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Management By Walking Around Explained By a CEO

Management by Walking Around is a very beneficial concept for leaders. I have used it to great effect during my CEO career, where it has contributed to driving employee engagement extraordinarily fast, as I will share with you in this article.

Management By Walking Around (MBWA) is a strategy where managers roam the workplace at random. Those applying the Management By Walking Around approach make unplanned visits to engage employees and learn about equipment, routines, customers, and other operational aspects. 

Keep on reading to learn more about management by walking around, how to do it, advantages and disadvantages, and some personal experiences from when I have applied MBWA with great success in my job as a CEO, resulting in a significant difference in organizational culture .

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Management By Walking Around Explained

The characteristics of management by walking around, pros and cons of management by walking around, how to implement and use management by walking around, a ceo’s example of management by walking around, examples of management by walking around leaders, further reading.

The concept of management by walking around emerged back in the early 80s, 1982 to be specific when Tom Peters and Robert Waterman introduced it in their book named “In Search of Excellence”. Peters and Waterman had followed successful leaders and concluded that they did not stay in their “ivory towers” but instead spent time out in the organization, walking around the area and interacting with employees.

Management by walking around, otherwise known as management by wandering around (MBWA), is a management style that involves strolling around the work area in a seemingly unstructured manner. Managers spontaneously stop for a conversation with employees, learning more about equipment, functions, and processes in the workplace. As a manager stops by for informal discussions, she also makes herself available for employees and any questions they might want to raise. This approach builds participation and is an example of the democratic leadership style and MBWA requires a lot of Emotional Intelligence on the leader’s part. (Read our free e-book on Emotional Intelligence .) The method of Management by walking around depends on each company’s layout and everyday routines; walking on a factory floor or in a department store is different, but in the end, it is meeting the team members that is the point.

What is the aim of Management By Walking Around?

Management by walking around intends to achieve higher productivity and efficiency through accurate representations of daily happenings and understanding the employees’ perspectives. The leader regularly feels “the pulse” of the organization, which provides crucial input for decision-making and communication.

Is management by walking around effective?

Management By Walking Around is incredibly effective in workplaces that involve teams, routines, tasks, production, and knowledge workers. The approach is far more effective than arranged visits, as managers gain truthful insight through dialogue and witnessing operations firsthand. 

Are there any dangers in the use of Management By Walking Around?

Management By Walking Around effectiveness is subject to each unique manager. Some managers walk around with the wrong attitude, leading to disgruntled, uncomfortable, and pressured employees who feel micromanaged. This behavior will hurt performance rather than strengthening it.

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The Management By Walking Around (MBWA) approach to leadership involves the following elements and characteristics:

• Walking around the workplace
• Talking to employees
• Creating personal networks

Unstructured Visits

Engagement and discussion style, personal interactions with a supportive attitude.

The first three might seem rather self-evident, but there are still some important aspects to keep in mind. That is why we will go through each of the six elements in greater detail.

Walking Around the Workplace

By simply walking around, managers show presence, interest, and respect for the different parts of company operations. This stroll is an opportunity to “walk the talk” when it comes to wearing the proper personal protection equipment (PPE), following safety routines, walk the appropriate paths, and all the other rules and regulations others are expected to follow. Managers who do not follow their own rules stick out like sore thumbs. Furthermore, it is essential to cover the entire area, not staying in the warm inside offices while skipping the remote outdoors storage area in the wintertime and taking other comfortable shortcuts. After a while, people might emphasize where the manager isn’t going rather than the places that get the attention, resulting in a perceived bias, lack of interest, and respect felt by the ignored team members.

Talking to Employees

It sounds like an easy thing to “talk to employees”, but that can sometimes be far from the truth. As a manager, you need to ask the right questions, display the appropriate mood, and show the right level of interest. Make sure you lower the threshold for people to dare to engage in conversation with you. Use Emotional Intelligence to gauge the mood of people and start conversations in a non-threatening and informal manner. Ask open-ended questions and get them to do the talking. Tell people about yourself and your thoughts; otherwise, you can’t expect them to share anything with you, right? Note: This should NOT be questioning or interrogating them for status updates, which would be commanding or autocratic leadership .

Creating Personal Networks

Managers who use management by walking around get an abundance of opportunities to form bonds and relationships with people they usually would not engage with regularly. Remember items from your previous visit and bring them up; you can even make short notes if necessary. Notice and learn what people do, how they work with, etc. This can increase your effectiveness as a manager since you can find talented people, know who to ask, where to get support on specific tasks, etc. By showing people that you care enough to create bonds with them, even if they are light ones, you will earn people’s respect and loyalty, and they are more likely to go the extra mile for you. If you do management by walking around appropriately, that is. (This is a good example of Affiliative Leadership .)

The primary characteristic of management by walking around is the style and method of roaming, as it should be unplanned or spontaneous. Managers need to utilize random sampling of events, employee discussions, and unplanned stops. 

Management by walking around is far more impactful than planned appointments, timely status reports, and formal review meetings, often becoming a bit of a dog and pony show. By making unplanned visits, managers can see what goes on in the workplace and assess areas needing adaptions or intervention. At the same time, employees benefit from being listened to and understood in a more realistic and empathetic manner.

Just don’t interrupt people when they are busy. After all, this should not be about you, it should be about the team members.

When managers make their unplanned stops at various employees’ workstations or areas of processes, the atmosphere created is key to the strategy’s effectiveness. The visits should feel unforceful and purposeless, even if the manager intends to stop by a specific area on that particular day. If you fail to do this, team members will simply felt like they are being watched, monitored, and micro-managed, and all this will result in anxiety and stress building as the roaming manager shows up.

Although optimizing efficiency is the primary goal, the approach involves a far more personal and relatable approach to forming healthy professional relationships with employees. By affording managers the ability to see the environment from workers’ perspectives, it can drastically change morale and engagement over time. To understand the other perspective, leaders need to make sure they listen carefully and seize opportunities for coaching in the moment.

Healthy professional relationships are an essential aspect of the strategy. It’s much more straightforward for managers to gain truthful perspectives and accurate representations of events with informal, personal, or low-pressure interactions.

Observational Approaches

Management by walking around involves stopping at employees’ workstations to chat, encourage, or provide constructive feedback. But, a large portion of the approach’s effectiveness relies on the manager’s ability to listen selflessly and observe. Techniques such as Active Listening are precious for getting the most out of management by walking around.

A primary characteristic of the management by walking around strategy involves listening in on employee or team discussions and observing everyday interactions. This enables managers to gain insight into problems, ideas, and concerns, allowing them to theorize appropriate solutions.

Management by walking around has become a trendy style for supervising processes in various workplaces. Management by walking around has numerous advantages and disadvantages, making it more or less applicable and appropriate for different organizations.

Advantages of Management By Walking Around

The advantages of management by walking around are:

• Managers can provide constructive support, feedback, and assistance to employees swiftly and in casual settings
• Very effective in building rapport and worker morale
• Allows managers to witness everyday life in the workspace through truthful representations of events and interactions
• Managers gain awareness of employee concerns, ideas, and thoughts in informal, low-pressure environments

Disadvantages of Management By Walking Around

The disadvantages of management by walking around are:

• It is highly dependent on the leaders underlying engagement styles and interpersonal approaches
• Can lead to overlooked areas of the workplace without a general plan for visits, which may cause inconsistencies or issues over time
• Employees may feel pressured throughout daily work processes if the manager’s approach or natural leadership style is forceful, domineering, distracting, or anxiety-inducing, all of which indicate micro-management

While the strategy primarily involves physically making rounds around the space, the effectiveness will fully rely on the manager’s approach and interactions. Implement all the characteristics of Management By Walking Around mentioned above, and ensure the following on top of that.

Spontaneous Visits

Although there should be a system for managers to decide when and how to check up on aspects and employees in the environment, the general idea is that the employees should never expect these checkups. This sort of approach is far more effective when assessing real happenings within the workplace. If people are ready and waiting, the manager will receive a prepared presentation rather than witness normal operations.

All employees should get similar visits at an equal interval to avoid creating a perceived preference or prejudice between employees. Managers should gain insight from all perspectives in the workspace and have all bases covered regularly.

Foster Networks With Employees

Conversations should be meaningful, relevant, and appropriate to each employee and within the work environment. The ambiance should be informal, interested, authentic, and relatable with each visit by discussing recent events in employees’ lives – such as recent leave for illness, hobbies, vacation, or family. (See additional tips on catching up with remote employees .)

Greetings are not enough for the method to be impactful in the environment. Interactions should be based on managers forming solid networks and connections with the team, as this greatly assists in building rapport and worker morale.

Even though I still engage in MBWA from time to time in my current CEO role, I have had the most significant impact with it as a division head many years ago. At the time, I didn’t know that my predecessor spent most of the time in the Director’s office or meetings with the management team, resulting in my behavior being perceived as a very contrasting approach.

As the head of this division, which was in a company that manufactured mining equipment, I realized that the team culture had to be improved. There were plenty of silo behaviors, and different departments hardly spoke with each other. The employees were not really engaged in the future, vision, and long-term strategy but rather focused on their daily tasks. These grand topics were for the management team , and the remaining employees were never asked, and to a certain degree, did not care that much. This low engagement meant less initiative, less creativity, and punching out when the shift is over, and not going the extra mile for the customers. It was apparent to me as a new arrival.

I realized I had to transform the culture , increase participation and empowerment to reach higher degrees of engagement and accountability. The management team was experienced but had been in their roles for a long time. Their opinions had already been heard many times over, but as it turns out, they also filtered deviating opinions among their reporting staff.

To get to know people from all levels, and perhaps more importantly, to have them get to know me and understand that I genuinely desired their engagement and participation in topics that were previously kept in the board room, I started using management by walking around. The organization, in this case, was about 50 white collars in two office buildings and a small blue-collar equipment assembly team located in a separate workshop building half a mile away.

I went for a walkabout three days a week and kept rotating where I would show up, ensuring that all departments got one visit per week. In the beginning, people were genuinely surprised to see me. I engaged in small talk, asked general questions about the business showing that I was curious, willing to learn, and understood that they were more knowledgeable about this business than I was. I stopped by different cubicles each time for a short chat, basically talking about the weather, recent events, asking questions, etc. The next time I went to that department, I’d stop at different cubicles. This created a great dialogue and opportunity for the team members to ask me questions, bring up ideas, etc., without having to do it in a town hall session where communication apprehension , or stage fright, so easily set in. After a while, my showing up resulted in groups of people standing up from their cubicles and coming over for a joint chat for five minutes. This enabled me to see how they treated each other, including the pecking order, who were the creative ones, etc.

In the end, this, coupled with other engagement activities such as strategy workshops, suggestion boxes, regular information sessions, visionary leadership , and many other things, resulted in a very tangible increase in employee engagement.

