MBWA

During COVID how do we accomplish MBWA ?

Many of you are now in a state of confusion trying to figure out the acronym, as we all know, acronyms are a plenty across all industries

MBWA (Manage By Wandering Around) was introduced to the business world very early on in my career through a wonderful book written by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of Excellence. To be honest, it might be the single most important learning for me and has guided many of my leadership activities to this day

MBWA is all about genuine visibility to your teams and simply put it means:

Get out of the office to see your associates, customers and guests. These individuals are happy to help you run a better experiential environment and business

Know the names of your associates and guests, there is nothing more appreciated by individuals than hearing their name

Personalize MBWA, know birthdays, visit equally back and front of the house areas, stop and look people in the eye when you approach, thank everyone for what they do whether it’s the daily job or appreciating the consumer for choosing your business

Avoid routines (other than MBWA) each day ! Be there when business most needs you, visit the business on holidays to appreciate the team who might be missing their celebrations or families, be where your customers are within or outside the building

That was MBWA prior to February 01, 2020, so how are you Bending the Curve for the new MBWA-PC (Post COVID) ? What is the new form of genuine visibility when the majority of your team is working remotely and guests and customers dealing with their own business options?

The new MBWA-PC is easy in many ways but also terribly more difficult as in the old normal if you practiced MBWA it allowed you so many “touch points” which no longer exist and our associates and customers want and need your emotional connection to whatever or just a familiar face of trust. So some thoughts:

Be Accessible --- always answer your phone, email, text … do not go dark

Be Visible – create ways to be front and center (Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, Video messaging)

Be Proactive – be the leader that is charging forward with a positive, creative new direction

Be Confident – speak with honest passion and allow your teams to feed off your enthusiasm

Be Compassionate and Empathetic – a much underappreciated leadership trait

Keep Your Promise – Do what you say you are going to do

MBWA-PC can use the foundation built by MBWA, implementing the right technologies and the good old fashion phone to allow all of us to continue to keep a great pulse on our business and more importantly Staying Connected. If that isn’t enough, how about writing a personal note and send through the US Postal Service? At the end of the day its all about personal touch

Tom