Comments

Noel--to briefly return to Mr. Ford--he regularly railed against the speculators and "Wall St. financiers" who had exactly the same attitude that Mr. Schwed expresses.

Posted by Mike at September 7, 2005 11:31 AM

Excellent analysis Noel, and unfortunately right on the money. The bottom line for large business investors/owners is profit and shares rather than the Mary and Joes who work hard each day to achieve it. It IS like a chess game to many, and unfortunately, like in chess, the pieces on the board are vulnerable; their role, sometimes unknowingly, is to protect the King. And the King is green.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at September 7, 2005 12:00 PM

MBWA is too tough on some managers. It can clearly place them in the line of fire...they may have to do something and be accountable. In the book, The Oz Principle, Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability, the authors make an interesting statement. They propose that too often, Results = No results + a good story. 'Not knowing' is often that good story. I have personally had clients tell me that they have had to schedule appointments with their supervisor up to two weeks out!

How tragic it was to hear FEMA say they were not aware of some of the conditions in New Orleans, with the story being on every news channel in the country.

MBWA will always be a good tool for getting the real story.

Posted by Phil Bowers at September 7, 2005 12:52 PM

I agree with using Management By Walking Around to get at the real story, but it's not in my experience what people use it for, when they bother to use it. More often, they want people to see them and chat with them and think they're a really personable guy, as if it were a PR exercise.

The purpose of MBWA in my opinion is getting at the facts of a business, or a situation, first-hand rather than relying on the 'facts' as they are being reported to you.

But often what we think are facts aren't.

I'd like to post a memo written by a very successful businessperson of a Fortune 500 company that he sent to his management team when he was appointed CEO (the asterisks indicate italics):

"Yesterday we put in a long, hard-driving meeting, mostly seeking the facts on which easy management decisions could be then made. I think the most important conclusion to be drawn is simple. There is no word in the English language that more strongly conveys the intent of incontrovertibility, i.e., "final and reliable reality," than the word "fact."

However, no word is more honored by its breach in actual usage.

For example, there are and we saw yesterday:

"Apparent facts."
"Assumed facts."
"Reported facts."
"Hoped-for facts."
"Facts" so labeled and accepted as facts - i.e., "accepted facts" - and many others of similar derivation!

In most cases these were not the facts at all.

In many cases of daily life this point may not be too important. But in the areas of management momentum and decisions, it is all-important! Whole trains of events and decisioins for an entire management can be put in motion in the wrong direction - with inevitable loss of money, time, and morale - by one "unfactual fact," accepted by or submitted by YOU - however unintentional.

The highest art of professional management requires the literal ability to "smell" a "real fact" from all others - and moreover to have the temerity, intellectual curiosity, guts and/or plain impoliteness, if necessary, to be sure that what you do have is indeed what we will call an "unshakable fact."

That is the kind of "fact material" we have to deal in. And, as a member of the team, it is the only kind you can accept or submit - as our management team has to rely on each member exercising the greatest care in this respect as to the material he submits for the team's common use.

So let me invite you and at the same time insist that you now become a "connoisseur of all these kinds of facts" so that you can then tell a "genuine snapping turtle" from the others - and so that you learn to force to the surface and deal only with "unshakable facts" in the future.

You will hear a lot more of this term "unshakable facts" as we go forward - it is a never-ending discipline and one that we need.

So, good luck with them - and start now - IS IT A FACT? but more important, IS IT AN UNSHAKABLE FACT?

P.S.: No matter what you think, try "shaking it" to be sure.

P.P.S.: Send this message down the line."

There's no point walking around if you're really just showing a friendly face as though you're running for elected office. You're wasting everyone's time. The purpose is to find out what's really going on and to make sure what's going on is what you want to be going on. And you do that by asking the right questions, often tough questions that won't make you popular, listening to the answers (whether you like them or not) and making decisions without being concerned as to the popularity of your actions.

After all, it's your job to think clearly, and to think for yourself, as a manager. You can take advice and listen to suggestions, but the decision is yours to take and you have to be willing to accept that responsibility. That is supposedly why you are in charge.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 7, 2005 2:52 PM

Great stuff Noel - I agree.

I have written elsewhere - and been laughed at - that all healthcare managers pay should be directly linked to how many patient problems they can prove they solved in the last month. Most healthcare managers don't want to see that happen because they sit behind their desks writing reports that no one reads and instead of that they should as you say - get off their backside and go and meet patients and their staff. They will be pleasantly surprised and also they might feel they have earned their salary.

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 8, 2005 7:02 AM

Awesome way to lead. Get dirty!

Posted by Tim at September 8, 2005 7:03 AM

Tom,
You published an article about MBWA in the California Management Review in the Fall 1985 edition-- 26 pages of great information.