In the employee engagement survey ten months later, work satisfaction increased by more than 30%, collaboration indicators were up almost 50%, the confidence in the management team increased by close to 40%, and buy-in on strategy and vision more than doubled. That’s quite an achievement in one year, and management by walking around was a big part of that, so I recommend you use it, just as long as you combine it with a good portion of leadership styles based on Emotional Intelligence . I will expand on additional actions I deployed to create this speedy change in future articles.

While the approach has been applied in countless companies and workplaces, a few examples of well-known leaders stick out.

MBWA Example: William Hewlett and David Packard

The founders of Hewlett Packard (HP), William Hewlett and David Packard, were famous for using the MBWA approach in everyday routines throughout the workplace. Senior executives at HP were actively encouraged to use the management by walking around practice to spend time with people far below them in the hierarchy and bypassing middle management in the process. This would create a crucial two-way dialogue rather than the traditional downward communication that many companies suffer.

MBWA Example: Toyota

Although Tom Peters coined the MBWA strategy, the concept was originally developed by Taiichi Ohno and applied in Toyota’s production system. However, Toyota referred to the approach as ‘Genchi genbutsu’ , a technique based on analyzing problems in their natural environment to acquire a better understanding. This approach is most commonly referred to as Gemba Walk and is common in factories and operations as part of LEAN systems. It is very different to management by walking around in a few critical aspects. However, it is still similar when it comes to visiting the production floor and putting your ear to the ground as a manager.

The Management By Walking Around approach is straightforward to apply in the workplace and is incredibly effective in numerous ways. I suggest you give it a try in a structured and thought through way.

If Management By Walking Around appeals to you, I suspect you would benefit from our articles on the following topics:

• Democratic Leadership style , one of the most effective leadership styles since it leads to strong employee engagement.
• Improve your Emotional Intelligence with our free e-book on Emotional Intelligence .
• Transformational Leadership and Visionary Leadership since MBWA are great for shaping and deploying visions and long-term aspirations with a team.
• You are of course welcome to scroll through some of our CEO reflection posts as well.

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/87711 https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/12-113_9a2bc5e8-2f70-4288-bb88-aeb2de49e955.pdf https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/12534914 MBWA — Management by Walking About (jeffersonmaguire.co.uk)

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- Learn How to Push Performance from a CEO

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Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)

Keeping your finger on the pulse.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

You may be based in the same building as your manager, but how often do you see them?

OK, so maybe you see them any time you look through the spotless glass walls of their office, but how often do you get the chance to sit down together and really talk? Once a week? Once a month? Less, maybe.

A manager like this can seem distant, unapproachable and even intimidating. And yet, it is possible to be a manager who is admired for being wise and knowledgable, and at the same time engaged and connected with the people around them. Which would you prefer to be?

If you build a wall around yourself as a manager, your team members won't gain from your knowledge and you won't gain from their experience. Worse still, you'll be unable to spot and deal with problems before they become serious, and you'll miss out on the key, tacit information that you need to make good decisions.

How often do you get up from your desk and speak to your team members?

Connecting with your team is a major factor in success, and this article shows you how to keep in touch with what's going on.

Introducing MBWA

One powerful way to connect with your team members is to get up from your desk and go talk to them, to work with them, to ask questions, and to help when needed. This practice is called Management by Wandering Around, or MBWA.

MBWA might imply an aimless meander around the office, but it's a deliberate and genuine strategy for staying abreast of people's work, interests and ideas. It requires a range of skills, including active listening, observation, recognition, and appraisal.

MBWA also brings participation, spontaneity and informality to the idea of open-door management. It takes managers into their teams' workplaces to engage with the people and processes that keep companies running, to listen to ideas, to collect information, and to resolve problems.

William Hewlett and David Packard, founders of Hewlett Packard (HP), famously used this approach. Tom Peters included lessons learned from HP in his 1982 book, In Search of Excellence , and MBWA immediately became popular. Now, for example, Disney leaders work shifts with their resort teams, and the CEO of waste management firm Veolia sometimes goes out with his staff when they collect trash.

What MBWA Can Achieve

MBWA can produce a huge range of results. It can, for example, help you to be more approachable . People are often reluctant to speak with their managers because they feel intimidated or they think that they won't care. But when your team members see you as a person as well as a manager they'll trust you and be more willing to share ideas and pain points with you.

Frequent, natural and trusting communication can be infectious, and it encourages people to work together as a team. With better communication and an improved sense of what's happening in your team, you'll likely spot big problems before they happen, and you'll be in a better position to coach your team to avoid them.

Business knowledge, commercial awareness and problem-solving opportunities can all take leaps forward when you better connect with your "front line." You'll improve your understanding of the functions, people and processes at work there, and you'll boost people's company and industry knowledge. Everyone is better equipped to perform their roles when they have the right information, and they are energized by an improved flow of ideas.

Morale will likely get a lift from MBWA, too. Casual exchanges and opportunities to be heard really do help people to feel more motivated, more inspired, and more connected. Furthermore, you'll boost accountability and productivity, as any actions that you agree upon with your people will likely get done because you see one another regularly.

Dangers to Avoid

"Wandering around" may seem easy to do and harmless enough, but it's important to do it right. Research has shown that simply being physically present with your people isn't enough. It's the post-walk actions that you take and the problems that you solve that will determine the success of your MBWA strategy. If you don't strike the right balance, you can wind up doing more harm than good.

Don't, for example, do MBWA just because you feel obliged to – this probably won't work very well. You must truly want to get to know your staff and operations, and you have to commit to following up on people's concerns and to seeking continuous improvement.

A big benefit of MBWA is that people can be open with you, but, if you "shut down" when you hear a negative comment or fail to follow up when you promise to do so, they might perceive you as defensive or as someone who doesn't keep his word.

Gaging the level of trust within your environment is important because, if people don't trust you, MBWA could make them think that you're interfering or spying. It's also important to consider your team members' preferences and to tailor your approach to these. For example, one team member may be happy for you to offer suggestions for improvements within earshot of co-workers, but another might be embarrassed by it, or even get angry about it.

How to Manage by Wandering Around

The biggest challenge when implementing MBWA is to overcome the habit of being "too busy," and to start walking around. These tips can help you to get going.

People will sense your casualness and they'll respond accordingly. Stiff discussions held in formal spaces will lead to rigid responses, so keep your team members at ease with relaxed and unstructured conversations. Hold these where people will likely feel relaxed, such as at their desks or in a neutral place, rather than in your office.

Watch your body language , too, and your dress . Turning up at a production line wearing a crisp pinstriped suit, for instance, may distance you from your people and put them off talking to you.

Listen and observe more than you talk

Take care to sound inquisitive rather than intrusive. You can ask your people what they're working on, how comfortable they feel doing their jobs, what they find difficult, whether they see how their work contributes to "the big picture," and so on. Ask them for ideas about how to make things better.

Hold back from saying what you think, and listen actively to your team members' replies. Give them your undivided attention. When they see that you're interested in what they have to say, they'll likely be more open and receptive, and you'll build rapport.

When you talk, be open and truthful. If you don't know the answer to someone's question, find it out afterward and follow up. If you can't share something, say so. Telling half-truths can break down trust, and trust is crucial for successful MBWA.

To take it a step further, consider trying out your team members' work, to experience what they experience and to understand the issues that they face.

Be inclusive

Don't favor one department or team more than another, or people may feel left out. Instead, spread your attention evenly. Anyone can have great ideas or need support, so talk to everybody, regardless of their job title or position. If people work remotely, make the effort to get in touch with them. If they work the night shift, stay late to talk to them.

Recognize good work

Always look for successes rather than failures and, if you see something good, compliment the person. This is an effective and simple way to show your gratitude and to boost morale.

Spread the word

Share good news and reinstill company goals, values and vision within your team. Tell people how your aims for the team fit with the big picture. Your "wanderings" are opportunities to share information that helps everyone to understand and do their jobs better.

Embrace "chat"

Effective organizations aren't all about work. MBWA allows you to strike a balance between people's work and their personal lives, and to enjoy the lighter side of your job. Enjoying a joke or two, chatting with team members about their hobbies, and finding out their kids' names helps to build relationships.

You don't need to befriend them on Facebook or shoot pool together after work, but you may be surprised by how great it feels to relate with your colleagues on a personal level.

Don't overdo it

Don't leave people feeling that you're always looking over their shoulder! Wander around often enough to get a good feel for what's going on – to make it a key part of your management strategy – but not so often that your presence feels like a distraction. Try not to do it at the same time each day: be spontaneous and unplanned, frequent but random.

Review your conversations

Your presence alone isn't enough to impact frontline staff performance. Be sure to review the things that you've learned – both the good and the bad – and take action accordingly.

Management by Wandering Around can be an effective and practical way to keep up with what's happening within your team and your organization.

Make the effort to reach out and build relationships with your people. This can pay off significantly with the information that you'll gather and the trust that you'll build. A team spirit can naturally develop when you show a genuine interest in your people and their work. It's also a great way to keep the company's vision alive. It's easy and economical, and can be a lot of fun!

Peters, T. and Waterman, R. (1982). ' In Search of Excellence ,' New York: Harper & Row.

Tucker, A. and Singer, S. (2014). 'The Effectiveness of Management-By-Walking-Around: A Randomized Field Study,' Production and Operations Management [online], Volume 24, Issue 2. (Available here .) [Accessed September 30, 2016.]

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Managing by walking around

Ivan Andreev

Demand Generation & Capture Strategist, Valamis

March 28, 2022 · updated April 3, 2024

14 minute read

To effectively manage a team, you must understand how they operate.

In this piece, you will learn:

What does it mean to manage by walking around?

The aim of management by walking around, management by walking around examples, history of management by walking around, pros of management by walking around, cons of management by walking around, how to implement mbwa successfully.

Managing by walking around is a strategy where managers leave their desks and walk around the workplace to understand employees and their ongoing work better. It requires a random or unstructured schedule such that staff is not expecting a check-in at a pre-approved time, and managers get a real sample of what is going on.

This management style is also referred to as management by wandering around or abbreviated to MBWA .

Implementing MBWA leads to unplanned employee interactions where managers gain new information. This could be about:

• Or many other aspects of business operations.

Managers that keep themselves to their office limit the information they receive and how it gets to them. They have to wait for employees to proactively come to them or learn through status reports and staff meetings.

By creating spontaneous interactions and randomly sampling the work employees perform, MBWA better reflects the workplace for the people overseeing it. Plus, managers make themselves available to staff in a more informal setting, allowing them to ask questions directly.

While this technique may sound time-consuming or too unstructured, when implemented correctly by managers with the required skill set, it can add real value.

Regular MBWA allows teams to share new ideas, overcome problems or sub-standard practices, and boost productivity. It also creates a better relationship between management and employees, improving communication and enhancing trust.

The specifics of implementing MBWA vary depending on the organization – its layout, workplace setting, and routine. Walking around in an office is different to:

• Visiting a factory floor where there are potential safety concerns
• Wandering around a store where staff has constant customer interactions.

