I have to laugh every time I see a reference to Management-By-Walking-Around (MBWA) that creates the impression that it’s a hot new management tool.

Hot, yes; new, no.

MBWA dates to 1940 and is a management technique instituted by Dave Packard at the founding of HP; it’s “marked by personal involvement, good listening skills and the recognition that “everyone in an organization wants to do a good job.””

I’ve written about it before and when I looked at that post I found little that needed changing, go here it is again.

Remember Management-By-Walking-Around? It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

Great managers work to spend at least 25% of their time wandering around chatting and building trust with their people.

Don’t have time? Maybe that’s because you never really thought abut the benefits. Getting to know your people this way helps you to

• spot high-potential workers;
• raise your trust quotient with employees;
• improve retention;
• attract talent;
• discover molehills before they’re mountains, and, most importantly, it’s the best, if not only, way to
• know what’s really going on.

But to work it must be the norm—that means it needs to be done constantly, not just when there’s a problem.

Consistent, casual visits make people feel comfortable and encourages them to chat—saying what they are thinking without editing it. To pass on information, rumors, and the like without wondering or worrying that it will boomerang and hurt them.

While wandering, you’ll hear enough to validate or repudiate what you heard from somewhere else. It lets you protect your sources—which means they’ll continue to pass on information—and it helps you avoid acting on erroneous information.

The higher you rise in the organization the more important this intelligence becomes.

One of the greatest dangers for any manager is getting isolated and hearing only a sanitized or slanted version of what’s going on within the group, department or company. This is especially true for the CEO and senior staff.

Bottom-line—get off your duff, out of your office, wander around, say hi, listen, be a sponge and soak it all up.

Invest the time—that’s what managers do—and it will pay off handsomely!

MBWA works best when it is embedded in your MAP, as well as part of your organization’s cultural DNA.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist.com

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 1:15 am and is filed under Business info, Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: management approach, vested self-interest
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.