Due to Tudie’s # 1 Fan recently experiencing a fall which resulted in a broken arm of his right hand, he’s not been able to complete Chapter 5 of A RADIO STATION & ITS MISTRESS! Please accept our apologies … we expect to bring you this final portion of the story about the building and success of this legendary station in American radio history within the next couple of weeks!
The following was originally posted April 15, 2018:
You’ll seldom find me writing on the subject of management and leadership, as I don’t consider myself an expert on the matter in any way shape or form. All I can truly share on the subject is tied to my own experiences and how I personally handled situations … which I describe in my book, RADIO … My Love, My Passion, and others I’ll write about here from time to time. (There’s no Harvard MBA on my resume, only a few executive training courses I attended at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, during my Bonneville days – however, there’s no memory of what they covered.)
Yet, in the early 1980’s, while reading the book, “In Search of Excellence,” written by management guru Tom Peters, I came across the term Management By Walking Around – now also described as Management By Wandering Around. “Wow,” I said to myself … that’s what I did when I came to WRFM in New York City in 1969.
I had no realization it was a unique approach to managing … in my new situation, I only knew that I wasn’t going to learn about how things operated plus get to know the people by sitting in my office. Well, I could have called them in one by one … likely putting both parties somewhat on edge.
In preparing to write this essay, I did a little further research and came across a commentary in a blog titled “Right Attitudes,” in which one of its major headings read: Without MBWA, managers rarely emerge from their offices-turned-fortresses! Even when I began dropping into offices and the broadcast studio, I found some nervousness and those being suspect of my motives … because my predecessors had all practiced this “fortress” form of managing! Here you can read the full Right Attitudes blog.
As I wrote in a letter to the editor of Broadcasting magazine in response to a commentary which had appeared in its January 30, 1989, issue: “I credit the MBWA approach to leadership with playing a major role in this ‘kid from the country’ being able to come into the big Number One city and, together with the rag-tag staff I inherited, assemble a team effort that was able to move the station from number 23 to number 5 in the Arbitron ratings in seven months.”
It was only recently that I learned this Management By Walking Around concept had been pioneered in the 1950’s at the Hewlett-Packard Corporation, a major electronics company founded and managed by two engineers named Bill Hewlett and David Packard, which they had launched in a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 1939. Maybe they, like me, didn’t know any other way to run a business.
It was during Tom Peters’ visit to Hewlett-Packard in the later 1970’s that he discovered this management/leadership technique, named it and featured it in his book … which became the first “business” book to become a bestseller.
Having worked in the electronics industry early in my life, I had grown to know and gain much respect for Hewlett-Packard. Yet, I somehow missed the book that David Packard wrote in 1995, titled “The HP Way” … where he discusses their approach to running their company and to which he attributes much of its success.
Do I still believe that Management By Walking Around continues as a viable means of leadership today? Definitely! While I’ve not been in a real leadership role for several years now, I have witnessed more than one situation where this approach would do wonders for the operation … considering that so much of today’s workforce is feeling more dis-enfranchised and unappreciated than ever!
And this pro-active form of leadership may just be what you can utilize to bring new vitality to an organization where you play a key role, whether it’s large or small!
I practiced MBWA as a GM, encouraging and appreciating the staff and their efforts. It was great fun, and enhanced enthusiasm and productivity for all of us. I wonder how many of today’s GMs are afforded the luxury of this pleasure.
I practiced MBWA in the mid 80s, and was taught it in the 1970s in college as part of a management major. It works when it is done with an interest in the people as well as the work. It makes for opportunities to talk informally or to address urgent matters that come up. Helps the communication flow.
Thanks, Richard.
I had no college training or much training at all in management, it was learning as I went and as was needed to get the job done — which you realize if you’ve read my radio career memoir. (If you haven’t read, E-mail me your address at marlin@marlintaylor.com and I’ll send you a copy.) Fortunately, I managed to land on my feet most of the time and have a very successful life in the broadcast industry.