It took me 22 hours to come up with something inspirational that I wanted to share with you today, but I eventually came across it when Sarah asked me to watch an episode of “Undercover Boss” with her. In it was Scott Sibella, the President/COO of the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, and man! It was INSPIRING.
These were the players involved:
- Donn, Roulette Dealer
- Angelina, Front Desk Agent
- Eddie, Blackjack Dealer
- Sandy, Guest Service Representative
And it was amazing to watch someone at the top of the ladder learn about how business is really operated not from the boardroom, but getting in the shoes of his employees and understanding what it takes to get through each day.
- From Donn, he learned about how a Vietnam war vet learned not to sweat the small stuff and made a donation to a veteran’s society and sent Donn and his brothers to a football game in a private box
- From Angelina, he learned about how employees were working so hard that they had no time to invest in their family lives, so he sent her and her husband on a week-long paid romantic getaway
- Eddie is a single father with five boys, so Scott helped him out with $10,000, and since his boys mean more than the world to him, Scott arranged to fly Eddie and his five boys to a UFC game with VIP treatment, so they could all be reunited one last time before the eldest went off to join the Air Force
- And with Sandy, he learned about the struggles to excel at one’s job with no incentives — she also delivers flowers to a nursing home each and every Monday, but often feels constrained because of lack of funds and volunteers; so Scott volunteered HIS family and gave a donation to help her along — he also paid for her and husband to take the cruise they always wanted
These were all amazing gestures of gratitude from a boss who was finally understanding the amount of blood, sweat and tears that it took to keep their operations running. If you’re a boss, I implore you to make sure that your staff feel appreciated; I promise you that they’ll be more likely to offer you their loyalty and be happier to do their jobs. If you’re working for a boss who doesn’t appreciate you, I hope you can get them to catch glimpses of things like this, and hopefully get them to change their ways.
We are not built of stone. We all need to know that there’s a reason why we do the things we do. Not much gets me teary-eyed. Seeing a boss finally get it? Yeah, it did a little.
Here’s the link if you want to know more about Undercover Boss, or see some clips from the show: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/undercover_boss/
–case p.
79/365
Yup, it was a great episode. I don’t often find reality TV touching, but this episode was. Its always great to see a leader humble themselves enough to learn from the folks at the bottom of the organization.