Over the weekend, a senior manager at another company challenged me as to whether he really had to be digitally proficient. He went on to explain he had hired an intern for his social media presence and a personal online shopper for his clothes. He had an IT person to keep his smart phone up-to-date and a world-renowned agency to brief him on digital trends. Digital was under control.

Given my role as a Chief Digital Officer, I was slightly exasperated. I tried to construct an analogy based on how automobile company executives shouldn’t have personal drivers. Unless they drive their cars themselves, they don’t know what their customers are experiencing. Because digital is so integral to every company’s future, executives must experience it themselves – another form of Manage by Walking Around.

The senior manager was unconvinced.

I couldn’t find much online with compelling arguments as to why managers should be digital. However I did stumble on a five-year-old blog post which does a good job of capturing what I believe. The blog appears abandoned so I’m repeating it here, slightly streamlined:

A C-Level person in the 1970′s who had never watched television, or a manager in the 1940′s who had not used a telephone, or a business leader in the 1990′s who had never purchased a product online would have a difficult time understanding how these technologies affected their business externally, or how they could be used to benefit their organizations. They would also be in danger of either ignoring the technologies altogether (“We don’t need telephones. Business is about face-to-face relationships!”) or they might be easily lured by a clever sales person into wasting money and time on less-than-useful efforts (like the people who spent huge amounts of money on expensive websites in the late 90′s when a simple web presence might have sufficed).

The same is true today. Great managers are digitally fluent enough to make smart, informed strategic, policy, cultural, staffing, IT or budgeting decisions in light of the changes occurring in the digital age. They aren’t easily misled by eager sales people, they understand the need for digitally fluent employees, and they are comfortable critically questioning any sort of hype either for or against the use of digital media in their organization. Importantly, their digital fluency, while bolstered by books on the topic, or advice from consultants or sales people, is best developed through active participation in digital culture and practices both inside and outside of the organization.

Well said, Christian Briggs. This is even more true five years later. We can’t just be digitally literate; good managers must be digitally fluent.

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It has become an annual traditional here at MBWA to do a short assessment of how my blog has done in the past year. Unfortunately, most of the available statistics are classic ego metrics but I can usually dig out a few interesting conclusions. In last year’s assessment, I even managed to channel Jay-Z.

This time, analyzing MBWA is a bit harder than normal because I switched from a WordPress hosted blog to the self-hosted JonathanBecher.com in the middle of the year. Overall, I had nearly 95K views during 2013, a small increase over 2012.

There was no obvious seasonality so that works out to about 8K views per month or more than 250 per day. Not bad!

Internet metric aficionados might be interested in the difference between visits and visitors. Historically, this ratio has been about 1.6 to 1.  As a result, I would have expected nearly 60K visitors (95K /1.6). I was initially puzzled the actual number of visitors was so much lower until I realized email subscribers counted towards views but not visitors. So much for the common wisdom that email is dead.

The top posts based on views are a little surprising:

1. Scorecards vs. Dashboards, Aug 2006
2. Performance Management Quotes, Feb 2009
3. Talking to Senior Executives, Mar 2010
4. How Strategy Really Works, Sept 2013
5. Does Language Influence Culture? Sept 2010

While each one was viewed 1500-2000 times, only the strategy post is actually from 2013. A negative interpretation might be that my newer blogs are less interesting, but I think a more realistic point of view is that the older ones have been better indexed by search engines and other sites.  After all, two other 2013 posts, Sandwiches and Failure Quotes, aren’t far behind the top 5.

It’s also interesting to note that last year’s most popular post, 10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life, didn’t even make it into the top 20 this year.

There were no real surprises in which sites referred the most traffic to my blog. As expected, twitter topped the list as it has for the last three years. This year, LinkedIn came in second; presumably due to my Marketing Influencer series. Loyal readers will probably not be surprised that the most popular referring keywords were ‘performance management’ and ‘culture eats strategy’.

Finally, I had lots of international visitors this past year — 139 countries in all. Most visitors came from the United States, but Germany and the United Kingdom were not far behind. Special mention goes to Russia which catapulted into 6th place from 14th last year.

Happy New Year! Or for my new Russian readers: с новым годом!

The post MBWA 2013 in review appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

You may have noticed things look a bit different around here. I am extraordinarily pleased to welcome you to JonathanBecher.com – the new home of my blog, “Manage by Walking Around.” I hope you enjoy the improved look and expanded functionality.

