Leadership By Mantra

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009

"May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door." - Irish Blessing

Leadership By Mantra

The recent surge in layoffs and organizational restructuring, leads me to believe that leadership has new challenges at hand. The old mantra of “doing more with less” isn’t going to cut it with the front lines any more. CEO’s, managers and supervisors might consider asking the question, “What does it take to get along around here?”. If they listen closely, they might hear the clues which point to a characterization of their situation, from the people who are most familiar with the gaps, bottlenecks and opportunities. Listening for the everyday language and especially the mantras can lead to significant shifts in perspective.

Mantras, defined as “sounds, syllables, words, or group of words that are considered capable of creating transformation” are the keys to understanding an organization’s reality. What people state out loud, and repeat to one another, becomes one of the standards of organizational behavior. Glass half full? Say no more.

Remember “MBWA”, Management By Walking Around from the 1970’s? That mantra inspired leaders to pay attention to the human equation of the business by building personal relationships. Front line folks actually recognized the management staff. Let’s try "MBB" - Management By Blackberry. The relationship connection takes on a different meaning, because the process overtakes the relationship in the equation. The words are sent, the faces hide behind the e-screen.

Pay Attention To Mantras

During a recent strategic planning session, I logged a list of mantras which surfaced during the day. The team realized that many of these were closely related to their values. Subsequently they began to reframe how they talked about the future, and developed a revised vision. Here is their list, with minor editing:

- Bloom where you’re planted
- The crap is the flowers of tomorrow
- S*** or get off the pot
- Get it done
- Take lemons - make lemonade
- You get what you give
- We’re not going to be sinkable - never again
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
- I hate being locked into anything
- Need to sleep at night
- Practice what you preach
- All for 1, 1 for all
- Enthusiasm is a rare breed
- Present me with solutions
- Find a way
- No idea is wrong
- If you want to run with the wolves, then don’t pee with the puppies
- We become what we need to be
- Opportunity in difficulty
- Doesn’t matter, right or wrong
- Everyone is an expert at something

These mantras shed light on what needed to happen next for this organization. The decision at the end of the day was to move ahead with resilience, instead of preserving a vulnerable, victim-like stance. The shift they needed came from their mantras, the daily comments which are the invisible, yet obvious clues for leaders.

The Lesson for Leaders

Without the human equation, nothing exists. Process and product depend on people: employees, customers, suppliers. How each one sees the world through their own rose coloured glasses affects behavior. Those actions speak as loud as their words.

Isn’t it interesting, that the most common phrases are the ones that should not be ignored. Perhaps MBWA is an old mantra whose time has come again? What goes around comes around.

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Maggie Chicoine is a professional level member of the Professional Writers’ Association of Canada, a charter member and director of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, and a Master Coach. Her column, The Tuesday File appears in www.lakesuperiornews.ca weekly. Reach her at 1 800 5817 1767 or www.theideasculptor.com

Show Up! MBWA part 2

Leaders Must Show Up


Chaos at your office? Your staff takes its best clues about how work gets done “around here” from the folks who are leading the way. You’re stressed? They’re even more stressed.

In the previous column, I suggested that you use the “Management by Walking Around” model, developed by Ken Blanchard a few decades ago. Simplicity still works, especially when your systems are overloaded.

Only do this if you want to reduce your chaos factor.

Here are the top 10 tips for walking around, taking the time to talk about what’s happening on the front lines.
Show Up! Plain and simple. Show Up. Make this your mantra.
MBWA isn’t an event. Don’t take a clipboard or your laptop for notes. Get to know people and their jobs – the upsides and downsides – at a personal level.
Meet people on their own turf. Naturally.
Praise in public. Give feedback in private.
Build bridges between departments. Does “sales” know – really know – what production does?
Listen twice as much as you talk. Learn “appreciative inquiry”.
Roll up your sleeves and pitch in.
Find out what rumors are circulating. Give the facts, address the feelings.
Appreciation takes no time, and costs nothing. Praise is valuable and memorable.
Play, have fun. Teams that laugh together, create results beyond the paper statistics.

I suggest that for the next week, track the amount of time as well as the key conversation points you have with your staff. You might be surprised at how little actual relationship time you are investing.

Relationships are the heart of any leadership and organizational transaction. Build some walk around time into your system for all of your leaders. Show up. Just show up.

Want to know more about Appreciative Inquiry? MBWA? Send me an email, call or post a comment! I'll do a walk about with you.

Ever Heard of MBWA?

The Leader’s Guide to Shutting Down

Conversations clam up when Sam da Boss walks into the room,.

All hands suddenly get busy when Toni the Supervisor comes around the corner.

There's people in the room but the bleachers are empty!

Leaders, take note: your people are sending you clues! What’s up with you not noticing?

Back in the old days before acronyms became the norm, there was a leadership mantra, called MBWA: “Management by Walking Around”. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

In essence, MBWA is about you as a leader paying attention to the little things that your staff do during their shift.

To pay attention, you need to get out there.

To get out there, you need to simply your own systems so that you have the time to build relationships, and correct the little things before they blow up into big things.

It’s about taking a positive, proactive and personal approach with people, so that your systems operate smoothly.

Put another way, it’s like that leaky faucet you are ignoring. You hear the drip, day after day, but don’t have time to fix it right now.

Wake Up Call

I am suggesting that MBWA leverages your organization and the results show up in black and white on your bottom line.









If you want to know what really goes on, day to day, go take a casual, relaxed walk and look for the obvious – the routine which has become invisible in your eyes. Look for what people are doing well. Pat them on the back; low time investment, zero financial cost, huge payback!

I could give you a long list of how to do MBWA right now, but I’m assuming that all you need is a gentle wake up call.

Pay attention to what happens in your staff meetings: if you talk more than anyone else, you’re failing at MBWA.









If you’re staff say there are no rumours floating around, you are out of the loop.









If your middle managers don’t remember their 6 top goals for this month without looking through the policy manuals, you’re failing at MBWA.









If your front line staff can’t tell you who your 6 best customers are, you need to send me an email and ask for the “HOW TO DO MBWA” list. Consider me your Coach on Call. I’ll gladly share that with you, and guide you through your first walkabout.









PS Check out the archives and the whole Idea Du Jour List.




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Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine