"UNCOVERING THE UNDERCOVER BOSS" - Episode 3, 7-Eleven

Joe De Pinto is the CEO of 7-Eleven, a $17 billion company with more than 36,000 locations and 200,000 associates. Joe went undercover as “Danny Rossi” and in this episode he learned several lessons. Some of the lessons those of us in management should have learned are as follows:

1. It is relatively easy to find or train people to stock shelves, clean restrooms, fill coffee urns and even rapidly put dough in the oven. The challenge is to hire people with the right attitude. Every one of the 7-Eleven associates on the program had the “right attitude.” I am sure that 7-Eleven has some people with bad attitudes, but this show proves that even in the most mundane jobs you can find great, hard working and talented people that have the “right attitude.” What are you doing to determine if applicants have the right attitude?

2. A store in New York sells the most coffee of any 7-Eleven, so Joe De Pinto wanted to know whether it was the store’s location, quality of coffee or the employees that caused this to happen. He quickly learned it was the employees, particularly a person like Delores.
Your competition can find a great location or in time imitate your product. The only truly unique differentiating factor between you and the competition, regardless of the industry, is your people. In this case everyone knew Delores and she knew them. To the customers she is “the Company” and as a result they flocked into this store. Some executives give lip service to the fact that their employees are an asset, but employees like Delores prove it to be the case. If an employee is a liability get rid of them.

3. Phil, who was “Danny’s” trainer at the bakery, illustrated the fact that employees are people. They can be good at their jobs, which he was, but they also have other skills, talents or interests. In his case he was very artistic.

A good manager gets to know his employees as people. Once you know them you may be amazed at what other talents or knowledge they can bring to your Company. You will also discover that if you care about them as people, they will care more about you as an employer.

4. At the third store Danny learned about the failure of downward communication. There were two examples:

(a) Corporate may establish a policy, but who is making sure it is being implemented? In this case, a simple policy of donating day old pastries to charities was ignored. The food was thrown away each evening. Did the employees know the policy? If they did, why was it not adhered to? If they were unaware of the policy, what went wrong with the communication?

(b) Danny’s trainer had four years’ experience with 7-Eleven. He was in college during the day and viewed his job as a dead end. In many companies this night shift employee would be seen as promotional material based on his work ethic and commitment to further his education. Clearly the Company should have been doing a better job of letting employees know about internal promotional opportunities. Is your internal promotion system one that employees understand and believe in?

5. The role of Corporate is to support the stores so they can achieve success. Too often people at Corporate lose sight of this, which is what happened when one of the best stores in the organization had to wait a month to get lights replaced. It appeared as if the bureaucracy was functioning in a stereotypical way when the person on the other end of the phone routinely said it would be 30 days before it could be fixed. It is the job of the corporate office to support, not hamper, the operation of a Company. How can obstacles to that philosophy be removed?

So far, in three episodes of Undercover Boss each CEO has experienced a significant emotional experience by going undercover. By listening to their employees, they were able to learn. You may not be able or inclined to go “undercover” but many CEO’s we work with listen directly to all of their employees. Using a confidential Employee Opinion Survey process enables an employer to ask all of its employees to let senior management know what can be done to make the Company more successful and a better place to work.


“Uncovering the Undercover Boss” is written by Richard Reinhardt, Vice President of F&H Solutions Group LLC. You may contact Richard by email at rreinhardt@fhsolutionsgroup.com or by phone at 901.291.1546.