Posted by Dau at September 8, 2005 8:51 AM

An issue only gently raised in any of the comments is the role of business education in discouraging (or at least giving little credit to) MBWA. Maybe MBA should stand for "Management By Abstraction."

Posted by Peter Heywood at September 8, 2005 10:53 AM

It occurs to me that another reason managers pay lip service only to MBWA is because in practice it is viewed as something akin to wearing a red flag on your head in a field full of grumpy bulls. You're just asking to get fired.

This is not an irrational fear. I've known people it's happened to and it's happened to me.

Tom’s book, Talent, from the Essential Series, arrived as it happens yesterday morning and I've been enjoying reading it. I've gotten up to the part on the importance of viewing yourself as a free agent who sees a career, in Tom’s words, as “a series of gigs", moving from project to project and when necessary, company to company, always looking for action, willing to go where the trouble is because that's where you'll be given the opportunity to shine.

Job security no longer exists. All of us are now hired guns. Some are packing magnums and some are packing little white flags. I suppose my point is that playing it straight might be riskier, but the alternative is a guarantee of exactly nothing and over time, you will not like the person you see looking back at you in the mirror. Think of it as a matter of professional pride. They say they want you to manage the purchasing department. Well, manage it. And don't be afraid of stepping on toes. Be confident. Be fair. Most of all be strong. And if they don't like you asking questions and walking around and actually doing your job, take your services elsewhere. Free your mind and your body will follow. We're all free agents now anyway.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 8, 2005 11:11 AM

Peter, that's a good point, but even if a university wanted to, how would they go about teaching a course in MBWA? I often say you can't learn business from a blackboard so my guess is that even if universities did offer a course in MBWA, it'd be about as useful as learning how to tap dance by studying the footprints left after a performance in the dust on a stage, measuring them and taking copious notes for the discussion group later.

From what I can tell, going to college, even the best college, to learn how to manage people doesn't compare to first-hand experience.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 8, 2005 12:34 PM

Excellent post! As a mid-level manager in corporate America, I get an eyeful of Theoretical Management almost daily.

Posted by Troy at September 8, 2005 7:43 PM

Great post Noel! Very challenging to think about those who feel that NOT being around is a great way to lera people. All too often, teams get great in spite of, not because of, their leader, because the leader is off doing who knows what. Spending time walking around definitely does let you know what's going on with your team. The question is, do you really want to know?

Posted by Phil Gerbyshak at September 8, 2005 10:42 PM

Our last CEO was an MBWA man par excellence; his successor decidedly isn't. At an exit interview some six months after the change at the top, one of our Telemarketing colleagues confessed that she hadn't known the switch had taken place!

Exactly how do you lead people who literally don't know you exist? And remember, people are the only thing you can lead; leading a business is an abstract concept with no foundation in reality.

Posted by Phil Lynch at September 9, 2005 4:42 AM

Phil, I agree. Business is all about people and I don't mean that as a mushy thing where we all should love each other all the time. I mean that to be successful in business, in my opinion, you have to be able to know and judge people, know what their nature is and what they'll do or could do. So far, I’ve only known a little success (as well as total failure), but I’ve known a few who have hit it big and all of them relied heavily on their instincts. They have a 'nose' for things - they can smell or sense things that can't necessarily be defined in words yet are bang on the money. I've found women often have very good instincts for people, but whether they are women or men, the best businesspeople always follow their instincts. I think it's a mistake not to. After all, scientists have proven that your guts have brains.

It seems we’re all in agreement that Management By Walking Around is a good idea and it looks like the reason more managers don’t do it is not just laziness as I had suggested, but a combination of fear of being held accountable for actually doing something as suggested by Phil Bowers, and fear that the results they’re really achieving will be exposed, as suggested by Trevor.

So it's Ostrich Management - what you can't see can't hurt you. And with your head buried in the reported minutiae of the business, you can get on with having those pleasant dreams filled with rosy projections without pesky interruptions such as having to deal with other people who evidently do not understand the appeal of burying one's head in sand. As Peter put it, "Management By Abstraction" (how about Management by Distraction?).

Andrew Hayden in Tom's original MBWA post has suggested that it also has to do with status - senior execs only want to talk with other senior execs on their ‘level’ - and I think this is true. As if seniority defined wisdom, or even influence. Every organization I’ve known had two organization charts - the official one listing titles and the unofficial one where the real movers and shakers could be found; the people who had the ideas and the real respect.

MarkJF, another contributor on this site, has suggested that it’s a good idea to combine Management By Walking Around with Management By Wondering Aloud, (“give them some ideas and thoughts and comments. Get their ideas and thoughts and comments.”) This makes sense to me. In my experience, some of the best ideas come from the most unlikely sources.

