After seeing my team the New Orleans Saints win the Superbowl last night, I though I'd watch the new CBS show Undercover Boss. The premise of the show is that the CEO/President of a major corporation goes "undercover" to act like a new employee, doing entry level jobs, and finding out what the reality is of the "workers" and how the decisions from corporate effect the workers.
I found the show quite interesting, because in this first episode you have the President of Waste Management, Larry O'Donnell picking up garbage, cleaning toilets, sorting recycling etc. What I found amazing (and perhaps I shouldn't have) is his constant statements of (and I might be slightly paraphrasing here) "I didn't know how my decisions at head office were affecting the workers. This experience has changed me."
Good for Larry, but the issue is that had CBS not come along with this show (and let's face it, the company probably agreed to it because realistically it was one hour of free advertising for Waste Management) Larry would still be making ivory tower decisions without a thought to the ripple down effect -- and of course there is no saying how long Larry's epiphany will in fact effect corporate directives.
I have often said that if you consider an organization like a bunch of cog-wheels...if you have a big one at the top, they make what they consider a decision that in the grand scheme of things they think is small. So this "big wheel" moves one click. The couple of smaller wheels below, end up clicking twice to keep up. Now if you think of the next row of wheels...they are clicking several times...and so on. By the time you get to the bottom "little cogs" they are just spinning trying to keep up with that one, "minor" decision that the upper echelon made.
We need, as leaders, keep in mind that every day we are dealing with people's lives...and not just theirs...all the other people that depend on them in their lives....for Larry O'Donnell to say "I didn't know about how my decisions impacted the worker" is a sad testament to top leadership. He should have known, and cared. (and by the way, it was interesting that none of the workers remotely recognized him)
Now I am realistic....the CEO can't know about every person's issues...but every corporation can set up some method to get input from every level. I used to have monthly coffee meetings with a cross-section of folk who worked at all levels, just to get them comfortable with me and having the opportunity to put forward issues/concerns. Also the opportunity exists to have facilitated sessions, again with all levels, to determine how decisions are impacting them, but also get their input before you even go down that path.
Every organization will have in its mission statement something about valuing people and people are our most valuable asset. Well, most corporations don't walk that talk. When the going gets tough, they usually downsize on the people part, heap more work on those remaining, and then say, "well you should be glad you have a job!"
Wouldn't it be better to be honest with the employees in a corporation and tell them you need them to give you ideas....you need them to step up to the plate to help reduce costs or enhance efficiencies, so no one loses their job?
It might take a little longer, but the changes would be sustainable over time and the loyalty you would buy from your team would be immense. As Undercover Boss showed....the top leadership doesn't quite know what is happening downstream....it is about time for corporate leadership to step up to the plate and recognize that they aren't the only one's with ideas!
I found the show quite interesting, because in this first episode you have the President of Waste Management, Larry O'Donnell picking up garbage, cleaning toilets, sorting recycling etc. What I found amazing (and perhaps I shouldn't have) is his constant statements of (and I might be slightly paraphrasing here) "I didn't know how my decisions at head office were affecting the workers. This experience has changed me."
Good for Larry, but the issue is that had CBS not come along with this show (and let's face it, the company probably agreed to it because realistically it was one hour of free advertising for Waste Management) Larry would still be making ivory tower decisions without a thought to the ripple down effect -- and of course there is no saying how long Larry's epiphany will in fact effect corporate directives.
I have often said that if you consider an organization like a bunch of cog-wheels...if you have a big one at the top, they make what they consider a decision that in the grand scheme of things they think is small. So this "big wheel" moves one click. The couple of smaller wheels below, end up clicking twice to keep up. Now if you think of the next row of wheels...they are clicking several times...and so on. By the time you get to the bottom "little cogs" they are just spinning trying to keep up with that one, "minor" decision that the upper echelon made.
We need, as leaders, keep in mind that every day we are dealing with people's lives...and not just theirs...all the other people that depend on them in their lives....for Larry O'Donnell to say "I didn't know about how my decisions impacted the worker" is a sad testament to top leadership. He should have known, and cared. (and by the way, it was interesting that none of the workers remotely recognized him)
Now I am realistic....the CEO can't know about every person's issues...but every corporation can set up some method to get input from every level. I used to have monthly coffee meetings with a cross-section of folk who worked at all levels, just to get them comfortable with me and having the opportunity to put forward issues/concerns. Also the opportunity exists to have facilitated sessions, again with all levels, to determine how decisions are impacting them, but also get their input before you even go down that path.
Every organization will have in its mission statement something about valuing people and people are our most valuable asset. Well, most corporations don't walk that talk. When the going gets tough, they usually downsize on the people part, heap more work on those remaining, and then say, "well you should be glad you have a job!"
Wouldn't it be better to be honest with the employees in a corporation and tell them you need them to give you ideas....you need them to step up to the plate to help reduce costs or enhance efficiencies, so no one loses their job?
It might take a little longer, but the changes would be sustainable over time and the loyalty you would buy from your team would be immense. As Undercover Boss showed....the top leadership doesn't quite know what is happening downstream....it is about time for corporate leadership to step up to the plate and recognize that they aren't the only one's with ideas!
No comments:
Post a Comment