Management by Walking Around with Sam Walton

We have all seen the new manager who makes it a habit to make regular visits throughout their area to visit with staff and to fly the flag. This is often called, “management by walking around.”

How long does that last? If you have a good manager, it continues. If not, they become too busy. Or cannot be bothered. Or realize that they have not bothered to build relationships and now feel unwelcome in their own organization. How would you feel, not being welcome within your own organization?

Many years ago, I interviewed a sheriff about being the executive of the department. He had law enforcement experience, but not in this department.

Every shift of this department began with a roll call in the basement where the patrol deputies worked out of. To meet his deputies, the sheriff decided he would go to roll call. The first day he went to the basement, everyone in the muster room became quiet.

This told the new sheriff everything he needed to know about the relationship of the previous sheriff with his deputies. The new sheriff realized he had to change all that.

If you receive the cold shoulder in your organization, you don’t change that by staying away. If bother to spend time in your areas and build relationships, you would be very welcome.

I was working with an organization where staff tensions were high. Staff felt that executives were not listening to their concerns. The staff had long held this belief and now the organization was in the middle of a drawn out emergency.

I was employing management by walking around. I was away from my computer, talking to staff. I was gauging the tone. Learning about staff concerns. Trying to find out what problems they needed solved. I was working on the pinch of the pinch crunch model.

The executive did not want me to do that. He felt it was unnecessary. For him, management by walking around had nothing to do with listening and everything to do with giving orders. He missed the impact his actions were having on his staff. He missed the hundreds of pinches that were building to a crunch.

The sheriff above learned a lesson that Sam Walton knew well.

Sam Walton is well known for visiting his stores are off hours, sometimes even bringing donuts, all in the name of relationships. Doing so, he was able to solve problems for his staff before they became an issue. One problem involved installing a shower at one of his stores. The lack of a shower at this store was a major pain point for the staff. The store management had heard the complaints, and were not interested in solving problems.

Because Sam regularly visited this store, staff felt comfortable talking to him about the problem. He solved this problem while is was a pinch, before it became a crunch.

You are not too busy to walk around and visit your staff. Listen to them. Build relationships. Fix the pinches. Oh, and bring donuts.