To illustrate, I’d like to quote Fred Schwed Jr. again:

“In the terrible panic of 1929 there was a series of emergency meetings of the board of a certain managed investment trust. Late one night, white-faced, weary, and irresolute, these men faced each other around a huge mahogany table and tried to avoid each other’s eyes. All their convictions were being shattered.

Suddenly one of them spoke, quietly and firmly: “There is no telling how far this thing is going to go,” he said. “Such and such (naming one of the great blue-chip stocks of the day) is down close to 200 from 350, where it was selling only two months ago. It may sound fantastic, but I believe there is a chance it may yet touch 150. If we could buy 10,000 shares at 150, don’t you all think it would be the sort of bargain we may never see again? It will probably never happen, but shouldn’t we be prepared if the opportunity comes?”

At his forceful suggestion courage ran about the room like a licking flame. Vigorous assents were given, and color came into wan cheeks. “Put that down,” said someone to the twenty year old clerk who was present. “Buy 10,000 such and such at 150, order good until cancelled.”

The kid who was addressed obediently leaned forward to write, but as he did so he puckered his lips a little. Very low - but audibly - he gave that distinctive, rubbery sound of contempt known as “the bird.”

Immediately everyone felt less confident. Somehow or other the discussion was reopened, and after a time the suggestion was abandoned. My informant on this matter has estimated that that little noise saved the trust a matter of three quarters of a million dollars, but no one ever thanked the boy, because no one ever dared to admit that he had anything to do with the decision to cancel that ruinous order.”

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 9, 2005 7:31 AM

Yes, there is an unbearable problem with the lack of MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around) implementation. Corporations and academies “tooled” the minds of workers and students, respectively, from the “abstract” and in accordance with a Jurassic common sense. I see many CEOs lost in their “systems of believes and values” (?). The tsunami of technological and societal change –seemingly– is way too much for them, not to mention the transformations stemming from the environment, among others. They are “grabbing the past” (missing the present and hence the future) as they reiterate everywhere: “…think in the unthinkable…be entrepreneurial…” Many of these “past grabbers” (PGs) do a great deal of “slogan preaching” about the importance they consider the “intellectual capital” has, but, in actuality, DO THEY REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE? Very few do, most don’t. Absolutely everyone must walk the “freelance” pathway. PGs are too busy understanding the hearing-impairing noise from the “swirl of change”, similar to an ongoing Cambrian Explosion. They just don’t get it and there is not much time to explain it through.

As it has been said, WILL YOU PAUSE WHILE CHINA, INDIA, RUSSIA (PROBABLY) AND OTHERS ARE 100% OVER ACTIVE? They all want to “conquer” the global economy as some ill theoreticians (PGs) fail to take into account NOW the thinkable and the unthinkable at the same time (simultaneously). You can manage “Mean and Lean” but you can never “underplay” the legitimate expectations of your “team.” Yes, that “team” which represents the “boat that most everyone has to aboard” and with «sprit de corp». Say what? What team? What team work? What «sprit de corp»? Then, many of these “past grabbers” (PGs) lacks ethics and values (not the search for “unprecedented profits”, namely “economic value”). Lack of ethics and values, with absence of MBWA (to name one), can disrupt a whole civilization. If to this we add, “I don’t care about the fate of my employees, associates or clients…” the volume of the “noise” will go beyond the most creative imagination.

It’s difficult. Most everyone (not to say everybody) has to be his/her own “employer and employee.” Extremely difficult, but never impossible. If the “past grabbers” (PGs) are ruling out their “intellectual capital” constituency (brainy workforce), they will commit a bigger crime by and against themselves. As damage is self-inflected onto themselves by these “evangelizers of the alleged entrepreneurial spirit”, the over-dynamics of the “RISING ECONOMIES” will not stop, in fact it might even get much more accelerated. This is the real deal. What is the name of the game? RESPONSE: “Zero-sum frame of reference, collectively put in action in the battlefield.” I wonder, What do they mean to “gain” for themselves? It’s a sine qua non to de-flaw the flawed immediately. In the mean time (yoctosecond to yoctosecond), the managerial “revolt” of ideas will come from the “bottom-up” into a more horizontal, HIGHLY AMORPHOUS, BLURRED
framework.

The Web, on the other side, offers nearly unlimited opportunities to access contacts and knowledge, hopefully business as well. I have the hypothesis that, because of the GREATER CONNECTIVITY AND INTERACTIVITY we now have, the optimum will be amplified into the best, as the flawed will be amplified into the worst. I would imagine that the most convenient for everyone’s best interest is to leverage his / her “personal capital” (education, training, business relationships) via the Internet to the utmost. In addition, imagination and creativity – in all fields of knowledge– have never been as vital to each and every one of us as in the current times. I am not sure if the type of imagination and creativity required NOW by business and management has any past precedent. The term “precedent” will have to be, by the way, redefined.

