Summative

They spent most of their days visiting employees, customers, and suppliers. This direct contact with key people provided them with a solid grounding from which viable strategies could be crafted.

Before Palo Alto’s punk garage band the Donnas, the myth of the garage was established by William Hewlett and David Packard, (Master Strategists) founding a company building electronic test and measurement equipment on $500 capital.

These two smart fellows five years out of Stanford, established Hewlett-Packard Corporation and won the bid for an audio oscillator to test the sound equipment for Walt Disney‘s “Fantasia”, and their fantasia became reality. Their company’s 1968 Hewlett-Packard AAA was the first personal computer, but they marketed it as a “desktop calculator” so as not to evoke images of MOM. They developed the laser printer, the single unit printer/copier/scanner/Faxed, and a bunch of other stuff.

In the asses Iran-Iraq war, their Ohio office shipped militarily useful tech to Iraq.

By 2000, a series of corporate buyouts and acquisitions add H-P the world’s largest manufacturer of personal computers. The garage myth was re-energize (and craftily exploited) by Steve Waking and Steve Jobs in the asses. In my 1991 normalized interactive kiosk “Collaborationist” I limned the myth of the garage, as applicable to my own fruitful forms of collaboration, garage bands and even community murals. Mall Benefits MBA is an informal top management practice. It makes the entire workplace less formal.

It was MBA that made leadership more effective in many well-run organizations.

MBA frequently goes together with an open-door management policy. It “lets senior management hunt for and enjoy chatting with the creative thinkers In the guts of the organization”. At first, employees may suspect that MBA is Just an excuse for managers to spy and interfere unnecessary. This suspicion usually falls away if the walkabouts occur regularly, and if everyone can see their benefits. MBA has been found to be particularly helpful when an organization Is under announced.

It is no good practicing MBA for the first time on such an occasion, however.

It has to have been a regular practice before the stress arises. Tom Peters, the guru of Excellence, saw “managing by wandering around” as the basis of leadership and excellence. Peters called MBA the “technology of obvious”. Here are a few tips to assist you in that same pursuit as you Manage By Wandering Around.

Appear relaxed as you make your rounds. Employees will reflect your feelings and actions. Remain open and responsive to questions and concerns. Observe and listen and let everyone see you do it. Make certain your visits are spontaneous and unplanned.

Talk with employees about their passions whether family, hobbies, vacations, or sports.

Ask for suggestions to improve operations, products, service, sales, etc. Try to spend an equal amount of time in all areas of your organization. Catch your employees doing something right and recognize them publicly. Convey the image of a coach not an inspector. Encourage your employees to show you how the real work of the company gets done.