Management by Walking About

“It’s outside of my wheelhouse” is a term I’ve heard plenty over the years. Frequently, it was stated with a bit of exasperation by people in charge. “I should know this shit? Do you have any idea of how busy I am?” Regrettably, I’ve heard this from people who would be much more successful if they had been just a bit more entangled in what it took to get it all right in their bureau, department, or corporation.

Examples?

1.) The surgeon I scrubbed for in the OR who was intently interested in how the sutures he used were made. He was concerned with materials that might lead to scarring. Any material he used in his plastic surgery practice was subject to close scrutiny. Don’t try to give him something new that he hasn’t researched.

2.) Another example were the many managers and supervisors I knew at UPS. Over their years of service to the company they had literally done it all from loading and unloading, driving and dispatch. They had an intimate knowledge of everything that could and would happen to your package, and took responisbility for it.

I’ve also worked for organizations where total delegation was the rule and preferred operating method. My responsibility ended at my office door if it was someone else’s job. A friend once observed that success in organizations like that was inversely related to how many inspirational posters and signs decorated the offices and corridors—lots of posters, lots of deferred responsibility. His favorite poster was one saw once that said that it was hard to soar with the eagles when you hung around with turkeys.

It seems to be a rule these days that large organizations have deep management structures. So many levels and so much pooling of information in small puddles. How can one person know it all? Some organizations are so large that you need a bus to get around their campus. Relative to a small business, it may be true that you can’t know it all. But you should still be familiar with the process.

Having been a supervisor and an executive director, I can tell you that “It’s outside of my wheelhouse”, is not what I want to hear when something goes wrong.

I learned this after I was “reinvented” out of my job at the federal government under the Clinton administration. Desperate to keep bills being paid, and a healthcare plan for my family I went to work at UPS as a loader. I was fifty years old but very motivated. I stayed with the company for ten years, and moved into supervision after six months of loading, unloading and doing every job I was instructed to do. One thing I never heard a supervisor or manager at the company ever say was,” It’s outside of my wheelhouse.”

Little beats the organized chaos of a UPS hub. Perhaps hundreds of trailers arrive and depart daily, and hundreds of delivery cars arrive and depart. On a bad day, you can be confronted by a sea of large, small, and even tiny parcels. You’ll also see workers and management actively turning the chaos into order. The hub manager is not in the office; they walk the floor, check trailers, and talk to Teamsters and supervisors. A package tumbles off a platform, and they pick it up. they don’t point to someone and order them to do the job.

A manager I was friendly with told me that good leaders manage by walking about and bad ones by ambush. Management by walking about is something many organizations could incorporate. Don’t understand all the details of your organization? Maybe you can’t learn to do every job, or shouldn’t, but you should be known and knowledgeable.

So management by walking about is something that I don’t think many people understand but should.