The premise of the show is a high-level executive going “undercover” in an organization. They perform several entry-level jobs in different areas. The boss often uncovers processes or policies that aren’t working but invariably, they all discover fabulous employees that are performing the thankless jobs to an unexpected level and who has overcome difficult odds in their personal lives. At the end of the show the boss reveals his true identity and “changes” the employees’ lives by instituting new programs to help the employees and sometimes gifts the employee with the money or resources they need to make their dreams come true (go to culinary school, pay medical bills, etc.). The final part of the show tends to be very emotional as the grateful employee realizes the break they have been given. OK, I admit it tends to be emotional for me because I’m a complete sap and cry at long-distance commercials.

There are several aspects of the undercover process I think skew results. First of all, I can’t believe so many employees don’t know what their executive officers look like. I know I’m kind of nerdy but I always watch the all-hand broadcasts and read the articles involving my executive officers. I know what they look like and sound like. Shouldn’t all leaders make sure they are visible to their teams and the rest of the company? This is one reason I can’t believe all these employees don’t have an inkling of what is happening.

The second sticking point for me is the camera crew. They explain that employees are being told the camera crew is recording what it is like to start a new job under different circumstances (in this economy, after being laid off, etc.). I don’t believe employees will act natural in front of a camera crew. Although, I say that and there have been episodes where employees have behaved rather badly on camera. I wonder who they thought would see the footage (see the Hooters episode if you want a great example of this)?

Also, The leaders on the show too often just “fix” the employees they encountered in their research. I know there are other employees who have been homeless or ill and are barely getting by and I can’t stand to think that they are unlucky enough not to get a break. I like to think that all the executives institute a new policy amongst all management to keep an eye and ear open for these employees. Right executives? Unfortunately, the breaks tend to be quick cash gifts where I think a wider corporate policy would have more impact in the long run. Instead of a shopping trip to Target for furniture, how about making that employee a part of a panel that identifies employees in need and develops strategies for fund raising, helps point people to resources, etc. Now the employee is also being given a chance to grow professionally. You think it is shocking to find one employee who was homeless when they started working at your organization? I’d bet you would be shocked to find out that multiple employees have been homeless. The entry-level employees are the most vulnerable in our workforce.

The final bit that sticks in my craw a little is the spying on the little guy thing. Now don’t get me wrong, I love that the little guy is being given the visibility they deserve and I’m a big believer that the little guy is probably doing the best job in the company and deserves the respect, praise, and BONUSES the big guys get. However, I would love to see the tables turned on the big guys. Have you ever been around executives and top leadership on a day to day basis? How many of them are living the company values and producing results needed for organizational success?

[Pet peeve tangent: The C-suite is in love with marketing and PR and tend to operate closely with them but I've never seen an organization give the same attention and time to the customer service team. What the heck? Customer service is TALKING to the customers! Marketing is just sexy messaging. /tangent]

My sticking points aside, the show works for several reasons:

• We all like the idea of humbling the boss a little. Seeing him on the assembly line screwing up a simple entry-level job is satisfying. “See? It isn’t as easy as you all think it is.”
• We like the idea of unfair things being uncovered. That supervisor that refuses to help and just sits in the break room, the frustrating staffing process that could have an employee paying for daycare on a day they get sent home with no paycheck, and rules or processes that are demoralizing and damaging to productivity.
• We all want our small jobs and actions to be seen and appreciated. Most of us are small cogs in the machine and work hard every day. Having someone truly in a position of power to see and appreciate that goes a long way. Most of my career I watch managers keep employees away from executives. We all want visibility once in a while.

Ultimately, I love how it illustrates how wonderful our front-line employees are. I spend too many meetings listening to managers discuss employees like they are broken. Most employees want to do a great job and work really hard under difficult circumstances. These are the thankless and sometimes boring jobs. Managers and executives do not need to wait until there is a camera crew around to get their hands dirty and work the front line a few times. Heck, just do it once a year or once a quarter. Stand shoulder to shoulder with your employees and you may find job satisfaction of your own.

What is the technical incompetence they are willing to allow candidates to have? It seems ridiculous that any leader would come to the table without the basic technical competencies for technology (MS Office and online technologies) and any leader that doesn’t have all the technical competencies of a leader, budgeting or HR law for example, is a weak leader.

