Last night I enjoyed the premiere of Undercover Boss for the simple reason that many of the epiphanies the Waste Management President and COO Larry O’Donnell experienced are examples of the value of stepping into another person’s shoes and seeing things from a new and different point of view. This same power underlies two key facets of what I believe we hope to do with interventions using psychological type
Allow individuals to discover how even their best intentioned behaviors can be interpreted as unhelpful, unkind or even threatening
When Larry watched the woman race to the time clock to avoid being docked, he got a direct sense of how the policy he had carefully crafted was implemented in a way that increased employee stress, lowered morale and made the company appear concerned more about following procedures to the letter than fostering true efficiency or accountability.
Type knowledge can help foster an environment where such mismatches of intent and outcome are less likely. If Larry, had been aware of the Z-model or Zig-Zag, he could have out it to use as he developed the new 30 minute lunch policy to ensure that he evaluated it both for its impact on the bottom line (T) and its impact on people (F). An understanding of the J-P dichotomy might have led him to create a lunch break policy that encouraged structure and orderliness (J) and yet still made room for flexibility and spontaneity (P).
Allow individuals to discover how their likes, dislikes, strengths, blind spots and areas for improvement can differ widely from their colleagues, family and friends
When Larry marveled at how much pleasure and pride the man who cleaned portable toilets took in his work, he began to understand how varied the things that arouse someone’s best efforts and result in maximum enthusiasm and engagement are.
While he may not have an explicit “Be Like Me” outlook, type knowledge could offer him a lens through which to begin processing the many sorts of diversity that exist at Waste Management. For example, suppose Larry were motivated by how his ideas contribute to Waste Management’s strategic outlook over the long term (N). Without an awareness of type differences, he may assume others are just like him and thereby miss a chance to impact those employees who value being able to see the immediate, concrete results of their work (S).
Regardless of whether Undercover Boss is a reality show or a “formatted documentary,” I’ll keep watching in the hope that its mere existence signals a new era in which those in the C-suite are committed to changing their organizations for the better for workers at all levels.
Katherine