However, the goal remains the same to create unplanned employee interactions and better understand operations.

Making MBWA successful requires leaders with significant emotional intelligence and a range of people skills such as active listening, recognition, observation, appraisal, and the ability to build rapport with staff naturally. Managers wanting to implement MBWA must have inherently good communication skills or look towards developing them.

Career development plan template

This template helps employees and bosses plan together for career growth: set goals, assess skills, and make a plan.

The aim of management by walking around is to understand the workforce better and learn how the team is operating first-hand . MBWA aims to bring managers and employees together, breaking down boundaries, improving communication, and giving leaders an accurate picture of daily operations. This produces better-informed decision-making as well as greater productivity and employee morale.

The relationship between leadership and employees is a problem for many organizations. A survey by Harris Poll in 2016 showcased the communication breakdown between managers and their workforce. 69% of managers state they’re uncomfortable communicating in general with their staff, and 37% struggle to provide feedback that employees may respond poorly to .

Source: hbr.org

MBWA can help managers better communicate with their employees and build a rapport that improves the work environment for everyone involved.

Research shows 82% of employees have ideas to improve operations, but 18% of these ideas are never heard due to staff being afraid to share . Organizations need to improve communication channels to make the workforce comfortable enough to come forward with new ideas. The spontaneous informal encounters created by MBWA can become just that, sparking innovation that affects the team’s overall performance.

While the focus is on listening and managers learning new information, MBWA is a two-way process. Leaders can offer helpful information, guide employees through specific tasks, reinforce company values, or offer immediate feedback and recognition. They can even problem-solve in real-time and remedy issues that otherwise could cause delays.

Managers are tasked with overseeing a large number of employees and getting the most out of them. Businesses can install feedback processes and communication channels, invest in analytics, and develop KPIs to measure performance, but do these really get them closer to understanding their workforce?

MBWA aims to bridge the gap between leadership and employees by having them interact naturally while the work is going on. It helps managers sample genuine day-to-day operations by talking face-to-face to the people doing the work.

Examples of management by walking around could be as simple as:

• Helpful advice with how to deal with a customer or issue
• Connecting an employee with their counterpart in a different department to remedy a problem
• Discovering faulty equipment that needs replacing
• Learning about a new bottleneck potentially delaying a deadline
• Assessing employee morale

Direct contact with employees can lead to managers learning different types of information that may otherwise not make it to them at their desks.

MBWA is a popular management style in use at successful companies.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz would reportedly take time to visit stores every week to discover how they were operating and hold discussions with staff to emphasize company values.

While management by walking around has been around for a long time, the phrase itself was popularized in the 1980s. Consultants Tom Peters and Robert Waterman explored the idea in their 1982 book, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies .

The book studied successful companies and found they often had CEOs and managers who spent more time in the field than remaining in the office. In addition, these companies had leadership teams that were more connected to wider business operations and better suited to solving problems.

MBWA had always been a popular approach for William Hewlett and David Packard, the founders of HP . The technique gained further traction when they highlighted the idea in The HP Way . The management style has gone on to be adopted by high-profile companies, including Disney, Apple, and Toyota.

1. Communication

With management by walking around, team leaders learn to communicate directly with their employees and hopefully develop a better relationship through natural, relaxed, and informal conversations.

It helps managers expand their communication expertise and pick up new skills such as active listening. Plus, enhanced communication creates a more open work environment where staff are free to offer new ideas.

2. New perspective

By interacting with the staff on the frontline of the organization while they are working, managers gain a new perspective on business operations . They hear first-hand experiences from a range of employees to understand what is going on and develop a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.

It is common for leadership to be stuck inside a “ management bubble .” They understand the business from reports and updates rather than the actual people doing the work. This can distort their perception and play into confirmation bias. MBWA helps burst this bubble and show management a more accurate representation of their business.

3. Problem-solving

Meeting staff face-to-face can allow managers to quickly solve issues rather than going through the time-consuming procedures and having to read through a chain of emails. For example, perhaps a minor problem commonly occurs with a piece of equipment or during a particular work process.

As a result of MBWA, managers can quickly understand the severity of a problem and work to accelerate its solution.

4. Innovation

Creating spontaneous communication channels helps solve problems, but it also allows for exchanging new ideas to boost creativity and innovation . This works both ways:

• the manager can impart institutional knowledge to improve workflows and empower employees to try new approaches
• the staff can offer new ideas to improve productivity and enhance operations.

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5. Instant feedback

Employee feedback is a great way to remove sub-standard practices and positively reinforce behavior management wants. MBWA can transform employee feedback from a gradual process filtering up to leadership to an instant in-person interaction.

Plus, employees don’t have to wait for the right time to bring something up. Instead, the manager has set aside time specifically to wander the workplace and hear feedback from their team.

Listening to staff and working to understand their perspective shows that management cares about their opinion and value them as people.

Treating staff right making them feel part of an organization helps boost morale and generate engagement. This can reduce employee turnover and help companies hold on to valuable team members.

7. Productivity

When implemented correctly, the benefits of MBWA lead to better organizational efficiency and greater productivity. In addition, it helps identify areas for improvement and generates a positive work environment for both management and employees.

8. Demonstrate company values

Finally, MBWA can be used to instill company values across the workforce. Managers can lead by example, demonstrate core values, and guide staff to make decisions with them in mind.

1. Time-consuming

Management by walking around is a time-consuming task that places a significant burden on leaders who have a lot to deal with already.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is no way of knowing the value of a given MBWA session beforehand. The very nature of it is to be unplanned.

Sometimes it may yield significant benefits, other times, little can come from it, and the manager has taken time away from other vital tasks.

2. Micromanagement

It is easy for MBWA to tip over into micromanagement and for employees to feel under additional pressure or like they are being watched.

This is especially true if the manager comes across as forceful or uses poor questioning to sound like they are blaming or exposing staff for errors.

In these instances, MBWA loses its benefits and can also become a net negative on the workforce.

3. Over-emphasis on specific opinions

When done right, randomly sampling employees at random times of the day can be an excellent way to develop a clear picture of the team as a whole. However, it can also lead to managers over-emphasizing specific viewpoints.

MBWA works best when leaders take in a wide range of opinions instead of focusing on one or two that may not accurately represent the wider workforce.

MBWA can also result in tunneling on employee opinions over the customer or stakeholders.

4. Implementation

Ultimately, MBWA’s success comes down to its implementation and the managers’ specific skillset.

It is easy for the technique to dissolve into inefficiently wandering the workplace engaging in unhelpful dialogues that don’t provide value to either employee or manager.

The aim is always to yield helpful information that management can act on to improve operations.

Also, the conversations can become distracting for employees, taking their attention away from essential tasks they were in the middle of working on.

There are plenty of pitfalls when implementing MBWA. To be successful, you need managers with compatible interpersonal skills who can effectively support, coach, and empower employees.

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Tip #1 – Scheduling Spontaneity

Scheduling when the manager walks around the workplace is a challenge.

It is hard for management by walking around to become a serious leadership technique if it is only performed when the manager finds time. However, it cannot become a structured part of the manager’s routine and predictable to employees.

The whole point of MBWA is to get an accurate impression of how a team works. For example, if it happens every Wednesday afternoon, employees will begin to prepare for it, and the manager is no longer observing the actual goings-on.

Implementing MBWA requires flexible scheduling such that it is accounted for in the manager’s calendar without becoming part of a set routine.

It is also good to plan where the manager is visiting for a given time slot. It helps ensure coverage and areas where pain points commonly occur get the attention they deserve.

Tip #2 – Conversation topics

The conversations produced are the key to MBWA’s success.

Managers must find the right balance in the topics they discuss and the style of questioning they use.

You want to probe and trigger informative discussions and not come across as accusatory or constantly correcting employees . It can be helpful to expand conversations beyond work and get to know employees and what makes them tick.

Learning about them outside of work, understanding any significant life events they may be going through, and building a rapport allows you to relate to them as people.

However, the goal should always be on the work and discovering information to make the technique worthwhile.

Topics of conversation to aim for include:

• Work status
• Potential problems
• How they are working with others in the team
• Do they feel heard
• Coaching and imparting knowledge that may help them in their job
• New ideas for the team
• Company values

So how do you direct conversations to these topics naturally, in a way that doesn’t come across as micromanaging or prying too closely?

You can try general probing questions such as:

• What are you working on?
• What are you currently excited by?
• What’s on your mind?
• How can I help?
• Where do you think we as a company can improve?
• What’s the biggest challenge for project X?

Tip #3 – Listen and observe

While MBWA allows leadership to impart knowledge to their employees quickly, it should primarily be a learning exercise.

The critical skills are listening and observing staff to see how they operate and to find the potential changes required to get the most out of them.

Ensure each conversation has your undivided attention, and you are actively listening to employees’ opinions, thoughts, and ideas.

Seeing that you are interested makes them more likely to open up and be honest in their answers.

Tip #4 – Develop employee networks

MBWA is useful for getting to know employees better and developing networks advantageous to your organization’s future.

As you incorporate direct employee interactions into your management style more, the better your relationship with the team will become. This also helps tailor coaching and discussions for each staff member to ensure they get the most out of your interactions.

Getting to know individual staff members also leads to talent discovery. You may identify people with leadership potential who require new leadership development plans so that one day they may be in your shoes, wandering the office learning about their own team.

Tip #5 – Employee recognition

Recognition is vital to a successful business. Letting employees know they have performed well is a great way to reinforce the behaviors you are looking for .

While walking around the workplace, try to focus on the positives and publicly praise employees. This helps boost motivation, morale, and engagement.

Skewing negative while implementing MBWA can lead to staff dreading their interactions with you. The technique should be seen as a learning experience, not an inquisition or interrogation.

Be sure to spread positive recognition around the organization wherever you find praiseworthy work. You also don’t want to focus too heavily on specific people or groups, making others feel like you are playing favorites.

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Managing by Walking Around: What MBWA Is and How to Quickly Master It

How often do you get a chance to speak to your manager? If you’re a leader, how often do you talk to your employees? Weekly? Monthly? Less than that? This guide will show you how managing by wandering around can empower and develop your employees to success, whilst improving your management effectiveness, too.

What is managing by walking around? It is often called management by wandering around or MBWA for short, and was popularised by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their 1981 Book, “In Search For Excellence.”

Through their research of successful companies, they found that managers that walked around and engaged with their employees were far more effective than those that managed from their office. They labelled this MBWA.

It’s now one of a suite of management tools that allows management and their subordinates to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and what can be improved at the front line and where the work gets done.

Doing this regularly, allows the team to share ideas, develop good practice and eradicate sub-standard behaviours and processes, as well as improve communication, trust and rapport.

A Desk is a Dangerous Place From Which to Watch the World

Questions to ask employees when managing by walking around, take time to talk, strike up conversations with your employees, building networks , 3 factors to get mbwa right, the advantages, the disadvantages, quick steps for a good mbwa session.

The book, In Search of Excellence is an interesting read for any businessperson looking to improve their company’s bottom line or just make it more efficient.

The authors examined a range of successful companies, realising a common denominator between the most successful: management spent much of their time in the field instead of being confined to their office space.

This allowed these managers greater insight into operations as well as better ability to solve problems when they arise. 

Peters and Waterman found that this principle was a big factor in sustaining success.

This management by walking about approach seems obvious, right? After all, walking about is something we normally do as humans. But why does it warrant its own management style or a name or method stating the glaringly obvious of what managers should do? 

A part of this could be explained by a 2015 study by Gallup on management and how it affects employee engagement. They found that 85% of managers don’t know what to say when giving feedback to their team members.

If managers feel uncomfortable, then perhaps managing by walking around is the thing that gets put back, buried behind the list of other important tasks? Well, in an Interact Studio and Harris Poll , they hint that this may well be the case. 69% of managers are afraid to communicate with their teams, let alone provide feedback.

A good manager coaches.

They interact and lead.

They inspire and help others overcome challenges.

The majority of the time, this can’t be achieved by shutting the door on the world and engaging in active seat sitting, stuck behind a screen most of the day.

Leading means engaging and communicating. Author, John le Carré once said that, “A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” It’s a fitting quote which represents Peters’ and Waterman’s Management by walking about paradigm.

The basic concept of MBWA is to walk around the workplace and check in with your employees. Some things to discuss are:

• How are things going right now (are we performing to plan);
• How are you getting on with that project I gave you;
• Are all the critical team tasks completed;
• Are there any potential problems I can see as I walk;
• Is everything working to standard;
• Are employees’ ideas being heard and acted on;
• Is the workplace being managed visually? This is a lean manufacturing concept, whereby you can read more on this concept in our visual management guide; 
• Coaching others on performance and process;
• Discussing values;
• Ideas for improvement.

In his blog, Dan Erwin identified the following questions to ask as you walk:

•     “What’s keeping you up at night?” – What’s troubling them and currently their biggest problem;
•     “What’s most exciting for you right now?” – What is currently energising them;
•     “What are you working on?” – What is it they are currently doing (either an improvement idea, project or task);
•     “Where do you see we can improve?” – Soliciting ideas to improve their processes or working environment by discussing the issues they have.

These are great starters and definitely guide you in the right direction.

Another approach is to use the coaching habit question format. Michael Bungay Stanier wrote the book, The Coaching Habit. We’ve written a summary of the book for more information . Michael defines 7 coaching questions that management should use when managing by walking about.

This allows them to help coach ideas and actions, and to provide support where needed. In summary, these questions are:

• What’s on your mind? – Talk about what is at the forefront of their mind;
• And what else? – Carry on by asking this question and drilling down, and expanding why;
• What’s the real challenge here for you? – Drilling down to identify the root causes;
• What do you want? – Getting clear what that person expects;
• How can I help? – Creating clarity as to what you must do as a manager to support them;
• If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? – Helping them decide the next action;
• What was most useful for you in this discussion? – Helps them agree the key takeaways from the chat.

Do you have to follow the same script every time? No, but the above helps create a framework to ask the right questions to help make MBWA a structured and important element of coaching.

Another simple approach is one taken from Lean Kata and continuous process improvement coaching. We’ve written an article to help you drill down deeper, but essentially, management by walking around consists asking questions around the following key areas:

• What is happening here? – This allows you to define what you want to observe;
• What is the target for this process? – Understanding what success looks like, which the team or individual is working towards;
• How are we currently performing against that target? – This question relates to whether what you are observing is working to plan. For instance, is the process currently meeting targets;
• What’s stopping you from achieving this target? – Discussing issues that the operator can see is affecting them;
• What is your next step and what do you expect? – This asks the person to pick an idea that will help make progress;
• When can we go and see it working? – Agree when to review the improvement idea to see if it worked.

Hopefully you can see that the questions you ask can be quite fluid and flexible. The key thing is to make it structured, so you walk the workplace and coach improvement, whilst supporting team members when they need it.

It’s not a “what did you do at the weekend” type of chat.

3 Components to The Management by Walking Around Method

To help improve your management approach, Peters identified three essential ingredients to conducting MBWA effectively:

• The manager must take time to walk around their teams / the organisation;
• The manager must strike up conversations;
• The manager must build networks across the business.

A manager’s time is of a premium. There are many distractions. Emails need to be answered; their team’s needs met; problems overcome. It’s easy to put that good old walkabout off until you have the time.

The reality is that communicating with your employees is one…if not, the most important thing you can do in your business.

• A study by Gartner , highlights that more informed employees outperform their colleagues by 77%;
• Forbes identifies that employees who are listened to, are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best at work.

A simple way to do this is to structure your day so you know when you will conduct a walk. For instance, if you plan to conduct 3 walks a day, schedule them into specific time slots, so it becomes a habit.

As we’ve highlighted above, MBWA doesn’t consist of aimlessly walking around and just saying “hello” to team members. Walks should be purpose driven.

The focus should always be on learning. They don’t have to be big learning points, but nevertheless, some form of reflection really helps the individual, team and the business in the long run.

These conversations can be small breakouts, coffee breaks, lunch discussions, on the job, at the coffee machine, or even in the corridor – They don’t always have to be totally formal, so try to ensure your goal is to communicate regularly in a structured way, possibly using the 3 different questioning techniques above.

The key is for you and your team members to learn more about the current situation, and for you the manager, to get an insight as to their views and ideas.

By making this process the management norm, you’ll build a habit. And the more you use it to coach and discuss things that are pertinent to each person, the more you build deeper relationships and trust.

And it deepens further as you continue to develop your management style and MBWA questioning. You engage in openness, which helps build networks and relationships.

Waterman and Peters highlight 3 key factors to get management by walking about right. They share the following:

 – Management listens Intently – An effective manager must practice and master the art of active listening . That means they listen intently and thoroughly. They understand the conversation without jumping in to dictate the conversation. They know what their employees are saying, as well as the subtle use of their body language, so they know what they really mean. Assuming that everyone is being honest is unfortunately misplaced optimism. Some people may feel nervous telling you what they really feel. Good managers know this and read body signs to get past the words to understand true meaning.

 – Management uses it as a platform to Ensure Values are Followed – This approach allows the manager to lead by example and to demonstrate the values of the business, as well as to see if people are working to these values themselves. It’s also a great opportunity to coach others to correct and improve behaviours and performance.

 – Management provides support when employees need it – If your team members need help, give it to them. This means acting there and then, not shying away from it, recording the action and then forgetting about it. This helps develop your transformation leadership skills, too. This method is largely seen as the most effective leadership style today. We’ve written a guide to help get to grips with this .

The Advantages and Disadvantages

MBWA has plenty of positives associated with its strategy. It’s a single direct way of leading your team, which maintains open dialogue and promotes honest discussions. Here are some key positives:

• It engages management in the business – It’s a great way to reduce barriers between teams and management. By engaging in regular communication, employees tend to feel less intimidated by management;
• Provides a fresh perspective on company problems and solutions – The successful Japanese companies that employ lean process techniques call this GEMBA , which means go to where the work is being done and see what actually happens. This means that it gives you an often unique perspective on real problems as you see, feel and hear them, often not seen if you were not to go to where the work is being done;
• Allows for more natural, relaxed communication – This strategy forces management to improve the way it communicates with their employees. It highlights how important good communication is throughout an organisation, and teaches the importance of active listening techniques to everyone in the business;
• Provides more information than simply sitting at a desk and reading reports – If you use the lean tools of visual management , to support this approach, it can be a very powerful problem solving tool. By walking about and challenging how things are actually working, allows managers to solve problems and develop a continuous improvement system ;
• Boosts creativity and Empowerment – The whole idea of managing by walking about is to discuss problems, challenges and ideas. The next requirement is to coach people through good questioning, to uncover ideas and actions. This means that you the manager, are not the person to take on the actions – you merely empower them to try things with your support. Job autonomy and empowerment are proven ways to increase engagement.

There are things to be mindful of, most of which are a result of a poor implementation of this program. They are:

Aimlessly Walking Around – If you don’t master this technique and use good questioning frameworks, then you are in danger of inefficiently walking around and engaging in poor dialogue that doesn’t support empowerment, problem solving, and coaching.

Can be Seen as Spying or Micro managing – Again, if implemented incorrectly and with the use of poor questioning, it can appear as though you are pointing the blame and exposing people for their errors. Checking in to see where someone is to plan and why they are not hitting their target as the only dialogue you make is risky.

Think about the human element of coaching and development.

Step 1: Pick a topic to discuss with an individual. This could be one of the following examples:

• Process improvement – look to coach an employee to make a small improvement in what they’re currently working on;
• Challenges they face or any ideas they have;
• Workplace standards – Are agreed standards working? Can they be improved? Is the person following the agreed methods?;
• Personal development – Discuss ways to help the individual grow and develop in their roles.

Step 2: Use the MBWA method to walk around your team’s workplace and ask relevant questions (based on the 3 types of questions above). Remember, when you are operating in your MBWA time slot, don’t jump into director mode. This means that you shouldn’t identify solutions. Just observe and ask questions. Encourage them to identify issues and highlight the next thing to focus on and improve.

For instance, if something’s not working as it should, don’t jump in and say, “That’s not right…” This only leads to a one-sided dictatorial conversation. MBWA is more about coaching and helping . 

Instead, ask, “What’s happening here?” Or, “Is this working as planned?”

Step 3: Agree improvement ideas. Follow the discussion on, with questions like the following:

• “What could be done differently?”
• “What’s the next thing and how will you achieve it?”
• “What help do you need from me?”
• “When can we see your idea completed and working?”
• “Notice that they are all ways to canvass feedback and empower your employee…”

Keep repeating the above steps to gain better relationships, and a more empowered and capable team – all by using the simple process of MBWA or managing by walking about .

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Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)

Management by Wandering Around: this article provides a practical explanation of Management by Wandering Around . After reading, you’ll understand the basics of this powerful management tool.

What is Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)?

In a time with so many communication methods available to us and with work environments that tend to be more and more informal, it shouldn’t be so difficult to talk to people face to face.

Nevertheless, many people are uncomfortable to approach their immediate superior verbally or to ask a colleague a question. One reason may be that the boss is unapproachable or even intimidating. But in order for management to be successful, the manager has to be aware what is going on around the company.

Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) is a management style that uses an unstructured approach and direct manager participation by managers in the work of their subordinates.

In Management by Wandering Around (MBWA), managers spend a considerable part of their day making informal visits and listening to employees. The goal of this management style is to collect information, deal with suggestions or complaints, and generally keeping track of the organisation and increasing productivity.

The term Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) was popularised in the 1980s when management consultants Tom Peters and Robert Waterman introduced the concept in their 1983 book ‘In Search of Excellence’.

It garnered further attention when William Hewlett and David Packard, founder of computer company HP , made MBWA part of the ‘HP Way’.

Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) in practice

The essence of the MBWA method is active management. MBWA is also about monitoring and building relationships. The most important practical aspects of this leadership style are explained below. These are the most important objectives for this style of management.

Wandering around

In the bustle of the working day, managers often forget doing rounds among subordinates or even postpone this activity until everyone is about to go home. That’s not the case in Management by Wandering Around (MBWA).

Managers must create an environment for themselves in which they are forced to interact with employees, and in which wandering around is an important part of their list of tasks.

Wandering around should not be done silently and aimlessly, which is a pitfall many managers fall into. The most important aspect of this leadership style is having active conversations.

These conversations can be about matters relevant to the organisation, but people’s private lives as well. The emphasis in these informal talks is on learning. Managers have to collect information in the workplace that will help them with later decision making and problem solving.

Managers who use the MBWA style are looking to create relationships and stimulate open communication. The rule is that the more communication takes place, the more effective the learning will be.

Even if a conversation doesn’t produce new information, the communication bond between the employee and employer will be strengthened.

According to the author of this method, Peters, there are three components that are part of a successful Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) style:

• Managers listen actively
• Managers use conversations and discussions to create value
• Managers are always willing to help with assistance or feedback

The value of Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)

Tom Peters’ book shows that there are a number of advantages that come from using MBWA correctly.

1. Improved communication channels

Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) ensures that the way in which people communicate within the organisation improves. Communication is the focus of the method, which is clear from managers who listen to and talk to employees in effective ways. The open style of communication helps with creating an environment based on openness.

Discussions that are held as part of this method are based on the exchange of ideas and feedback. Communication is not avoided. In fact, it’s made a central aspect of how the business is run. An improved communication style will ensure that employees feel more engaged and are more motivated in their jobs.

2. Improved employee relationships

The described open style of communication will also lead to understanding, peace of mind, and a pleasant work environment. This is something that becomes clear from the mutual relationships that employees form.

For instance, they might organise a dinner every quarter, or a company outing, or just create a positive atmosphere in general. And there is no resentment; frustrations are expressed.

These positive environmental factors strengthen loyalty. A good, productive, and effective employee is someone who an organisation always wants to hold onto.

3. Improved focus on the core

Because the manager spends so much time among his employees, he knows exactly what’s going on. This gives him a good and realistic picture of how things are going, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation.

As mentioned earlier, Management by wandering around stimulates feedback. Managers actually use this feedback in the form of ideas, tips, and suggestion.

4. Improved effectiveness

The improved relations and focus make the organisation as a whole more effective and efficient. The positive work environment stimulates motivation and managers are better able to make decisions because the decision making is supported by feedback.

This allows management to solve problems in ways that are faster, more efficient, and cost less. People don’t just rely on emails and documents, but more on face-to-face interaction. It’s faster, which means action can also be taken faster.

Downsides of Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)

As it turns out, MBWA has some downsides too. Tom Peters’ book discusses the following areas of concern.

1. Time consuming

The Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) style can take a lot of time. This is because it involves lots of actual walking and having conversations. This might cause difficulty with the calendar.

Another possibly frustrating aspect is that many of the conversations won’t necessary yield anything of value.

2. It emphasises and strengthens the voice of employees

The entire MBWA strategy is about listening to employees, but that doesn’t mean other stakeholders aren’t involved with decision making. Because of the focus on employees, there is a risk that external parties – such as customers and producers – lose their say.

3. Implementation is complex

Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) is not an easy method to implement in practice. The main danger lies in only having useless and superficial conversations and only spending time on the shop floor.

Now it’s your turn

What do you think? Are you familiar with this explanation of Management by Wandering Around (MBWA)? Have you ever used this management tool in practice? Do you have any tips or additional comments?

Share your experience and knowledge in the comments box below.

More information

• Peters, T. J. (1985). Managing by walking around. California Management Review (pre-1986), 28(000001), 9.
• Behn, R. D. (1988). Management by groping along . Journal of policy analysis and management, 7(4), 643-663.
• Robinson, L., Hutchings, D., Corner, L., Finch, T., Hughes, J., Brittain, K., & Bond, J. (2007). Balancing rights and risks: Conflicting perspectives in the management of wandering in dementia . Health, Risk & Society, 9(4), 389-406.
• Streshly, W. A., Gray, S. P., & Frase, L. E. (2012). The new school management by wandering around. Corwin Press.

How to cite this article: Janse, B. (2019). Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) . Retrieved [insert date] from Toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/management/management-by-wandering-around/

Published on: 07/18/2019 | Last update: 03/25/2022

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Ben Janse is a young professional working at ToolsHero as Content Manager. He is also an International Business student at Rotterdam Business School where he focusses on analyzing and developing management models. Thanks to his theoretical and practical knowledge, he knows how to distinguish main- and side issues and to make the essence of each article clearly visible.

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What Is Management By Wandering Around? Management By Wandering Around In A Nutshell

Management by wandering around describes a style of business management where superiors wander about the workplace at random to check on employees and the status of ongoing work. Management by wandering around (MBWA) emphasizes the word wandering to describe the way managers move around the workplace in an unplanned or unpredictable fashion. This approach is in stark contrast to more structured management approaches, where managers visit employees at systematic, scheduled, or pre-approved times.

Table of Contents

Understanding management by wandering around 

Though the approach is frequently used by political or military leaders, Hewlett-Packard was the first company to implement MBWA as a formal management technique.

In his 1995 book The HP Way , co-founder David Packard attributed the success of Hewlett-Packard to a culture where employees felt comfortable raising concerns to managers who listened attentively. 

This culture is fundamental to management by wandering around because it promotes collaborative, two-way communication and problem-solving.

In this way, MBWA is quite similar to the Gemba walks of the Toyota Production System – where managers visit work locations, observe processes, and liaise with employees to solve problems.

Whatever the moniker given, however, the strategy enables leaders to closely engage with their subordinates and model acceptable standards of behavior.

For employees, the MBWA approach helps them view their superiors as real people and not distant authority figures.

Key characteristics of management by wandering around

There are three key characteristics of the MBDA approach:

Authenticity

Like any action, management by wandering around is only effective if it is sincere.

Managers will not be able to foster relationships if their visit to a worksite is forced, hurried, or half-hearted.

The same can be said for managers who travel with an entourage, which only seeks to alienate or intimidate workers.

Employees who have become accustomed to mistreatment from management are highly adept at recognizing insincerity.

As we noted earlier, engagement of the employees is also key.

While small talk serves a purpose, the manager must use their time wisely by actively observing their workers in action and asking important follow-up questions.

They must also actively listen to employee concerns and express appreciation for the meaningful contributions they make to the company.

Inclusiveness

This means the manager makes an effort to communicate with all employees, regardless of department or whether they report to a different superior.

Inclusiveness is also linked with consistency.

For example, a regional manufacturing manager should make the effort to visit every factory under their jurisdiction and not just those that are nearby.

Strengths of management by wandering around

Approachability.

Through fear or a general belief their concerns won’t be addressed, most employees are reluctant to speak to management directly.

However, the MBWA approach creates leaders who are open, honest, and approachable.

Increased cohesiveness

Over time, two-way communication can be infectious and encourage people to work cohesively as a team.

This has significant positive implications for problem detection or avoidance and company culture.

Holistic knowledge

Hierarchical managers are often disconnected from the very people and processes that power the company.

Managers who regularly liaise with frontline workers improve their own working knowledge and understanding of the business .

Weaknesses of management by wandering around

Geographical constraints.

Managers tasked with overseeing large geographic areas may find the logistics of working with frontline employees difficult.

Time and financial constraints may also exacerbate this issue and lead to the manager neglecting other facets of their role.

Lack of insight

Some believe employees expecting a visit from management will not provide an accurate representation of reality.

While management by wandering around does facilitate meaningful conversations, the reality is many employees will refrain from providing honest feedback if it may be construed as criticizing the boss.

Reliance on subordinates

While low-level employees are the most qualified to comment on daily operations, the MBWA approach can cause some businesses to place too much importance on their input.

In the process, equally valuable customer or other stakeholder input is not taken into account.

Case Studies

• Herb Kelleher, the co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, was known for his hands-on leadership style and frequent interactions with employees.
• Kelleher would often visit Southwest’s airports and call centers, engaging in casual conversations with pilots, flight attendants, customer service agents, and other staff members.
• By practicing MBWA, Kelleher maintained a strong connection with frontline employees, listened to their feedback, and reinforced Southwest’s culture of teamwork, customer service, and fun.
• Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, was famous for his spontaneous walks around the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
• Jobs would regularly visit different departments, including design studios, engineering labs, and marketing offices, to check on ongoing projects, offer feedback, and inspire creativity.
• Through his MBWA approach, Jobs fostered a culture of innovation , collaboration, and excellence at Apple, encouraging employees to think differently and push the boundaries of technology.
• Toyota is renowned for its commitment to continuous improvement and employee involvement, which is evident in its implementation of Gemba walks, a concept similar to MBWA.
• Executives and managers at Toyota regularly visit the “Gemba,” or the actual place where work is done, to observe production processes, identify inefficiencies, and engage with frontline workers.
• By practicing Gemba walks, Toyota’s leaders gain firsthand knowledge of manufacturing operations, empower employees to contribute ideas for improvement, and drive the company’s culture of quality and efficiency.
• Howard Schultz, the former CEO and chairman of Starbucks, emphasized the importance of connection and communication with employees at all levels of the organization.
• Schultz would often visit Starbucks stores around the world, interacting with baristas, store managers, and customers to understand their experiences and gather feedback.
• Through his MBWA approach, Schultz promoted a culture of customer focus, employee empowerment, and shared success, reinforcing Starbucks’ reputation as a people-centric company.
• Richard Branson, the founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, is known for his hands-on leadership style and frequent visits to Virgin’s various businesses and offices.
• Branson engages with employees across different Virgin companies, from airlines and hotels to telecommunications and entertainment, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship, innovation , and customer service.
• Through his MBWA approach, Branson stays connected to the pulse of the organization, inspires creativity, and cultivates a sense of purpose and pride among Virgin’s workforce.
• Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, was known for his hands-on approach to management and his emphasis on visiting stores to engage with employees and customers.
• Walton would regularly travel to Walmart stores across the country, talking to associates, observing operations, and soliciting feedback.
• By practicing MBWA, Walton maintained a strong connection with frontline employees, understood market dynamics firsthand, and drove Walmart’s culture of customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
• Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos, was a strong advocate of MBWA and believed in the power of direct interaction with employees.
• Hsieh encouraged managers and executives to regularly walk around Zappos’ headquarters in Las Vegas, interacting with employees in different departments.
• Through MBWA, Hsieh promoted a culture of openness, collaboration, and employee empowerment, reinforcing Zappos’ core values of delivering exceptional customer service and fostering a fun and inclusive workplace environment.
• Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla , is known for his unconventional leadership style and his hands-on involvement in various aspects of the company’s operations.
• Musk frequently visits Tesla ’s factories, engineering facilities, and other work sites to inspect production processes, address technical challenges, and interact with employees.
• By practicing MBWA, Musk stays closely connected to Tesla ’s innovation and manufacturing efforts, inspires his team to pursue ambitious goals, and drives the company’s mission to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.
• Jim Sinegal, the co-founder and former CEO of Costco, was known for his down-to-earth leadership style and his commitment to engaging with employees at all levels of the organization.
• Sinegal often visited Costco warehouses, warehouses, and regional offices, talking to employees, listening to their ideas, and recognizing their contributions.
• Through MBWA, Sinegal fostered a culture of respect, fairness, and teamwork at Costco, emphasizing the importance of treating employees well, providing exceptional value to customers, and driving long-term success.
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, have been known to practice MBWA by regularly walking around Google’s offices, interacting with employees, and participating in informal discussions.
• Google’s leadership encourages a culture of openness, collaboration, and innovation , where employees feel empowered to share ideas and take ownership of projects.
• Through MBWA, Page and Brin have fostered a dynamic and entrepreneurial environment at Google, where creativity thrives, and employees are encouraged to experiment, iterate, and pursue ambitious goals.

