE.
In a ROWE, problems do not “magically” go away (or even enjoy reprieve by the grace of a CEO), but instead people are freed to live their lives, powerfully, with passion and joy, at their discretion, on their time, and still are able to contribute and be productive.
Here is the ultimate point:
This CEO does not have to accept or live in the status quo of the Corporation. He can choose NOT to infantilize employees. He can choose instead to truly empower people (not “employees”) to live on their terms…
THAT is the permanent solution to the “temporal” problems that he missed.
Concerned Employee | March 2nd
Lily that would be a great idea!! To start a show in which all employees are involved and everybody would be affected by ROWE. My point is that it will not be only one CEO, but the whole organization. Just imagine the impact of this idea. It would really be a learning experience for everybody, because we all have been working in dysfunctional work environments.
westwood | March 2nd
It sounds like this show may be an underhanded way to try and restore the trust of the general citizen in the corporations that have become so demonized (and rightly so, in my opinion).
I hope the show goes under.
Michael Salamey | March 9th
@westwood- Let’s hope it does not become too big to fail…!