Posts Tagged ‘waste management’

For some reason, I’ve recently found myself catching the new reality series “Undercover Boss”, a CBS version of a British show of the same name. If you haven’t seen the show, the concept is this (from the show site):

Each week a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their company. While working alongside their employees, they will see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their company run.

So far, they’ve run episodes featuring  the CEOs of Waste Management, Hooters, and 7-eleven infiltrating their organizations.I’ve caught the Waste Management and Seven-11 episodes.

The disturbing part of the series for me has been its utter shallowness. The formula is a simple one to describe:

1. CEO is painted as a great guy, family man, and all-round good Joe
2. Company is profiled as a great success
3. CEO begins the undercover job
4. CEO discovers his utter lack of competence at most or all of the jobs that his company carries out
5. CEO discovers some minor problems with the company
6. CEO discovers his employees are the salt of the earth, and may face challenges that their job doesn’t address (sick relatives, financial problems)
7. The CEO meets with his senior leadership to explain the ways in which this is going to “totally change the way we do business”, and then meets with the  employees as the CEO.

The Waste Management episode, for example, profiled Jacqueline, an employee who was carrying out the work of several people and juggling multiple financial commitments; another employee continued to work despite being on dialysis for 20 years; a third who literally ran to punch in on time because every minute of lateness was penalized by the loss of two minutes’ pay.

Waste Management CEO Larry O’Donnell rewarded Jacqueline with a move from hourly pay to a salary and a promotion. He asked the plant manager to change the lateness policy.

All of this Ebenezer Scrooge-ish conversion is inspiring. But perhaps I’m too cynical to believe in it, as I would if Dickens wrote it.

Is all it takes a one-week immersion in the “real world” for a CEO to turn his back on company policies? And while it’s wonderful that a handful of employees get “face time” with the CEO and may get rewarded for being superior performers, what about the others — those who don’t get to see the CEO haul trash or wash beer mugs.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, reporter Vera Miles is told by her editor: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In this case, I’d rather see the facts than a Thomas Kinkade portrait of the world of business.