Getting In Touch With Your Employees, Customers, and Suppliers By: Vadim KotelnikovVadim Kotelnikov Founder, Ten3 Business e-Coach – Inspiration and Innovation Unlimited!Ten3 Business e-CoachInspiration Innovation

"Find a kindred spirit in the chain of command and you can reduce the most gigantic and daunting bureaucracies down to your size." ~ Mark McCormack

Problem Addressed Main managerial productivity problem of many schools is that school managers are remote from the detail, out of touch with their teachers and staff and their pupils/students. As W. Edwards Deming, an American who introduced the idea of quality management to the Japanese, put it: "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."quality managementproblems

Problem Classification: 4 Types of Problems Problem Classification: 4 Types of Problems The same problem solving approach: Think and act positively

Problem Solving Strategies: 4 Levels Problem Solving Strategies: 4 Levels "Problems give you a chance to use your brains." ~ Hiroyuki HiranoHiroyuki Hirano

Main Benefits MBWA is an informal top management practice. It makes the entire workplace less formal. MBWA frequently goes together with an open-door management policy.top management

Tom Peters, the guru of Excellence, saw "managing by wandering around" as the basis of leadership and excellence. Peters called MBWA the "technology of obvious".leadership

What Leaders and Managers Should Do They should be listening to what people are saying.listening They should be using the opportunity to transmit the school’s vision, mission and goals face to face. They should be prepared and able to give people on-the-spot help.

MBWA Practices Managers consistently reserving time to walk through their departments and/or to be available for impromptu discussions. Individuals forming networks of acquaintances throughout their organizations

Lots of opportunities for chatting over coffee or lunch, or in the corridors. Managers getting away from their desks and starting to talk to individual employees. The idea is that they should learn about problems and concerns at first hand. At the same time they should teach employees new methods to manage particular problems. The communication goes both ways.teach employees

Seven MBWA Principles By: Tom Peters 1. Publicize the fact that you are out wandering 50% of the time, and that your colleagues are as well (if you and they are). 2. Be meticulous in having meetings in others' offices/spaces rather than yours. 3. Evaluate managers in part – and directly – on the basis of their people's assessment of how well/how frequently they are in touch. 4. Fire a supervisor who doesn't know all his people's first and last names.

5. Hold meetings and reviews in the field.meetings 6. Start randomly popping into offices and asking the inhabitants why they aren't out. 7. If you are a manufacturing, or an R&D boss, etc., make sure you have a second office in the workplace.

Case Study - Hewlett-Packard David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, defined himself as a HP man first and a CEO second. He was a man of the people, practicing management by walking around. Packard is quoted as saying: “You shouldn't gloat about anything you've done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do.” At Hewlett-Packard, where the MBWA theory was practiced, executives were encouraged to be out of their offices working on building relationships, motivating, and keeping direct touch with the activities of the company. The practice of MBWA at all levels of the company reflects a commitment to keep up to date with individuals and activities through impromptu discussions, "coffee talks", communication lunches, and the like.building relationshipsmotivating

Case in Point Dell Inc. "You can't possibly make the best or quickest decisions without data," says Michael Dell, the Founder of Dell Computers. 6 "Information is the key to any competitive advantage. But data doesn't just drop by your office to pay you a visit. You've got to go out and gather it.quickest decisionsMichael DellDell Computerscompetitive advantage "I do it by roaming around. I don't want my interactions planned; I want anecdotal feedback. I want to hear spontaneous remarks."feedback

References: "Guide to Management Ideas", by Tim Hindle "Built to Last", by Collins, J. and Porras, J. "Roads to Success", by Robert Heller "In Search of Excellence", by Tom Peters "Relentless Growth", Christopher Meyer "Direct from Dell", Michael Dell with Catherine Fredman SMART Executive, Vadim Kotelnikov SMART ExecutiveVadim Kotelnikov New Management Model, Vadim Kotelnikov New Management ModelVadim Kotelnikov 12 Leadership Roles, Vadim Kotelnikov 12 Leadership Roles 25 Lessons from Jack Welch, Vadim Kotelnikov 25 Lessons from Jack Welch