Remember MBWA? It stood for; Managing By Walking Around – the essence of which was getting closer to your people, to the operation and to the client or customer. This is the direct opposite of the old style; distant, autocratic and non-communicative management approach.  The term ‘mushroom treatment’ was often used to describe the best way to deal with staff – that meant ‘keep your staff in the dark and feed them loads of manure’.

Believe it or not the latter is not quite as rare as you might think. Staff tell me this about their Leaders and I have seen it myself.

In their defence; Managers and Leaders say they haven’t enough time. Or they’re not sure how to do this ‘walking about’ in a practical way. Well here’s how…

I suggest a simple system called D5M – (Daily 5 Minutes).

On a daily basis you allocate 5 minutes of your undivided attention to one of your direct reports, if you have a team of 8 you might do two per day. If you have another layer (or layers) below that you can also schedule another two or three per day from those levels.

During these 5 minutes you should have no ‘agenda’ – you should be willing to listen and understand.

Let your people know about this system and they’ll know that at least once a week they will have their 5 minutes of your undivided attention.

It will also pay major dividends for you in terms of access to information and insights that you might never otherwise receive. In total the D5M should take no more than 40 minutes of your day including walking time and it is an investment that will pay big returns.