Management By Wandering Around

In all fairness, I started using Management by Wandering Around principles right at the start of my leadership journey. It is, for me, not just a nice to do activity as a leader. It is a fundamental principle of leadership that is put into practice. When done properly, it demonstrates three things as a leader and these are

 - that you care about the people who work with you

- it allows you to make yourself visible. They don’t have to find you especially if your role requires you to be away from the office a lot of the time or that you tend to be otherwise engaged in meetings.

- you can demonstrate your attentive listening ability to your team.

 In his article titled “Management by Wandering Around: A potent Arrow in the Manager's Quiver” (Appel Knowledge Services, Ask Magazine June 2009) Noel W. Hinners described how as the director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the late 1970s applying MBWA opened his eyes to another aspect of leadership. He wrote

".... coming in early (not to get more work done, but to avoid Washington traffic) I’d get to talk with the people who made the museum tick: the security folks and the janitorial staff. Security had the essential job of protecting exhibits and the public, all the while being pleasant to the visitors. Janitors made the museum hum, cleaning it thoroughly after closing and before opening the next day. Clearly, the importance pyramid was upside down relative to the organizational one...."

By coming in early and being attentive to the conversation he was having with the front-line staff allowed him to appreciate them even more.

There are many leaders who oppose MBWA and for very valid reasons. They will point to the fact that they can achieve similar results by

a)                 Building a strong culture that promotes an open-door policy encouraging employees to step forward in update them in on what they need to know or raise issues as needed or

 b)                 By calling employees into their office as frequently as possible and then using that opportunity to seek their feed forward

 But can they really? I personally have no issues with maintaining an open-door policy but it is not a replacement for MBWA. In fact, I would argue that the two are not mutually exclusive. Whilst I will not attempt to batter the concept of “Open door policy” it does have its obvious limitations when used as a direct replacement to having regular MBWA. 

Leaders that encourage an open door policy means that you are expecting employees to walk towards you and be engaged enough to share their need and concern, MBWA on the other hand involves leaders going to meet team members at their work location, listening to their concerns, celebrating their successes and showing interest in their personal circumstances.

Earlier on I mentioned an important phrase and I will quickly return to it. I said “…When done properly.” MBWA is extremely beneficial as a means of building a trusting relationship between leaders and their workforce. What are the qualities I would expect a leader to exhibit in conducting a MBWA?

In order to be effective needs to be perceived as genuine and not a mere act of tokenism. The manager/leader should dedicate time to it and not be "oh I have a few minutes before my next meeting, how do I fill the time"? approach. In order for it to be valuable, you need to bear in mind the following:

Practice active listening - It is not an opportunity for you to show off your intelligence or authority. Ask questions and show that you care about the response. Take notes (I would always ask the consent of the employee so they feel safe to speak). Remember it is not a way for you to name names when sharing your observation with your leadership team for example.

Be Genuine - I cannot stress enough the importance of turning up and showing you care, not just about the job, task, processes but also about the individual. How are they? How did they get to work that morning? How is their family? It is an opportunity to know them, what are their hobbies? What are they passionately working on outside work? 

Convey an air of being relaxed - Employees would feel it and be more relaxed in their engagement with you. The conversation should be professional and casual. That is how the team will feel comfortable enough to share.

 Enjoy it - Again it requires an investment of time and energy. It is not a one-off activity or once in a quarter. In fact, the more spontaneous the better.

One note of caution is that MBWA is also not an avenue for overzealous leadership to effect “knee jerk” reaction to concerns or issues raised.

 It is fact finding - It is important that unless absolutely necessary employees are not always looking for you to bring an immediate solution to the table. Take comments and views away and get a second opinion before taking action

Avoid the temptation to turn it into an opportunity for a "town hall" meeting - This is not about you sharing news about the company but rather an opportunity to talk with the team

In closing I would like to quote Noel Hinners again in the same article I had referred to earlier. Later on, in his career and as he applied the principles of MBWA he discovered that.

".... MBWA can be especially useful in gaining insight into major issues that are bothering folks and that would not normally be evident. This was brought home to me when I queried a manager as to why we were having so many issues with HQ and another centre. Our informal chatter soon led to his telling me that he was dealing with extreme problems at home.

Clearly that was affecting his ability to function well at work. This helped me devise a graceful way to reassign him, removing management pressures and enabling him to devote more time to family matters. This was not a one-time occurrence. During my career I found numerous instances of nonwork issues being a root cause of management problems; developing a sensitivity to this can often help to resolve those problems...."

Three key things came out from this simple example of MBWA as shared by Hinners

a)     Hinners called it an “informal chatter” but it was detailed enough for the team member to tell him about extreme problems he was having at home. Will people in your team find you trustworthy enough to share their issues with you. Put differently are you a caring leader?

b)     He used the word “graceful” way of reassigning him to other duties. Graceful in my mind meant again a caring non-judgemental way and one in which the member of staff would not feel that by sharing their deep personal issues can cost them their career.

c)     Thirdly, Hinners encouraged this employee to focus on family issues yet still be able to function at work. I have met many people who though maybe struggling at home but they don’t want to take time off work because work allows them some relief from the issues at home. They need a leader that will be understanding and supportive.

In summary MBWA is a very useful, cheap yet effective tool for leader to engage with and deepen relationship with their team. It requires an investment of time and energy and the willingness to listen. Above all it is a good leadership culture to embed.

Afterall if leadership cares, not just about the bottom-line but the people who come in every day to make it happen, the long-term benefit to the organisation should not be under estimated.

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