Key takeaways

• Management by wandering around is a business management approach where superiors wander about the workplace at random to check on employees and the status of ongoing work
• Management by wandering around is underpinned by three key characteristics: authenticity, engagement, and inclusiveness.
• Management by wandering around increases team cohesiveness, company culture, and broadens manager knowledge. However, its effectiveness may be limited by geographical constraints and an overreliance on the opinion of low-level employees.

Key Highlights

• Management by Wandering Around (MBWA) is a management approach where leaders, including managers and executives, actively move through the workplace to observe, interact with employees, and gather insights into ongoing work.
• The primary purpose of MBWA is to foster open communication, build relationships, and gain a deeper understanding of day-to-day operations and employee concerns.
• MBWA was formalized by Hewlett-Packard as a management technique.
• Co-founder David Packard emphasized a culture where employees felt comfortable sharing concerns and ideas with managers who actively listened.
• MBWA draws inspiration from the concept of “Gemba walks” in the Toyota Production System, where managers engage with frontline workers to improve processes.
• Authenticity : MBWA’s effectiveness relies on the authenticity of interactions. Managers must genuinely engage with employees rather than perform token visits.
• Engagement : Managers use their time wisely by closely observing work processes, asking relevant questions, and actively listening to employees’ viewpoints.
• Inclusiveness : MBWA encourages managers to interact with employees across different departments, roles, and hierarchies, promoting a sense of unity and teamwork.
• Approachability : Regular interactions through MBWA make leaders more approachable and accessible to employees.
• Cohesiveness : The consistent presence of managers and their engagement efforts promote teamwork and a collaborative atmosphere.
• Holistic Knowledge : Managers gain firsthand insights into daily operations, allowing them to make informed decisions and address challenges effectively.
• Geographical Constraints : Managers overseeing multiple locations might find it logistically challenging to maintain consistent engagement.
• Lack of Insight : Some employees may hesitate to share negative feedback during a manager’s visit, leading to incomplete or overly positive insights.
• Reliance on Subordinates : Overemphasis on employee input might overlook the perspectives of other stakeholders, such as customers or external partners.
• MBWA aligns with modern leadership principles that emphasize open communication, empathy, and collaboration.
• It fits well with servant leadership , agile management, and other progressive leadership approaches.
• MBWA has a positive impact on employee morale and engagement, as employees feel valued and recognized by their superiors.
• Engaged employees are more likely to contribute creatively, stay committed to their tasks, and collaborate effectively with their peers.
• In the era of remote work, MBWA principles can be adapted to virtual environments.
• Virtual meetings, video conferences, and interactive digital platforms allow managers to maintain regular contact, provide feedback, and address concerns.
• As organizations prioritize transparency, employee engagement, and holistic understanding of operations, MBWA remains relevant.
• It contributes to building a culture of open communication, trust, and collaboration within teams.

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Management by Wandering Around (MBWA): The Complete Guide

Lumiform / Guides / Management by Wandering Around (MBWA): The Complete Guide

What Is MBWA?

Popularized by management guru Tom Peters , Management by Walking Around or MBWA is a more personal management style that allows a manager to interact with employees and get real-time feedback on how the business is doing. Using MBWA in workplace checklists is also a great way for managers to make sure that their employees are compliant, motivated, productive, and fulfilled in all areas, suggest the experts from Harvard Business Review .

THE PURPOSE: How Does MBWA Benefit Me?

At its core, an MBWA benefits company owners, managers, and employees because it’s created:

For Employees

• To encourage communication between management and employees —a key element of any healthy workplace culture. MBWA helps gather more accurate information from employees, and the manager can also answer questions for the employee, giving them feedback on how they are doing.
• To feel more included in the workplace and develop more trust in their managers, who will be seen as more approachable and less intimidating. Employees will feel like they’re more valued when their manager takes time out of his or her day to talk with them one-on-one.

For Managers

• To improve productivity by addressing issues before they become problems that cause employee turnover (and cost managers’ reputation). This way, managers can get valuable insight into how they can improve processes and workflow within each department.
• To understand what’s happening in the trenches on a day-to-day basis and how they can best support their teams’ efforts for them to succeed. Employees can then get a better idea of how things are working and improve morale by making sure everyone has a voice in the process and feels heard .

For Employers/Business Owners

• To collect feedback from employees and managers about how they feel about their current position. This is to know if there are any changes that need to be made within the organization—and then act accordingly. This assessment can then help you track progress towards goals and objectives.

In this guide, you will learn:

1. How to manage by walking around: A step by step guide

2. The best use cases for an MBWA

3. The difference between MBWA vs. Gemba Walk

4. The pros and cons of an MBWA

5. The 7 clever tips and best practices to optimize your MBWA strategy

Recommended Pages

• Kaizen Tools & Checklist for Continous Improvement
• Problem solving with an A3 report checklist
• Gemba Walk Checklist For Continuous Improvement
• Quality Control Software for Manufacturing

STEP BY STEP: How Do I Manage By Walking Around?

Management by walking around is an established method of management that focuses on face-to-face interaction with employees. It has been around for decades, but its popularity has increased in recent years because it helps managers learn about their employees’ needs in a more effective and closer way. But how do you actually develop MWBA strategies for improving productivity ?

Step 1: Start by identifying your priorities

The first step in doing MBWA is to make sure you know what’s important to you and your business. This could include increasing sales or improving customer service scores — whatever the objective, make sure it aligns with your overall goals as a company or department head. The idea behind this vital step is to give managers an urgent view of how to build relationships with their employees—something that isn’t always possible when you’re sitting at your desk all day.

Once you have identified what you want to focus on, make sure these goals are clearly defined, articulated, and sequenced in written form. This is for everyone to know in concrete terms what they are working toward every day. If someone does not know what they are supposed to be doing, they probably won’t do anything at all. Then you will have wasted valuable time and resources on the walk that could have been better spent elsewhere.

To do this, start with the end in mind. Ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish? What is the best way to accomplish it? Where am I going? Where are my employees going? And how do we get there together, step by step?”

Step 2: Know your audience and share your vision with them

Make sure everyone knows your vision and mission, especially the human resources managers. You need to know who you are talking to and what they care about so you can tailor the message. Find out what your employees think about the company and their work environment . This way, you can identify potential issues with team members before they become big problems since they already know the vision that the employers have set for their work.

Step 3: Start the walk

This is the time to start walking around and observing what is going on in your business or department. Make notes about what you see and hear as well as any ideas that come up during your walkabout that can be used to improve things for everyone involved.

During the walk, ask questions both about their work and things that are important to them – like compensation, career growth, day-to-day responsibilities, and more. Be sure to ask about things that you can improve upon as a manager. It’s also important to aim to build relationships with the employees by asking them about things outside of work (i.e., hobbies, interests, etc.) to connect with them as people.

Step 4: Listen to what people say, even if it’s not directly related to their job description

When listening, don’t forget to take notes as you go along so you can follow up with your employees on any concerns they have raised during your MBWA session. If possible, schedule one on one meetings with each of your employees at least once a month. Doing so can help employees see the big picture of the organization and increase their engagement, which helps them feel more motivated and invested in their jobs.

Step 5: Ask questions about what you’ve heard

Make adjustments based on what you learned during step 3 above and repeat steps 1-3 until you have completed all of your objectives for this round of MBWA (or until someone tells you that they don’t need the audit anymore). Ask questions about what they are working on and how it is going in order to learn more about their roles within your organization.

This is an important step because it will help you see where your company needs improvement or change to avoid bottlenecks and non-compliance penalties. This is the only way to know if things aren’t going so well and to help get rid of office politics. This is vital in letting the workforce see what your company looks like from the perspective of an employee, which allows you to make changes that will improve operations and overall job satisfaction.

What Is Meant by Management by Exception?

Management by exception means looking beyond the desired amounts or expectations. This implies taking action when an employee goes above and beyond what is expected of them.

If an employee has an above-normal issue with something, this strategy lets the manager know right away instead of waiting until later in the day when they sit down at their desk. This helps prevent issues from snowballing into bigger problems down the road.

For example, if your manager tells you that you need to hit 10 sales this month and you hit 5 or 15 sales instead, your manager would be conducting a follow-up meeting to see what you did differently this month. Management by exception, therefore, is a management style that focuses on results that are out of the ordinary, bad or good. It involves looking at what’s going right or wrong in a business first and only taking action in that context.

If you want to achieve good results, then you need to differentiate the analysis between the average and the exceptions and design the preventive measures in that context.

Is MBWA Effective?

Management by wandering around (MBWA) is effective as a management style where managers get out into the trenches and work with their team members. This is an effective way to lead because it helps you to understand what your employees are working on and how they feel about their work. It also helps managers to gain insights into what motivates their employees and what doesn’t.

MBWA is an effective way for managers to get feedback from their employees, who may have insights into processes or problems that are hard to see from an executive level. On the other hand, sometimes managers don’t know enough about what goes on at ground level either . MBWA allows them to connect with employees and get this crucial feedback.

USE CASES: Where Can I Best Use an MBWA?

These are the major industries where the use of an MBWA can have excellent results:

• Cleaning Services
• Construction
• Facility Management
• Food & Hospitality
• Health Services
• Horticultural
• Manufacturing
• Pharmacy & Chemistry
• Professional Services
• Project Management
• Real Estate
• Transport & Logistic

Which Tool Loosely Translates to Management by Wandering?

MBWA is a management style in which managers are expected to make unannounced visits to subordinates and observe, remedy, and improve work processes. This means that any manual or automatic tool that does this in the workplace can be the tool that loosely translates to an MBWA, especially if it helps foster an open communication between managers and employees.

THE DIFFERENCE: MBWA vs. Gemba

The short answer is that they are two different approaches to management and leadership, but they both have their place in any organization.

