The same old (cowboy) story in "Undercover Boss"

I just watched the first episode of the CBS "reality-narrative" called "Undercover Boss". (Available here until August 8, but also on CBS' website.) There the Chief Operating Officer Larry O'Donnell (see image right) goes to work "undercover" in his own company with a film crew.

Yes the story is full of touching episodes and wonderful people, but I totally agree with the sceptics at The Washington Post in their rather critical review.

However - even the Post misses what I think is the program's biggest flaw - the underlying assumption that the only person who can fix the problem is a high-ranking boss.

It is the American fable from the old cowboy movies all over again - the only one who can set things right is the town's sheriff. Yes, it is kinda touching when the COO realizes what effects his decisions in the boardroom have on the workers on the floor, but if I was O'Donnell, I would be more concerned with that the information does not travel through the organization. I don't know if the analogy of "trickle-down effect" works upward (percolate?), but there seems to be no real communication through the corporate layers in his organization, it resembles rather thick walls. But perhaps this is more typical of "the American way"? Scandinavian companies purportedly have much "flatter" organizations. (I should add that I don't expect ALL information to reach and be handled by top management - but that's why you have the so-called middle-management for!)

Every service company relies on the quality of it "front line". That the COO is unaware of the actual conditions of said front is remarkable. Is he surrounded only by yea-sayers? Not a good way to run a business. Whatever line of business (or activity) you're in, to make good decisions you need realistic facts to base them on. You need information to flow not only top-down, but also from the bottom-up.

(Read this article, even if it is an unashamed puff-piece for the so-called Scandinavian style of corporate management, it still describes a bit about what I mean.)

You can't rely on the sheriff riding into town every time to save the day.

A cynic is a failed romantic

I tried to explain the expression "a cynic is a failed romantic" to a friend. I don't recall where I first heard it, and could not find a definite source when searching the internet.

But I really like this saying, so I'll try to explain what it means in my view:

A cynic is a "non-believer" according to the online dictionary Thesaurus.com. I see a cynic as wearing a protective armour of doubt and pessimism, clad (sometimes, hopefully) in witticisms, but nevertheless with an exaggerated negative outlook on life.

Now a romantic is his (or her) opposite: this person has an overly optimistic view of persons or events. Everything is seen through rose-tinted glasses, as they say.

My point is - both of them are wrong. The metaphor of wearing tinted glasses (whether in pink or black) is appropriate: it distorts the view into a predisposed, favoured, interpretation. But nothing is so simple in real life. Nothing is all bad or all wonderful.

This thing we call life is a giant mesh of the terrible, the

wonderful, the boring and everything in between. Resorting to simplified templates and trying to squeeze them onto our experiences distances us further from the world rather than brings us into it. It judges the world into a dichotomy of good or bad. All nuances go out the window.

And yes, I think it is quite likely that a disappointed romantic will easily swing to the other end of the emotional spectrum and become a cynic.

This is why I have found Buddhism such a relief: it teaches mindfulness over judging and sorting; presence over distancing; and equanimity over emotional upheavals.

"What IS this?" asks one of my favourite buddhist writers Ezra Bayda when he meditates. What IS this life when we manage to remove our tinted glasses?