The management technique known as Management By Walking Around is quite a well known techinique , that got adopted by many international businesses in the 80’s , before the computers arrived.
Usually the managers, directors, CEO’s of the firm like to stay within their cabins not providing enough opportunity to the staff to meet them or get to know them. MBWA goes against that policy of closed doors. It means that the management will walk around more talking to employees and getting to know them, having discussions personal or business in a bid to open up the environment and have the employees feel valued.
This technique works wonders for some, but many others still believe that its worthless. Why? because they feel that too much interference and people walking upto you all the time kills time in unnecessary discussions and one is not able to focus on their priorities.
To this, the modern management consultants in favour of MBWA say that management in its actual essence means that managers stay close to their teams, get to know them at all levels. Rather then stay secluded. If a manager cant make time to “talk” or “bear interference” from the team members , then is he really being a good manager? The duty of the manager is to make themselves more accessible rather then secluded.
Now, a question from my friends here on GS.. what do you think about this management style? do you believe MBWA is worth it or is worthless?
Kya Karoon, do you think the argument presented by the non-MBWA ,regards getting distracted from work due to interuptions, make any sense? do you think it could be a valid point?
Whether MBWA makes sense or not very much depends on the environment you're working in. If the majority of the team you are leading is relatively junior, then it is not only useful but necessary that you as their manager interact with them a lot, proactively. However if you are leading a team of mostly senior people who don't need a lot of guidance/instruction then MBWA could be seen as contra-productive. In the latter scenario it will still be important to interact with your team to keep them motivated, but it shouldn't reach the levels of how you communicate with junior members of the team.
But thats the whole point , Umer, at the junior management level, open door policy helps the managers to stay close to their teams and open communications as much as possible.
When at the senior management level, directors interact with the junior teams, or the CEO of the firm addressing its people , or the CFO manages to interact with employees , that class system gets diminished and people feel more motivated coz they feel they are important for the firm ..
I have worked in a company that employes 3000 people and the COO was quite a follower of MBWA .. once we came across each other waiting for the elevator and during our chat, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised that he knew of my success with this certain client ... It gave me even more motivation to work hard coz I knew then that my efforts ARE being noticed ... It really did make alot of difference.
if you know your employees well, you will get much work out of them, and besides they know why they are getting paid for, to get their job done well and within time, so i don't think its a valid point, but it may works in some specific environments
My business is in retail sector and spread over a wide area. While we talk to our staff at various locations via phones and texts all the time, we do surprise visits to the locations to see what is going on the ground. Sometimes it can be very revealing. Also it gives a chance to talk to the staff and listen to their problems, it is also morale boosting for the staff as they feel that management is taking interest in their work.
absolutely Ehsan bhai , the interesting words to note here is are “sometimes it can be very revealing” .. this is 100% true .. Its not only the employees that benefit from MBWA style of management , but the management learns new things as well and are better able to assess the real world they are managing /leading .. they get the worth back for investing their time in their employees ..
But thats the whole point , Umer, at the junior management level, open door policy helps the managers to stay close to their teams and open communications as much as possible.
I was referring to interaction between staff and their direct manager. And by junior I meant inexperienced, new on the job, someone needing guidance.
Now if you talk about top-level management, I agree with you, there MBWA does make sense if it's kept in reasonable limits.
oh ok .. I remember one of my jobs in the initial years of my career .. the manager used to sit right at the center of the work space so he could hear almost everyone .. I hated it then ! coz you keep getting that feeling of "always being looked at" and "always being listened to" ..
but now when i look back I sort of thank god that i got that manager .. he was a hassle at that time, but always made it a point to correct us when we were doing something wrong, that seriously trained us to the level of perfection .. and benefited me immensely throughout the rest of my career ..
