a.k.a. Martin Walker

It seems to be a given that managers today not only don’t know Jack Shit – they don’t know you either.

Don’t think this doesn’t bug them. But how are bosses supposed to get a straight answer from the common man? They can taste the sugar-coating, but there isn’t much they can do about it. One thing they can do is disguise themselves as common workers and walk a mile in your shoes.

This is what Stephen Martin did. He is the CEO of an engineering company in northern England called the Clugston Group. To get a feel of what his employees really think, he grew a beard, relocated to a shitty hotel and showed up for work as construction worker Martin Walker. Since he was new on the CEO job, nobody recognized him and thus treated him like one of the guys.

“They said things to me that they would never have told their managers,” he says. I bet.

If I found out that some deadbeat I had worked with, and trashed the company’s management to, was actually the CEO, it’s hard to imagine how I would react. I would certainly feel a bit cheated, but I’m hoping I would also credit the guy (or woman) for caring enough about what his employees think to put himself through all that trouble.

You?