How can a weak leader support the vision and the culture of an organization? A weak leader will be forced to support themselves and their weaknesses. The culture now becomes about covering mistakes and eliminating threats (employees who may have the competencies the leader lacks). Weak leaders will also support each other because anyone truly competent would recognize the incompetence and possibly threaten the weak managers. That is the problem with incompetence, it doesn’t always seek opportunities for competency but breeds insecurity which means propping up the incompetence.

The only culture that could support and nurture a weak leader is a culture of learning but most leaders see themselves as competent because they are leader. "Hey, I’ve been promoted to a leadership position, I’m doing something right!"

Can an organization support and develop weak leaders? What would they need to have in place? Can a leader own up to incompetence to develop themselves?

There are still things that I want to learn just because I’m curious and it seems like a handy thing to know:

Picking locks – I have no plan to start breaking and entering places but for all the times I’ve been locked out of homes or rooms I think it would be useful!

Hotwiring a car – again, I don’t have any plan to start stealing but you see it all the time in the movies, it just seems like a fun thing to know.

Spinning – I have always wanted to learn how to spin yarn. Taking something like a pile of fleece and creating something so useful is a little magical. It is one of those skills that seems like a life-saver in the event of all our technology going away.

What are some of the things you have always had a secret desire to learn?

I’ve also seen shockingly incompetent leaders and I’m always amazed that they made it to a leadership position when they are clearly so unsuccessful. Unfortunately, this generally happens at the expense of talented people and because of incompetent leaders on up the ladder. It is a house of cards but it is a prevalent condition that exists across organizations and industry. I have yet to meet someone who hasn’t been the victim of an incompetent leader.

Psychology Today has a really interesting article about the behaviors of leaders that fail. I think I recognize all these behaviors in organizations.

How do leaders “get away” with behaviors that fail? There is often a culture within leadership of protecting each other because it protects leadership reputation in general. But that begins to impact their own credibility. Interestingly enough, in all the research I’ve done in what behaviors and qualities great leaders have, credibility rarely, if ever, comes up. I think it should be one of the top 5.

If an employee doesn’t believe their leader has what it takes to be a good leader, how motivated are they going to be to implement strategies? Will they go the extra mile to make something happen or do they believe their time and resources are wasted and they move on to something they believe to be a better use of their time?

I frequently hear “how do we get excellent employees?” I believe it begins with excellent leaders.

Wow, we have a superstar this week! I love it when someone integrates models and fits all the puzzle pieces together! Check out how the ADDIE model, Phillips Needs model and Kirkpatrick’s integrate. I’m going to go out on an enthusiastic limb and suggest all training orgs print this out and discuss it in their next team meetings.

A list of the top e-learning tools. This is another source of information training departments should review to make sure the tools in their toolbox are meeting their needs and to see what else is out there.

Another list of e-learning tools and this one includes the open-source versions. I’m giving you training orgs so much good information today I should be on your payroll!

When talking about leadership development we can’t ignore the Peter Principle. Personally I blame the promoters/hirerers who know what the job requires and should be checking existing skills and experiences to meet these. We can’t keep holding people accountable for not knowing what they don’t know.

By the way, if you are ever curious what articles I’m going through to get my weekly roundup, I list the articles at the bottom of the site. The articles change almost daily.

This is an interesting article about social learning. My immediate thought is that this is a great strategy for learners performing similar job tasks that are separated geographically and on different shifts. It seems like a variation of cohort groups which I’ve found to be highly successful for myself as a learner.

My interest in leadership development has been peaked with each news story about failures and meltdowns. However, I think one of the early statements in this article is incorrect. I don’t believe we can teach ethics. Ethics are values and we can influence them, we can teach ethical behaviors, we can create an ethical environment but I don’t believe we can train ethics. I’d be curious to see what you think.

Absolutely fascinating article about cognitive dissonance and how this can negatively impact the results from a training program. This is not something I had ever considered (or I should say, successfully articulated. Usually I just say “they think everything is fine!”) but it is absolutely something I’ve dealt with in organizations. I’m sure you have too. Now, how do we tactfully communicate this when we come across it?

I haven’t even completely digested this article yet but it has some really good information. I’ve worked in training departments that were creating great content but struggling to get the learning audience to engage in the material rather than just check it off a list. Blended learning is clearly going to help it be more effective but I see the role social learning plays in helping engage learners.

