7 Paths Blog

Last night after the Super Bowl I watched CBS’s new Undercover Boss. The President and COO of Waste Management went undercover in his own company and for a week did frontline jobs ranging from working neighborhood garbage pickup to cleaning Porta-Pottys.

I grew up working class and the show brought back a lot of memories. I grew up knowing that bosses were people who didn’t know how to do the actual work and made life miserable for those who did. The COO of WM had a very hard time doing the work and he saw up close how his productivity policies made life miserable for workers. It was beautiful.

Teaching people how to lead without making life miserable was a big part of my motivation in launching EGL. Perhaps we should launch a version of undercover boss for nonprofit CEOs.