Technique: Manage by Walking Around
and Listening

MBWAL helps give you a richer view of your team’s work. You’ll be able to see and hear how people are working, including their moods and morale. MBWAL also gives you a chance to talk to people informally.

Guidelines

• Tell people you’re going to leave your office and circulate. Let them know that you’ll be asking them questions.

• Leave your office and walk around. Aim for once or twice a week. Daily is great, but we’ve never met a manager who had the time every day to wander. How long you spend mingling depends. Five minutes is probably not enough. An hour is probably too much.

• Listen to the current conversations.

• Don’t interrupt people who are on the phone or who seem to be working intently. One thing we’ve done is use do-not-disturb signs or red/green flags for people who don’t want to be disturbed. This works for other people as well as for you.

• Take your notebook to record action items. As you circulate, people will ask you questions. Record your action items, and let people know when you’ll have an update. Be careful about walking around silently taking notes. That looks like spying.

• Notice what people ask you. Their questions are a clue about their concerns. It shows you areas where people don’t know how to obtain information for themselves or where your communication may be weak.