Change presents opportunity but also comes with challenges. Some of you may have accidentally received email alerts from colleagues who are helping me to migrate seven years’ worth of data from my previous site. I appreciate your patience as I finetune the infrastructure.

I hope you have enjoyed reading “Manage by Walking Around” as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Thanks for sharing feedback on many of the posts – the interaction has been an inspiration to me.

Welcome to JonathanBecher.com. I look forward to continuing the conversation!

Jonathan (@jbecher)

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6 1/2 years into my hosted WordPress blog, the only complaint I’ve ever had is the statistics are a bit weak. As someone who ran a Web site analysis company more than a decade ago,  it’s always been surprising to me that all of the reports are based on page views.

However, the statistics have significantly improved over the last year. For example, the reports now distinguish between views, visits and visitors. In the last month I’ve averaged 1.6 views per visitor. Since very few visitors are tracked across sessions, this suggests that 1 out of 2 visitors to my blog reads two posts. That’s a pretty good result.

On the fun side, the so-called WordPress “stats helper monkeys” prepare an annual report. Here’s a (slightly-edited) excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. Manage By Walking Around was viewed about 83,000 times in 2012. If my blog were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take more than 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Shout out to Shawn Carter.

From their report, these are the posts on my blog that got the most views in 2012:

1. 10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life July 2012
2. Performance Management Quotes Feb 2009
3. Scorecards vs. Dashboards Aug 2006
4. Dilbert on risk management Dec 2008
5. Culture eats strategy for breakfast May 2010

Since it’s ranked third, even though I wrote the post 6 years ago, I can only assume people are still confused about the difference between a scorecard and a dashboard.  Maybe that’s good news: people will keep reading my blog.

The post MBWA 2012 in review appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

WordPress.com provides a wide variety of statistics that help you understand the health of your blog.  Like most metrics, the WP statistics are one part useful and one part entertainment. To reinforce both of these attributes, earlier this month WP sent an email with their take on my blog.  I’ve borrowed from their email but sprinkled in my own commentary:

Crunchy numbers

This Manage By Walking Around blog was viewed nearly 60,000 times in 2010.  By comparison, about 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. If my blog were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 7 days for that many people to see it.

The busiest day of 2010 was April 6th with 377 views. The most popular post that day was The No Asshole Rule. The busiest month of the year was October with 5,944 views or an average of 192 per day. Compare that to 150 per day in Jan. 28% growth is not bad.

Favorite attractions

In 2010, there were 27 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 168 posts. The ones that got the most views were:

The No Asshole Rule April 2010
11 comments

Scorecards vs. Dashboards August 2006
15 comments

Dilbert strikes again June 2007
7 comments

Performance Management Quotes February 2009
8 comments

Dilbert on risk management December 2008
1 comment

WP compliments me that my older posts have “staying power.”  I wonder whether my newer posts are less interesting — or maybe I’ve just used the Dilbert crutch too much.

Visitor sources

The top referring sites (not counting search engines) were twitter.com, bx.businessweek.com, stumbleupon.com, weblogs.sdn.sap.com, and business-intelligence.alltop.com.

The most popular search terms were performance management, most popular blogs, dilbert strategy, goals, and leadership.

I’m surprised by Business Week and “most popular blogs”.

So how did I do?

Apparently pretty well.  Here’s their summary:

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter reads Wow.

Like I said: useful and entertaining.

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After the robust discussion on my 7 tips for new managers, I decided to add a few more tips:

8. “Do unto others”
Treat employees the way that you would want to be treated. Never ask an employee to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself.

9. “Turn chickens into pigs”
During bacon and eggs breakfasts, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. Don’t just ask people to work on tasks, ask them to explicitly commit to delivering them on time and within budget.

10. “Credit where credit is due”
Don’t worry about getting credit for completing a project. If credit is given to you, be sure to give it to everyone who was involved.  People prefer to back leaders who share the spotlight.

11. “Practice the Socratic method”
Ask open-ended questions that encourage unscripted dialogue. Be sure to ask why people are doing things not just what and how they are doing them.

12.  “Admit your ignorance”
If you don’t know the answer to a question you’re asked, don’t try to bluff a response. Encourage that person to research and propose the best answer. Employees appreciate the honesty and will grow from the experience.

