By Tony
Deblauwe
In this week’s episode Bill Carstanjen, COO of Churchill Downs, visited several
horse tracks to learn how the horse racing and gambling empire really works. He
went undercover to feed and clean horses, facilities maintenance, horse training
and the jockey preparation process.
Actually
nothing that remarkable occurred at least from a company improvement point of
view. In the reveal he offered a couple of employees new roles, a horse trainer
more stalls, and named a memorial race at one of the tracks for an employee who
lost his daughter. All very touching and sensitive but none of these scenarios
offered a springboard to major organizational change.
I think the highlight of the show was Cartanjen’s revelation that running the
business wasn’t just spreadsheets and keeping a distance – it’s personal. He
promised to keep this mind in future decisions. Every leader should know and
want this. Connection to the line is key not only to know what really goes on,
but to have information that can help implement changes faster.
I believe the last couple of episodes have really lacked the oomph the show
should be focusing on. If going undercover is necessary to discover opportunities
for operational change then that means there was something there to uncover in
the first place right? Sure much of this is marketing and promotion for the
companies highlighted, but the true lessons learned would be that interacting
at the employee level leads to sweeping changes in process and protocol. Maybe
behind the scenes this is happening but at the current rate, the entertainment
value is becoming less compelling.
