Getting Out in the Field

One of the surest paths to management excellence is not through MBAs, books and seminars but through personal, first-hand experience – getting out in the field and seeing with one’s own eyes how things really happen.

An earlier blog entry here concerned the CBS television show “Undercover Boss,” which, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a “reality TV” show where the CEO of a company goes out in disguise and works on the front lines to learn more about his/her company.

In that blog, I wrote: “I’d like to think that this show will encourage other bosses to do the same. It's always going to be a great learning experience – for both sides of the equation. The benefits that senior executives derive from getting out on the front lines with their employees are immeasurable.”

Apparently my wish has been granted. In at least one instance, the show has inspired a company’s senior management to get out their offices and see for themselves what goes on out there. In a May 20, 2010 article, the Boston Globe spotlights DHL, the international package delivery firm, and how its senior executives borrowed CBS’ idea. They came to Boston for a week to work alongside their local employees, though not incognito like the TV show.

Ian Clough, CEO for U.S. operations, was joined by several of his senior managers for the first-hand look. Clough and the others each rode shotgun in a delivery van all day one day, going on the daily rounds with their drivers. It was a terrific learning experience, the CEO reported.

As the Globe notes, “Clough developed the program as a way to better assess how policies enacted at upper levels of the company affect the firm’s front-line workers.”

Bravo!

As Clough explained, “The idea is if the CIO or the CFO is evaluating an investment proposal for new equipment for our couriers, and he’s sitting in his nice warm office, he’ll have firsthand experience of knowing what it’s like to be out on a truck in a wet and windy place like Boston.

(If they were looking for "a wet and windy" experience, I'm not sure Boston in mid-May is the best choice. But if they were out and about on the trucks yesterday, they got lucky. It was, indeed, wet and windy.)

Christine Nashick, marketing vice president, characterized the exercise as a “back-to-basics approach.”

Clough introduced himself to customers at each stop and asked probing questions about their preferences in delivery services and their attitude toward DHL. People were honest and Clough was grateful. He learned a lot, he said, and not all of it was good news.

He and his team were there to observe, not to get their hands dirty like the CEOs in “Undercover Boss.” Drivers were selected at random, and paired with the executives.

The van on which Clough rode was one of the company’s new hybrid trucks. Clough was interested to learn from the driver how well it performed. He was pleased to get a first-hand report from the driver, though not entirely happy to learn that the hybrids’ performance left a lot to be desired.

The story mentioned that the senior executives were scheduled to go out on sales calls as well, for better insights into the customers’ world, their needs, and how DHL can better support them.

I’m always heartened to learn of such out-reach activities on the part of senior executives. This kind of experience never fails to open one’s eyes. It’s one thing to sit in the executive suite and make decisions. It’s still another to do so after having been exposed to the field where those decisions most affect people and operations.

What the Globe story doesn’t mention is the importance of the personal connections the executives make with their front-line workers. It will undoubtedly leave a deep, valuable impression.

It will give them otherwise unattainable insights into the working environment of their employees: their daily challenges, pleasures, frustrations and opportunities. Decisions and discussions around capital expenditures are one thing – whether to buy new hybrid deliver vans, for instance. But now they have a better feel for the impact those decisions will have on people, perhaps the most critical aspect of any decision.

And they will have a newfound and profound perspective on how their company operates, from the bottom-up rather than from the top-down. They will have a better sense of the impact, not only of their decisions but also of their messages and their communications.

No doubt Clough was surprised at least a few times to learn that initiatives or executive communiqués failed to reach or failed to impress the people on the ground. Let us hope, if he did get that insight, that he will rethink his messages and how he communicates them in the future.

If that were all he got out of the exercise, then it was worth the week’s investment of the executives’ time. Everything else was a bonus.