The goal of these bosses in taking on this undercover experience is to discover what really goes on in the front lines of their organization in other words, discover how the customer experience is being delivered and the pain points of their employees in delivering that customer experience. Sometimes they will make recommendations on making a process better right from this role as the new employee. They interact with employees, as a peer or subordinate, and learn the trials and tribulations of the job. The boss doesn’t walk through the front door of their undercover experience in their suit and tie they exchange the suit for working clothes, often jeans, and a disguise and walk in as a new employee or TV show contestant trying to win a job or money to start a business (that is how they explain the TV crew following the employee around) and work in the same entry-level jobs as the employees that they employ. If you take a business look at what goes on in each episode, you see business analysis happening throughout the experience. However, they always meet employees along the way that make the boss’ experience unique and demonstrate extraordinary pride in performing their job. It’s always fun to watch these top executives fail, and yes even sometimes get fired from, entry-level positions in their own organization. We have seen the COO of Roto-Rooter crawl under houses and clean out drains, the Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio ride the truck to pick up trash, and the CEO of the Utah Jazz NBA Basketball Team become a member of the half time Dunk Team. I always find it interesting when car companies overreach and view the consumer as not bright enough to realize that they've taken their brand and just gotten sloppy and cut corners.If you haven’t seen the hit TV show “Undercover Boss”, each episode has a CEO, or some C-level executive, step out of their executive roll and go undercover dawn a disguise and work in their company in front line customer-facing positions to learn what really goes on in their organization. They took some really crappy Chevrolet and said no one will notice if it looks exactly the same but we just call it a Cadillac and triple the price. Tobak: What's the dumbest business move you've ever seen?Īrquilla: When Cadillac came out with the Cimarron. I think the quote was something like, "If we all got fired today and they brought in a new management team, what would we be doing on Monday?" He ended up with 90 percent of the processor business as a result of that pretty impressive from where I sit. Intel was a memory chip company and Grove realized that, if they didn't reinvent themselves, they'd be out of business. Tobak: What's the most brilliant business move you've ever seen?Īrquilla: When Andy Grove reinvented Intel. I think the higher up you get in an organization, the more you're in the idea selling game. I think it comes down to who can sell an idea and garner support for it. But I don't think it's about who's the brightest. Sure, I want to have a lot of talented smart people in senior level positions. You know, I think the world's full of talented people who don't apply themselves as well as they could, and to me, I find that rather tragic. Not that my way is always the right way, but I certainly don't want to have a management team meeting and have to explain to someone why winning is important. If you're reasonably bright and bring a strong work ethic and a desire to win, you'll do well at Roto-Rooter.Īrquilla: Yeah, maybe. Then the company was acquired by Ecolab and, well, it just wasn't doing it for me anymore, so I took a sabbatical and then started searching national service companies and something about Roto-Rooter just felt right.Īrquilla: It's not about how smart you are I think it's the intangibles. My first job was with Chemlawn and I grew up through the ranks to become a vice president at 33 or 34. You might want it for the wrong reasons, and then you've really got to assess what you're good at, so I switched to business. I guess that's one of those early life lessons: you can't always be the best at something. I realized that, at best, I'd be average. Now I'll be candid, and it's not easy for me to say this, but I eventually realized there were a lot of people in that major a lot smarter than I was. I started in computer science - engineering because that was the hot field at the time. Tobak: How'd you come to work at Roto-Rooter?Īrquilla: I wasn't sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. Rick has a hell-of-a sense of humor, a burning passion for the service business, and a competitive spirit that every manager, executive, and business leader needs to win in this hyper-competitive global market. Meet this week's Undercover Boss, Roto-Rooter President and COO Rick Arquilla (pictured).
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