CBS’s reality show “Undercover Boss” puts CEOs in their employee’s shoes, and the results aren’t always pretty.
That’s what Sam Dushey, President and CEO of discount retailer Shoppers World found out while taping his episode of the show. “Employees don’t feel like they have an opinion or say in the company,” Dushey told Yahoo Finance.
Dushey also encountered large infrastructure, overstocking and shoplifting problems in his stores. During a moment of distress, Dushey tells the cameras that he’s “in total shock,” and that “it’s like every time I walk into a store I never know what I’m going to find.”
Shoppers World was a small, family-run business started by Dushey’s grandfather during the Great Depression. Dushey took the reigns from his father nine years ago and expanded the retailer to 40 stores with 1,900 employees and $250 million in annual sales. He plans to open another 20 stores next year.
So is this a case of expanding too rapidly? “That’s definitely a question to be asked,” Dushey admits. But “I think that we have the platform to grow to 1,000 stores. I don’t have any doubt that we can achieve that.” Dushey explains that he believes the stores suffered from growing too slowly, not too quickly. “We could have and should have done this a generation ago.” It’s not a question of whether there’s enough demand, he says, it’s a question of being able to keep up with demand.
Still, he recognizes that he needs to make some substantial changes in the way he runs his company. “I’m trying to lay down the foundation of a culture where every employee means something in the company and every employee’s voice needs to be heard.”
Rapid expansion is a common small-business killer, something that KIND healthy snacks (KIND) CEO Daniel Lubetzky learned from experience. Before KIND, he says, he tried to grow his businesses too fast and made company-ending mistakes by taking on too much, too quickly. When Lubetzky founded KIND he purposely expanded at a slow pace. If you move too quickly he says, you end up disappointing customers.
You can watch this week’s episode of “Undercover Boss” this Sunday on CBS at 8:00pm eastern time.