WHAT TO DO (ATTEMPT)? One just might: (i) Create intuitively, (ii) Create insightfully (intuitively + discerningly), (iii) Create Counter-intuitively, (iv) Create based on forward-thinking, (v) Create based on go-against thinking, (vi) Scan around without intent, (vii) Diversify his / her curiosity, and (viii) Merge the seven practices aforementioned. Practice serendipity a la new millennium. Create pre-conditions to exacerbate your serendipitous practices to fall into a zone of a not yet identified knowledge (perhaps, a “breakthrough”). Meeting the unknown is finding new knowledge in due time in a flank not under our watch (yet). We need to pay attention, both to small changes and their patterns as well as to trends. One needs to become SPECIALIST IN GENERALITY, another expression for “grasping” and “commanding” the interdisciplinary (hidden) aspects of business with a cross-functional, multidimensional mindset and a restless spirit. Be rampantly creative. Search to learn the un-learnable. A place to pick up –at least– an invaluable “piece of knowledge.” Iterate the learning and the picking up.

One will need to go from being a pragmatic Re-imaginelogist to a practical Re-imaginengineer (a Re-imagine activist). One will need to literally love ambiguity. Resist and resist; adapt, adapt, and re-adat, FOREVER. Raise the ante. Get the lucrative risk. De-peril the dangers. Up the “gaining facet” (upside). Outsource the hazardous dimension (downside). WHAT TO DO WITH ONE’S CURIOSITY? RESPONSE: ASCERTAIN YOU’RE THE MOST CURIOUS PERSON IN YOUR BUSINESS. Speaking of curiosity and as per Stephen Hawking (may wish to bear this in mind), “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” Let’s not forget about MBWA.

Posted by Andres Agostini at September 10, 2005 10:39 AM

Andres--I sincerely hope you learn how to communicate your ideas better if you are a leader or aspire to a leadership role in any business. I think you have a kernel of a good idea here, but it has been clouded over by so much bullshit that it is pretty hard to discern.

BTW Dear Readers, a yactosecond is one septillionth of a second (10 to the -24th power).

viagra 100 mg best price Opinion and fact offered gratis by your friendly neighborhood curmudgeon.

Posted by Mike at September 12, 2005 5:02 PM

Thank you for that pearl of wisdom Mike - I now have something as a party conversation stopper!!! :-)

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Posted by Trevor Gay at September 13, 2005 8:33 AM

I don't get it Trevor. Why would you want to stop conversation at a party?

Hey, I didn't know what it was, either, but a quick search at thefreedictionary.com laid it out right away. Ah, the internet. Such POWER! In the wrong hands (mine) it could be a dangerous weapon, (but only dangerous to me, I'm sure).
;-)

Posted by Mike at September 13, 2005 4:14 PM

I love these gems of information Mike - another one of my favourites is:

"How do 'keep off the grass' signs get there?"

Great banter :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 14, 2005 1:42 AM

I remain facinated by this exchange about MBWA. I base my thoughts on experience rather than my formal education, but think about this.

People skills are often talked about as "soft skills". We hear the term all the time. Maybe "soft skills" are considered too wimpy in today's hyper competitive world.

I remained convinced that "It's the people stupid!". We count on people to carry out plans and strategies and we count on people to buy our products. If we simply can not learn to mix and mingle with all of them, how can we possibly expect to do well in business.

My father told me years ago that I should never get to be so "big" that I forget who is doing the work. He also told me there is a one word description for managers that don't get it......Overhead.

Posted by Phil Bowers at September 14, 2005 8:46 AM

Phil, I agree with what your father told you. It’s a pity more managers do not feel the same way. I think the sort of manager he was describing is unfortunately more the rule than the exception.

I think having people skills are important in business. That old phrase "you meet them and greet them at their charming best" springs to mind, but I don’t think tolerating bullfeathers is something people in business should do. The purpose of MBWA is a search for facts. If you’re serious about doing that, you have to be willing to cut through BS when you encounter it.

Of course, doing that goes against the smart playing of company politics and probably one of the main reasons most corporate managers do not practice it.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 14, 2005 3:50 PM

A few years ago, at a large US automaker, we (worker-level engineers) were asked how management could improve morale. I had seen MBWA work at a small, successful company, so I suggested it to the commitee. A few days later we received an email that said: "Please be advised that our VP will be visiting the building on Thurs. from 2:15 to 2:30PM". We never saw him, and I'm not sure if he could find the building.

Posted by Todd Mory at September 15, 2005 10:23 PM