142 • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS
It sounds immensely trivial, but participating with employees and
observing their day-to-day activities in a friendly manner can help
you to discover and solve problems, gather knowledge, and form
valuable relationships.
The idea
A personable and hands-on style of management, MBWA advocates
walking around departments, talking with employees, and casually
observing the process of work. In this way, valuable relationships
can be formed with employees and knowledge can be shared. While
it normally accompanies an “open door” management approach,
MBWA involves many more proactive elements, such as seeking
problems through casual observation and discussion rather than
waiting for employees to report them. An organization where the
manager is fully integrated with their team, and aware of their
attitudes and the challenges they face, will become more robust and
adept at spotting potential problems ahead of competitors.
MBWA re volut ion i ze d t he “ ivor y tower ” approac h of m a ny m a n a gers
and was soon adopted as part of the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Way—the
open management style of successful technology business Hewlett-
Packard. The HP Way soon became widely respected and mimicked
by global corporations.
Care should be taken to ensure that employees do not view efforts
at increased socialization and observation as an attempt to “spy on”