“Do you know the show, Undercover Boss?”, an employee asks during a class I’m teaching.
I smile and nod knowingly for the 1,593 time.
In my previous life (aka pre-entrepreneurship), I was an employee trainer and the “Undercover Boss” fantasy came up ALL. OF. THE. TIME.
If you are unaware of the show, let me give you a quick overview using bullet points and quoting Wikipedia.
- A high-ranking executive or the owner of a corporation goes undercover as an entry-level employee in his or her own company.
- The executive alters their appearance and assumes an alias and fictional back-story.
- The fictitious explanation given for the accompanying camera crew is that the executive is being filmed as part of a documentary about entry-level workers in a particular industry, or a competition with another individual with the winner getting a job with the company.
- They spend approximately one to two weeks undercover.
- The executive works in various areas of their company’s operations, with different parts and in a different locations each day.
- The executive is exposed to a series of predicaments and invariably spends time getting to know the people who work in the company, learning about their professional and personal challenges.
Let me highlight the key phrase of that last bullet statement...
“Spend time getting to know the people who work in the company, learning about their professional and personal challenges…”
In other words, they make the employee feel seen and heard.
We are hard-wired to connect.
To belong.
We ALL look for signs that others like us.
Admire us.
Love us.
It’s central to our well-being.
This is why the show is successful and in its 11th year.
And this is why when I was an employee trainer, this show came up all of the time.
Employees were dying to have our CEO go undercover because they wanted to know that the work they did was valued.
They wanted to feel seen.
They wanted to matter.
So what are we to do with this information?
It's pretty straightforward, my friend.
- You show people you care.
- You actively listen.
- You pay attention to the nonverbals you are sending out.
The cues we send are a big part of our communication so you need to know the messages that you are sending.
Don’t be Cue-Less.
And if you want a hand with this, you know where to find me.
Your co-pilot (who is cueing you that she likes you),