13. “Trust but verify”
Hire good people and get out of their way until they ask for support. Periodically check that they are on the right path by comparing results to targets.

14. “Open your mind, not just your door”
Many managers pride themselves on their open door policy but have firmly held beliefs based on their experience and biases. If you can’t see someone else’s point of view, ask yourself what arguments would cause you to reevaluate your current opinion. Find out if there are facts to support those arguments.

Bonus Tip: Encourage your reports to give you constructive feedback and the follow up on it.

The post 7 More Tips For New Managers appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

After reading my MBWA 101 post, a colleague asked me if I had ever compiled a list of tips for new managers. He wanted to provide some concrete recommendations for a new mentee who had recently become a first line manager. Other than my own management philosophy, I’d never written anything down before so I offered to follow up with some thoughts.

I came up with seven tips and added catchy phrases to help remember them:

1. “Hard on the issues, easy on the people”
Avoid trying to assign blame to individuals but rather focus on identifying the root cause of the problem. The error may have been yours for putting the individual in a situation that didn’t match their skills.

2. “Manage by exception”
When things are going well, leave them alone. When a problem occurs, intervene. Monitor outliers to identify anomalies (good and bad) rather than focusing on averages.

3. “People are your most valuable asset”
Employees are the only organizational resource that, with training, can appreciate in value. All other resources depreciate. Invest for the future, not for current needs.

4. “Actions speak louder than words”
Employees will mirror your behavior more quickly than they will follow your words. If you don’t follow the guidelines that you set for others, they are more likely to resent you and circumvent the rules.

5. “Good enough is good enough”
Being perfect all the time is impossible and it’s not worth the investment. Focus on doing a good job and learn from the experience, which will improve your performance the next time.

6. “Reward outcomes, not activities”
Don’t reward people for trying hard if they were working on the wrong things. Make sure reward systems are based on impact (how much change occurred) rather than output (how much was produced).

7. “Mindset matters”
Be optimistic. If you think a project is doomed, it’s not likely to be successful. Smile. Your mood is contagious. Do people feel more or less energized after they talk to you?

These tips are no substitute for management experience but they are good reminders of how we should interact with our direct reports.

Anyone want to add their own tips for new managers?

The post 7 Tips For New Managers appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

A few weeks ago, a newly minted manager asked my advice on how to best manage by walking around. I gave him an encouraging – but non-specific – answer. This post is my follow-up to his question.

Wander frequently
Your employees may worry that you’re spying on them the first few times that you show up. If you make wandering a regular on-going event, people will get more comfortable over time. But please, don’t put it on your calendar for the same time every month.

Go by yourself
You’ll be tempted to bring your trusted adviser; the one that comes to those important meetings and takes notes for you. Don’t. The only way to be authentic is to remove your protection and open yourself up.

Listen first, talk later
The old adage is that you have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion. Unfortunately, most of the people only have heard you talk, not listen. When you do talk, ask simple open-ended questions that encourage them to talk.

Be constructive, not critical
If you point out mistakes that people are making, it might be viewed as embarrassing rather than helpful. They’ll remember the criticism and will less likely provide feedback the next time.

Follow up
Don’t make promises unless you’re absolutely sure that you can keep them. Instead, show you were listening by following up afterwards – even if you can’t fix the issues that came up. And don’t forget to thank people for their time before you leave.

It’s never too early in your career to start managing by walking around. In fact, it’s never too late either.

The post MBWA 101: 5 tips to get started appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

A little more than six months ago, I took a new role with a group that was described as in need of a “turn-around” and an “updated strategy and direction”. I was urged to introduce a new mission/vision, strategic objectives, and revised key performance indicators. Given my performance management background, this seemed like a reasonable approach.

However, after several conversations with key internal and external stakeholders and spot-checks a few levels deeper into my new management chain, I came to the conclusion that the organization didn’t need a new strategy to solve its performance problems. While performance hadn’t been up to full potential, the issue didn’t seem to be with processes or structures or metrics.

My first few weeks on the job reinforced my initial assessment. Almost every important decision had to be made by me personally. At first I assumed this was because individual employees had little understanding of the company strategy. However, it quickly became apparent that cascading the strategy was unlikely to help because everyone was used to delegating up. After a couple of years of being told what to do and being discouraged to think for themselves, my new group had a culture problem.

