Undercover Boss Episode Analysis

I selected to watch the ‘Foreman Mills’ episode of Undercover Boss and I picked up the following terms of communication from this episode:

1. Listening: While watching this episode of Undercover Boss, Foreman mills, I noticed how the new employee (the undercover boss) listened to all the employees. He listened to each one carefully and noted the shortcomings of the system of the company. All 4Rs (Receiving, recalling, rating and responding) of listening were applied here. Brad, the boss, received the message from each employee; each one had something to say about the system of the company. He knew the essence of the actual message i.e. to change the system and to take care of the employees. He evaluated the message and applied it to design company’s policy in terms of his feedback. This episode was about effective listening so the Foreman CEO could use the actual feedback from his employees to improve his company.

2.

Verbal Communication: In this episode, a lot of verbal communication has been shown. “Words are powerful’ seems right in this episode. Every employee communicated the message in direct words and it reached Brad clearly. All the employees used direct words like, ‘no-system’, ‘not well-paid’, and ‘not-happy here’ etc. The message reached Brad and he acted on that immediately. So Verbal communication was direct and powerful in this episode.

3. Non-verbal Communication: This episode was all about communication, both verbal and non-verbal. Lots of non-verbal communication was seen. When Brad met each of the employees everyone showed some facial expressions and body movements of displaying the non-verbal cues that they were not happy when Brad wasn’t focusing on learning the skills he was supposed to learn in that visit. Especially Nikia used a lot of non-verbal cues when Brad wasn’t able to handle the cash register while she was teaching

him.

4. Emotion: This episode had tons and tons of emotions. Initially when Brad visited each location and met each one of his employees one by one. Each one had displayed sadness and frustration about not being paid well and frustration while teaching Brad as he wasn’t focusing. Then in the end, I saw the tears of joy. Everyone displayed those emotions meeting their real boss and getting the unexpected rewards they never dreamt of. Brad displayed those emotions when he met Kurtis and he took him to the homeless shelter and in the end while meeting him again. Both positive and negative emotions were seen in this episode.

5. Self-Disclosure: While watching this episode, all the employees shared lots of information with the new employee, Brad. They not only shared about their individual job skills to teach Brad but also went in depth on sharing their personal life too. This is a good example of Social Penetration Model (the onion), which says people like onions, have many layers. They all shared not only their work hours, job profile, other jobs they do, about their kids, but also went in great depth about sharing their financial conditions and about their future plans. Here the reason of self-disclosure might be catharsis. Everyone, though not so close to Brad, needed a therapeutic release of tensions and negative emotions which they were going through at work or at home.