Sunday, March 7, 2010

Undercover Boss Is A Great Idea

The new TV show called, Undercover Boss on CBS is an interesting show. If you haven't seen it yet, the CEO of a large company goes undercover with a video crew as an entry level employee with the concept of the video crew as documenting entry level employee jobs.

I love the concept of the show of the CEO doing this because it gives the CEO a birds-eye view of how their decisions affect the people who are on the front line. In that and the revelations that follow, this is good. The show is a little too sweet and predictable after the first show was made. Now they all look like the same thing redone.

Speaking to CEO's and managers, when was the last time you really took a good look at how what you do affects what is being done on the front line? How is the phone being answered? How are customers communicated with? How are customer complaints resolved? What is the attitude of the front line employees? How are the managers dealing with front line employees? What are customers saying about their experience with your company? How are things improved?

These are a few and there are a lot more similar questions that can be asked to find out how your company is doing and I highly recommend that every CEO and high level manager find out. As they demonstrate in the TV show, Undercover Boss, there is a lot of disconnect from the top to the bottom. Whatever that can be done to improve this is worth doing for the employees and the customers.

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