So many times, teams or departments, or even entire organizations become homogenous because the organizations are using the same criteria for hiring and promoting. I don’t mean that people doing the same job should have different job descriptions but there is a tendency to take a quick look at skill sets and experience (this is often done by the recruiter before the team even looks at the candidate) and then the focus becomes about “fit.”

While I agree, we need to know if the person is a good fit on the team and can they be successful (and I’ve been a bad fit myself before which is no fun!) I think this opens us up to the danger of making sure we are hiring people like us. People who think like us, work like us, problem-solve like us, etc. This creates a homogenous team which is ever in danger of falling into group-think or just not recognizing all the different opinions and experiences of those we touch. Especially our customers. If we don’t understand what our customer’s want and where they are coming from, there is no way we can effectively meet their needs and they just won’t be our customers for long.

Diversity is not just about culture, it should BE organizations’ culture.

The question of excellence is a legitimate question and I like hearing that an organization is focused on bringing the right people into positions. But I think this point of view can get skewed and I see organizations letting talent slip through their fingers because they are waiting for all their people to follow them when really, the organization should be following their people. If leadership has done its job and provided a clear vision, it is the talent that will lead a company and make it succeed. Rather than getting worker bees to complete the tasks set out for them, an organization can utilize the power of the employee population and combined education/experience pool to help strategize and implement.

I see potentially great organizations stuck in mediocrity because rather than utilize the talent pool they have or could have, they just want people to do task work. They are more interested in headcount and salary than hiring great talent that may take them to places they never imagined they could and would go. Visions are about potential. Now this may all sound loosy-goosy and impractical. I’m not saying the organization ignores its basic mission in favor of fun pie-in-the-sky projects. This is about giving employees some latitude and support to innovate even the basic mission tasks. Just because one process has worked doesn’t mean it is scalable over time. All processes should be reviewed and improved and even automated down the line somewhere.

I can’t tell you have many organizations I’ve talked to over the years where I discussed what they were doing and what they could do to advance their own work. Time and time again their response is "Wow, we aren’t ready for you yet. Maybe in two or three years…" That always floors me. What do they need two or three years to do? Why wouldn’t they start making changes now so that in two or three years they have those changes implemented? Why put off growth? They just set themselves up to hit a crises first and then they are scrambling to implement change as a response.

Hiring someone should mean matching education and experience with the skill set required for the job. But once they are in, if they aren’t succeeding, simply wondering why the employee isn’t excellent is a mistake and a missed opportunity. What is wrong in the organization where the person with the knowledge and the skill can’t succeed? What barriers are preventing their success? To some people this sounds like coddling but this is also an indication of something that is broken. If a person doesn’t have the resources or the support to be successful, it is likely most people will fail in that position. In fact, it may mean that the WRONG people end up succeeding. Then the question of excellent employee becomes about having the wrong people in the wrong places and whose fault is that?

This is a great tool for anyone that wants to know more about Twitter and especially how it could fit in with learning.

Discovery learning is a fabulous way to engage learners and improve retention. This is well worth signing up to get the white paper.

Evaluating e-learning. This is a great, high-level model for measuring the effectiveness of an e-learning program. I like this as a starting point but I think any training organization should think about how each step is implemented for them. Define those and they have some actions they can take. But this model would be great for any team to start their e-learning evaluation process.

This is a great case stated for the effectiveness of formal learning. I see so many organizations get impatient with the time and resources formal learning takes and try to ditch it for informal, or peer-based, learning. That is very frustrating as a learning professional because we know exactly what is going to happen. Heck, we could probably plot the results out on a calendar for them.

Before I left my last organization I suggested that they release their next big product through employee social networking. I thought this would be a really fun way to reward employees (giving them first dibs to share with their family and friends) and I think the organization would be shocked how successfully this gets rolled out world-wide just through employee social networks. So this post really resonated with me for not only external product launches but internal product launches. When Google was rolling out Google Wave, they did it on an invitation-basis. People who were invited in were given five or six invitations they could send out and each of those people were given five or six invitations and so on. I didn’t even really understand what it was yet and I was dying to get invited in to see! What a fantastic way to create anticipation.

If a training isn’t required for certification or compliance reasons, if it was an “optional” but best-practices training, it would be a fantastic way to create buzz and gain an audience that may otherwise be kind of hard to bring into the training.

What would an internal campaign like this look like?