QUOTATION 54

ROSABETH MOSS KANTER ON WHY THE BEST INFORMATION DOES NOT RESIDE IN EXECUTIVE OFFICES

Use this to encourage you to get out of the office and talk to people.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b. 1943) is a professor of business at the Harvard Business School, an expert in change management and a highly successful writer on management. She is a supporter of management by walking about (MBWA) as a means by which executives can keep in touch with what is happening on the shop floor.

People who are making decisions about the future often don’t have access to some of the best ideas in the company, which may be at the periphery or at lower levels [of the organisation].

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

WHAT TO DO

  • Schedule time every week to get out of your office and undertake a bit of management by walking about (MBWA). How long you spend on your walk will depend on your seniority. Junior and middle managers are near the front line and usually have a good knowledge of what’s going on. Senior managers, executives and board members are usually too remote to know. It’s the latter group that needs to indulge in MBWA.
  • Vary the day, time and locations you visit, otherwise people will prepare for the visit, which is not what you want. You want an informal chat with staff, not a scheduled meeting.
  • For every walk, identify a purpose, e.g. how do staff feel about the latest restructuring? However, be prepared to change it if someone raises an issue with you. Your aim is to listen to the staff’s view and concerns and not collect data on the concerns you think they should have.
  • Your overall aim is always the same: to discover what people feel and think about what’s going on in the organisation and how it has affected their relationships with other staff, departments, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders.
  • Listen to what people say. Don’t tell them what you think. Use your eyes to see how different sections, teams and departments behave and interact. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open.
  • Hold meetings sparingly but, when you do, use them to deal with the issues under consideration and as an opportunity to collect other information also, e.g. which people/departments have formed alliances and why? Which manager is at war with a colleague and why? Who is listened to in the meeting and who is ignored? Where does the power reside in the room?
  • When talking with staff and other managers informally, listen to what they say. Don’t sit there only half listening, planning your wonderful response to what’s been said. You learn nothing new when you are doing the talking.
  • As you wander around, either make a mental note or jot down anything that strikes you as interesting, unusual, good, bad, worthy of further investigation or strange practices (both good and bad) that you come across.
  • Keep a note of the really important stuff that you hear and see and work it into your list of targets and objectives (see Quotation 68).
  • Watch Clint Eastwood’s hugely entertaining movie Trouble with the Curve to see the value of listening to front-line staff.

QUESTIONS TO ASK

  • When was the last time that I walked the job?
  • How do I know what junior managers, supervisors and staff are thinking and doing?
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