A 2005 Harvard Business Review study of more than 100 corporations and thousands of executive assessments showed that culture influences leadership style more than any other factor.  Regardless of job function, employees who work in the same organization are 30% more likely to exhibit similar leadership styles than people who do the same job but work in different companies. Even strong leaders are susceptible to learned helplessness.

Because most leaders view culture as something soft and intangible, it’s often overlooked when they take a new job. However, a January 2006 Wall Street Journal article concluded that the biggest roadblocks for new leaders include:

1. Not understanding or caring about the current culture
2. Assuming the current leadership culture can support the new direction/strategy
3. Not articulating his/her aspirational culture for the team

In my experience a well-designed and well-implemented strategy cannot be effective unless people are motivated to support it. This idea is captured by the mantra “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, popularized during Mark Fields tenure at Ford Motor.  Clearly culture was my job one.

So rather than working on strategy or objectives or metrics, I concentrated on changing the culture. I immediately removed myself from some of the approval chains. I delegated critical and visible decisions to my direct reports and publicly reinforced their decisions. I encouraged them to finalize some long-standing issues without vetting them with me beforehand. And perhaps most importantly, I shared all of this with my manager who went out of his way to reinforce the new style.

Of course, none of this was without some drawbacks. Not all of the decisions were consistent with my point of view. And I missed some chances to put my own imprint on the group.

But the benefits more than outweighed these downsides. Today, the difference is palatable. The team is energized, employees are more engaged, and performance is improving. What’s more, there’s a sense of teamwork that didn’t exist before.

Goals, initiatives, and metrics. I have a huge appetite for strategy management. But I shouldn’t forget that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – it all starts with culture.

(Note: This post was basis of a submission which later won the HCI Human Capital M-Prize on Leadership.)

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A few years ago, I wrote a blog post that pointed out the benefits of management by walking around can be achieved without actually leaving your desk. Some examples are as follows:

• Management can mimic the shopping experience of a prospective customer by visiting a Web site and trying to find/buy a particular product. It’s the modern version of a secret shopper.
• Executives should try to resolve a specific problem by calling their own customer support line. Immersing themselves in the customer experience can be more informative than dashboards of call center metrics.
• All bosses must occasionally use the tools that they mandate to their workers, from expense reporting software, to requests for time off, to travel requests.

I still believe in these examples and the ability to manage without walking around but a recent email from a long-time employee jolted my thinking. In his words:

How does an executive stay in touch with people – actually manage by walking around – when it doesn’t seem you can leave your desk anymore?  You have 10 times more meetings than you had 3 years ago, probably 5 times the staff, and you are considering getting your wife a job as a flight attendant so you can see her more. The work habits of the regular worker have changed too; they are working remotely, and you can’t make house calls – even doctors gave that up.

You’re still communicating with employees via All Hands, emails, your blog and now twitter but these feel like one-way monologues. The point of MBWA was always a dialogue between the manager and the employee.

He’s right. For years, I managed by walking around through actually walking or flying around. Or by scheduling regular phone calls with key employees. I prided myself on accessibility. But it hasn’t scaled.

In MBWA style, I asked the employee for some ideas of how to address the problem. Some resonated with me; others felt forced. Two ideas have stuck with me which I plan to adopt:

1. Use video conferencing / telepresence whenever possible as an alternative to conference calls.
   Many conference calls turn into soliloquies, with one presenter dominating the conversation. I often wonder whether I would have missed anything if I just had listened to a recording afterwards. Seeing the other attendees provides visual clues about confusing material and encourages interaction.I’ve also come to dread the sound of typing that I hear on nearly every conference call; peoples’ attentions are obviously elsewhere.  It’s much harder to multi-task when everyone can see you.
2. Enforce my long-held belief that I should manage by exception, rather than status.
   I have more than 20 regularly scheduled 1 on 1’s which range in frequency from weekly to quarterly.   Most employees want to use this time to update me on what they’ve done since we have last talked.  They are suitably proud of their work and want to share their successes with me.While I’m usually interested in what’s happened, I’m not really managing and I’m missing a chance to engage in a more substantive dialogue.  I should focus the conversation on exceptional successes or unexpected issues, leaving room for an unstructured conversation that could benefit us both. Another kind of wandering around.

I’m curious what you think about these ideas to help scale management by walking around.  Do you have any others you’d like to share?

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