MBWA (Management By Walking Around) is a more people-oriented approach to management and leadership. It involves a manager or leader talking directly to the employeee that they manage, and having regular conversations with them about how things are going.

The idea behind it is that by talking to your team members face-to-face, you will get a much better understanding of what they’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing. This can help you to solve problems more quickly because you can see them firsthand rather than from afar.

A Gemba Walk is a far more structured approach for optimizing the systems, not the people. This is where you go out on-site with your team members and talk about the work that needs doing, not just what’s gone wrong. You’ll be able to see how processes are working firsthand, rather than assessing the people doing them.

If you are interested in learning more about Gemba Walk , we recommend you visit our guide. It includes an implementation checklist and practical examples.

Pros and Cons of Management by Walking Around

As elaborated above, there are many benefits to the practice of management by walking around. The major benefit is to help managers build trust and foster relationships with their teams, which in turn makes employees more productive and loyal.

However, there are also some drawbacks. Managers who walk around too often can lose credibility with their team members and can even be seen as micromanaging . Here are more pros and cons that managers, employees, and business owners must not dismiss:

Pros of MBWA

• It helps reduce employee turnover. When managers are constantly walking around, they have more chances to interact with employees and understand their needs, which makes them feel more appreciated and valued. This can also help prevent burnout among employees who might be feeling stressed or overwhelmed at any given moment during the day.
• It strengthens the vital feedback dynamics. This is one of the advantages of management wandering around that can result in getting better feedback on how your work is doing from your manager while they are visiting you at your job site, which can help improve productivity. By spending more time with employees, you can also build relationships, which will help them trust you and feel comfortable coming to you with problems or issues.

Cons of MBWA

• It can be complex because it may require a lot of training for managers and employees alike. This training is needed to help employees understand what the strategy means for them personally, as well as how it affects other members of their team or department.

What Are Supervisors’ Primary Goals When They Practice Management by Wandering Around?

Supervisors’ primary goal when they practice MBWA is to increase employee satisfaction and morale while reducing stress. This method helps supervisors develop closer relationships with their employees and creates a better systematic rapport between managers and employees.

For a more comprehensive study on this, read this Harvard Business School analysis.

7 Tips and Best Practices to Optimize Your MBWA Strategy

You’re probably thinking: “How hard can MBWA be when it’s just a manager walking around? After all, if you’re working in any industry, it’s likely that you’re very familiar with the ins and outs of your company’s workflows.

That might be true, but the problem is that it’s easy to get complacent. To avoid the costly mistakes in complacency and faulty execution of an MBWA, here are some dos and don’ts, safety tips, and best practices for quality managers and employees to follow:

Make sure everyone knows the rules of engagement and what to achieve from this activity before you start doing it. If you don’t have clear goals, it’s likely that your MBWA activities will be ineffective and may even harm your company’s performance in the long run.

• Be open-minded, empathetic, and approachable during audits . Don’t judge behaviors or actions harshly according to what you think they should be doing. It’s best to leave the judgment later based on the company’s values & beliefs. This only builds walls between you and them which in turn limits the flow of information from both ends & creates a negative direction, which then drops productivity levels over time.
• Identify problems before they become challenges through proactive listening. This helps users feel heard which in turn helps build trust within the relationship and makes them more likely to work the extra mile. To help you do this, use the right tools and technologies, such as a simple but powerful checklist maker or software that resolves bottlenecks in a snap because it’s accessible anywhere, anytime.
• Be consistent in your efforts and show up regularly. If you want employees to know that you mean business, then you need to make sure that you do the MBWA regularly. You should do it at least once a week, but randomize the time so they don’t prepare for it. This will encourage them to show their best but natural behavior; help create an objective list of questions beforehand; and allow you to follow up on them later.
• Choose the right time and place. MBWA isn’t just about scheduling time for random chats with employees; it’s about creating an environment where people are comfortable talking about what matters most to them at that moment in time. So choose when and where you’ll be walking around carefully — don’t go into a meeting unannounced or interrupt someone who’s clearly busy with something else. And remember that different industries have different cultures when it comes to MBWA styles.
• Focus on success, not failures. When you’re talking with your team members, ask them about their goals and how you can help achieve them. This will help them feel heard, which will make it easier for them to open up about their struggles and successes in the future.

In a nutshell

The MBWA approach is not a new one, but it’s still relevant. The reason for this is simple: people are still the most important asset of any company .

The only way to ensure that your company keeps growing and succeeding is to foster an environment where everyone feels like they’re valued and can grow. This means making sure that you have the right people in place at all levels of your company, and that those people are given opportunities to make decisions and take ownership over their work. This will all be done more productively with an MBWA.

Bruno Paneiva

Bruno, who received his journalism degree in Madrid (UCM), is specialized in objective information after working for international news agencies. He is also dedicated to photography, literary writing and communication consulting among many interests. In addition, these include his passion for the “industrial world” and production philosophies, portrayed in his articles in Lumiform.

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MBWA: Management By Walking Around

It has become common to communicate digitally even when a team is working from the same office or campus. For…

It has become common to communicate digitally even when a team is working from the same office or campus.

For instance, your manager may send an email to the team with instructions and suggestions. In such situations, usually, the follow-up conversations also take place on emails or phone calls. As most conversations take place in such a manner, you end up spotting your manager only in the elevator, the lobby or behind his glass cabin.

Regular and in-person discussions are becoming increasingly rare in offices. However, this form of management misses out on an important element: the human touch.

MBWA: Management By Walking Around Concept

While communication with managers is becoming rare in many areas, in others such as production areas, workshops, and at construction sites, the story is different. It is not unusual to see managers walk around such work areas and talk to the staff face-to-face at their workstations. But personal interaction can play an important role in every workplace or work area. ( https://emdrprofessionaltraining.com )

The concept of ‘management by wandering around’ was popularized by management expert Tom Peters. According to Peters, good managers share a strong bond and communication with their teams. Their interactions are not only at the professional level, but also at an informal personal level. For instance, interacting with your manager during a coffee break may be more informal and personal in nature.

As the MBWA meaning explains, by walking around, the managers are able to listen to their team members and discuss their problems, ideas, or concerns in an informal setting as opposed to the formal environment of the meeting rooms or cabins.

Management by Walking Around

MBWA or management by wandering around enables interaction with subordinates at the latters’ workstations, which creates the impression that the management is standing by the team members.

There are three key components to MBWA management concept:

1. Walking around the workplace

2. Talking to employees

3. Creating personal networks

A crucial aspect of management by walking around has to be the spontaneity and genuineness on the part of the managers. It shouldn’t come across as aimless or superfluous. The manager has to make the rounds of the area where the immediate subordinates work.

MBWA meaning plays out when the management doesn’t just say ‘hi’ or ‘good morning’ to team members, but when there is genuine interaction between the manager and the subordinates. The conversations have to be sensible yet informal and appropriately personal. For instance, it might be about the health of an employee who recently took leave due to an illness or his hobbies or interests. Such interactions help build rapport .

MBWA revolves around the manager’s ability to keep his ears to the ground and stay strongly connected to his team members, their thoughts and actions.

It is these rounds of management by wandering around, which include meaningful conversations, that can create a manager’s network within a firm. Such conversations should create greater understanding and a healthy relationship between the manager and the employees.

More often than not, just one round of walk doesn’t serve the purpose. MBWA has to be a consistent management approach as businesses are dynamic and new situations and challenges arise every now and then. Sporadic walks would make the efforts of management by wandering around ineffective.

Peter wrote a famous book on management by walking around in which he outlined three key components of MBWA.

According to him, MBWA management yields the desired results only when these three key components are present in the walks:

1. manager’s ability to listen: .

You won’t be able to reap the benefits of MBWA by simply walking around and talking about whatever you feel like. You also need to listen to your subordinates and understand the undercurrents or signals through observation. The idea is to open up a communication channel that is open, honest and supportive.

2. The power of discussion:

Management by walking around gives you an opportunity to make your subordinates better understand their goals, and the company’s objectives and vision.

3. Readiness to provide on-the-spot support: 

The efficacy of MBWA management lies not only in listening to your subordinates’ challenges but also in showing readiness to provide support on the spot. Such an attitude will convey that the management doesn’t take the employees’ problems casually, but is genuinely interested in swiftly solving them.

In the digital world of the 21st century, communication has become easier due to the availability of multiple channels. Yet the most effective form of communication remains face-to-face interaction. MBWA focuses on this aspect of human communication. Even though MBWA management is not a novel concept, detailed ideas and practices about it are not well-known.

Now that you’ve the meaning of MBWA you can leverage the concept to become an effective manager. Harappa Education’s Managing Teamwork course familiarizes learners with several high-impact management techniques to build strong teams at work.

Explore topics such as How to Manage Crisis , Types of Power & McClelland’s Theory of Needs from our Harappa Diaries section in order to build trust-rich relationships at work.

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Management By Wandering Around

In this article:

Outside of scheduled meetings, how often do you speak to your manager? Similarly, outside of scheduled meetings how often do you speak individually with the members of your team? Do these interactions happen daily, weekly, or maybe only every now and again? One technique you can use to connect with your team and remain top-of-mind is Management by Wandering Around (MBWA), also called Management by Walking Around.

Overview of MBWA

Management by Walking Around is a style of management whereby managers walk the office floor to talk to their employees, ask questions, and resolve issues where necessary.

It allows a manager to model the behaviors they expect to see from others and remain engaged with their team and the front line of their organization.

From a team’s perspective, it enables them to be more connected to their manager, raise concerns and issues, and make suggestions to improve how things are done. It brings the manager to the team rather than waiting for the team to approach the manager. It makes the manager seem like a person as opposed to a distant figure.

If you wait for people to come to you, you’ll only get small problems. You must go and find them. The big problems are where people don’t realize they have one in the first place.

W. edwards deming.

MBWA might sound like a fancy term for something simple (walking around the office), but it is actually a very deliberate strategy enabling a manager to engage closely with employees, learn about the issues and concerns they might have, and model the behavior they expect to see in them.

MBWA requires personal involvement, that you develop good listening skills, that you develop your referent power (a fancy way of describing leading by example), and the ability to give appropriate praise and recognition (reward power). It will only work if you are genuinely interested in your subordinates and the work they are doing.

History of MBWA

Management by Walking Around was practiced at Hewlett Packard during the 1970’s. In the 1980’s the method was popularized by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman in their book, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies.

In the book, Peters and Waterman asserted that it was no accident that the most successful companies had managers that spent more time engaging with their team and the company’s customers, than the alternative of being confined to their office all of the time.

The Relevance of MBWA Today

Business today is very different from that of the 1970’s, and even very different from that of the 1980’s. These days a huge proportion of business is done using email, telephone calls, and conference calls.

This communication could occur from satellite offices, home offices, airport lounges, hotel rooms, and even from the back of a taxi, amongst others.

In today’s world, although walking the office floor in person is always preferable, where that isn’t possible then you can still practice MBWA by calling members of your team regularly at unplanned times and with no agenda, showing appreciation and recognition of individual team members when on conference calls, and sharing what you’ve been up to with your team.

In many companies, close encounters between senior executives and more junior staff are a very rare occurrence.

How to Use MBWA

If you’d like to start using Management by Walking Around then here are a number of tips which can help you to do it right:

• Don’t leave MBWA to chance and undertake it in an ad-hoc fashion, but instead make a plan for it, and preferably do it daily.
• It is your responsibility to strike up conversations, don’t just wander around the office hoping someone speaks to you.
• Share any good news that you have as well as what you’ve been up to. Invite others to share any good news they have.
• Build rapport by talking about your family, friends, vacations, and hobbies. Invite others to share similar information if they desire.
• In general, you should be listening more than you talk. Whilst doing this it is important to listen without judgment. You don’t want to be seen as a senior manager doing an inspection, but more as a peer or coach engaging in a dialogue about how things are going and how to improve things.
• Practice active listening, recapping what you’re being told and using questions to dig deeper.
• Practice MBWA on your own, don’t bring your entourage or secretary with you. This is your chance to connect with your staff.
• Keep your eyes and ears open for employees doing something right. Make a point to praise them publicly in front of their peers when you observe this.
• Invite people to share ideas to improve what they do or things in general, including the products and services offered by the company.
• Treat it as an opportunity not just to learn, but also as an opportunity for you to model the behavior you expect to see, and an opportunity to share and model company values.
• If you have a cafeteria, then use it to have lunch with employees. If you don’t have a cafeteria, then invite an employee to go for lunch with you.
• Most of all, don’t overdo it (make people feel scrutinized) and make it fun. If you can keep these two points in mind then people will share more information with you and you’ll enjoy the process more too.

If you have satellite offices, then you might want to consider also doing the following:

• If you are responsible for off-site offices, then plan to visit these offices into your schedule. If you’re unable to attend your satellite offices then at least make calls to people in that office regularly.
• If you are visiting a satellite facility, make a point to engage with individual employees and avoid the trap of just spending time with managers or your direct reports at the facility.

Finally, if you are CEO or lead a team of senior managers, then it is useful to:

• Make Management by Walking Around part of everyone’s performance targets and part of how their bonus is calculated.

Advantages of MBWA

There are a vast array of advantages to using Management by Wandering Around, including:

• Makes you more approachable: once your employees get used to you walking around regularly, they’ll be more likely to see you more as a peer than a superior and be more likely to share successes and issues with you.
• Builds trust: talking to employees regularly without making judgment leads to increased trust.
• Encourages staff to hit goals: building relationships based on the sharing of issues can encourage staff to want to hit both individual and organizational goals.
• Increases motivation: because you’re taking an interest in your people, your staff feel less like unvalued numbers on a spreadsheet, and more like valued members of the team, which can obviously increase motivation.
• Makes work less formal and more friendly: which can boost morale, because people share information in an informal and friendly way. This less formal, more friendly, and approachable workplace, can also lead to reduced unnecessary stress amongst staff.
• Your knowledge will increase: you’ll develop your understanding of how different parts of the organization work, and learn different people’s opinion about how what you do can be improved.

Disadvantages of MBWA

If done right then Management by Walking Around can be very effective, however, there are a number of dangers to watch out for:

• It’s a time-consuming strategy: it obviously takes a significant amount of time to walk around the office taking time away from other tasks. This can be exaggerated by the fact that not every conversation is going to lead to a benefit. Because of this, MBWA is not suitable in every business situation, such as when an organization is under threat of closure, and the focus needs to be on execution rather than discussion and debate.
• It emphasizes the importance of employee opinion: this can, of course, be useful, but it is important not to let it take you away from other inputs to decision making, such as industry trends and what your competitors are doing.
• The manager can inadvertently influence staff decisions: for example, if staff had identified 2 potential suppliers and then the manager suggests a third, there is a danger staff will assess the third supplier to be the preferred supplier to win favor with the manager. Be careful with what you say to avoid this happening.
• Implementation is key: it’s important not just to learn information as you wander around, you need to act on it.
• Employees can feel under a microscope: if you don’t strike the right balance, staff can feel as though they are under surveillance.
• It can’t be benchmarked: there is no system in existence which can benchmark and measure the value of MBWA.

MBWA Examples

Two famous examples of Management by Walking Around are:

• Howard Schultz , founder of Starbucks, would visit 25 stores per week to learn what was happening at the coalface, and reinforce the values of the company.
• Andy Pearson, as President of PepsiCo, would regularly sit down with a junior brand manager at random, to discover what was happening in their world, and get unfiltered data as to what was going on in the company.

Management By Walking Around Summary

Management by Walking Around may seem like a management technique that is almost too simple to learn about, but to do it right it must be done in a planned and deliberate manner to generate the multiple benefits it offers. The main downside is that it takes time to establish good informal relationships with your staff so that they talk to you openly, and that it is very time-consuming to implement.

Cite this article

Minute Tools Content Team, Management By Wandering Around, Minute Tools, Jun, 2017 https://expertprogrammanagement.com/2017/06/management-by-wandering-around/

Originally hailing from Dublin, Denis has always been interested in all things business and started EPM in 2009. Before EPM, Denis held a leadership position at Nokia, owned a sports statistics business, and was a member of the PMI's (Project Management Institute’s) Global Executive Council for two years. Denis now spends his days helping others understand complex business topics.

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“Management By Walking Around” vs. “Gemba Walks”

It's important not to confuse a proper Lean “ gemba walk ” with the idea of “ management by walking around ” (MBWA).  What did the late, great Dr. W. Edwards Deming say in 1982?

‘Management by walking around' is hardly ever effective. The reason is that someone in management, walking around, has little idea about what questions to ask, and usually does not pause long enough at any spot to get the right answer.” -W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

In the last manufacturing company I worked for, one of the production managers was very proud of how he would start each day by flying through and shaking hands with each of his employees. I guess this was well intended, but he was always in such a rush, he never paused in one spot very long. This was classic MBWA. He had about 30 employees to greet. This company had stripped out a layer of supervisors in the misguided idea that they were “non value added.” This poor guy couldn't manage 30 people effectively, no matter how hard he tried. That wasn't his fault. It was a structural problem.

In their attempts to “be Lean,” I guess they never studied the Toyota model where there's a working team leader for every 5 to 8 employees and a group leader for every few team leaders. They had stripped out the team leader type level, so of course things weren't managed properly and there wasn't any continuous improvement, other than the changes I could push as an internal Lean person. This was a bad model and I was glad I got out of that company.

What are your lessons learned about effective gemba walks? What would you hope your organization's leaders do to make a gemba walk an effective exercise… not just calorie-burning exercise?

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11 comments.

There’s a lot that goes into effective gemba walks. Joe Murli put the pieces together very nicely in his webinar “Integrating Visual Management & Management Standard Work” (link to the LEI webinar archive – I highly recommend taking the 45 min to view this).

What’s the difference from “Management By Walking Around”? Murli’s slide in which the “walking” MBWA manager says “I wish I had my reports with me!” captures a critical element. In the lean workplace the visual evidence of what should be happening and what is actually happening is ever-present, so a walk can be an effective tool.

The videos of ThedaCare from Fox that you’ve linked to in the past display this nicely in a healthcare setting. Standard presentations of condition, metrics, progress, etc., are visible in the working unit. Actual and physical, not virtual. The manager can walk in, see the reported condition, look around and see the actual condition at that moment, and engage unit staff in a meaningful conversation.

You can view the ThedaCare videos here:

http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=thedacare&mediatype=Video

Great points Mark! You would be surprised at how much “waste” one can find by not only taking a proper gemba walk, but to also take time to stop at one point and just be still. Operators think its funny when they see me out on the production floor just staring for long periods of time, but the benefits are endless!

Mark, My organization is starting a pilot unit to demonstrate the possibilities for lean. Before an outsider can visit the unit they will have to take a brief and simple assessment training where they will learn appropriate questions to ask. The obvious purpose is to sharpen the visitor’s ability to see on the model unit but the secondary motivation is for them to see differently when they go back to their home. For similar reasons we are providing the assessment training to a group of nurses and nurse leaders prior to their visit to a hospital more advanced in their lean journey.

Thanks for sharing, Bart. I love the idea of a “pilot unit” rather than trying to “make the whole hospital lean.” Start small, have success, and get others to come and see… an on-site site visit. I remember talking about this before and I’m glad you are still using that strategy… and the idea of learning what questions to ask is brilliant.

Very well put. Explaining the practices that make the actions successful rather than the terms used. I have no problem criticizing management practices – I am probably on the far end of the critical spectrum. But I do get annoyed at the “x practice” (from some overall management system I don’t like is bad) and “y practice” is good.

I think failure to execute well is often much more than 50% of the problem. Some practices are so bad that doing them at all is almost certainly a mistake. Many other practices are fine depending on how you do them.

MBWA is useless and worse, harmful, if done in some cursory manner. Your explanation of why gemba walks work is the key. If someone wanted to adopt those ideas in their MBWA program that would be fine. That wouldn’t be great, because you lose out, if you fail to tie management ideas to their surrounding management system. http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2011/04/18/problems-with-management-and-business-books/

Thanks, John. You’re right that it’s the use of the method (or lack thereof) that is the problem.

Having physical printed checklists don’t mean squat if they aren’t being used.

Daily team huddles are a waste of time if there’s no good discussion or if they are 30 seconds long just to be able to check the box to say “yeah, we had a huddle today.”

All great comments here. Patrick’s comment about operators thinking it is funny to see him staring for a long time is something I have experienced often. Most recently, I spent a shift and a half observing a welding and assembly cell. The individual who hired me asked what I observed and why I spent as much time as I did. When I gave him a summary of the insight I gained, he commented that he needs more people willing invest the time on Gemba.

During one of my Gemba walks, an operator who was not familiar with what I was working on and why, asked me “what the f— do you do here and what is your job title. How can I get your job?”

This past weekend, I spent time listening to a Jesuit Priest / Zen Buddist Roshi talk about the parallels and intersections of those two distinct belief systems. In my mind, I kept coming back to Lean and Gemba walks.

Look, don’t see. Listen, don’t hear.

Yeah, Chris, standing to observe a process can look an awful lot like standing around and doing nothing!

[…] “Management By Walking Around” vs. “Gemba Walks” by Mark Graban – “Study the Toyota model. Read Norman Bodek’s article. Read Quint Studer’s work on “rounding for outcomes” (a great thing to read whether you are in healthcare or not). Studer emphasizes stopping to truly engage with employees, not just slapping them on the back. Bonus – read Jamie Flinchbaugh’s IndustryWeek piece on effective gemba walks.” […]

Hi, Management by walking is for hospital maintenance or different from that. some many software is developed for hospital management system and health care software for hospital , By this software hospital getting usefull.

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