“Management by Walking Around”
I learned that quality requires minute attention to every detail, that everyone in an organization wants to do a good job, that written instructions are seldom adequate, and that personal involvement needs to be frequent, friendly, unfocused, and unscheduled—but far from pointless. And since its principal aim is to seek out people’s thoughts and opinions, it requires good listening.
–Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard, in The HP Way.
For an ADDexec, “MBWA” may have as much benefit for managing their ADD/ADHD as it does for managing their staff. Executives with the “H” in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder need the movement.
So how do we get more movement into our days? Fidgeting is one obvious outlet, but do we have others? Management By Walking Around sounds like a good one, as long as it isn’t aimless or hyperactive motion. Pre-work or mid-day exercise may be another, for the deskbound among us.
But picking a walking-oriented career may be even better. A recent CareerBuilder.com listed ten fields “considered to have the best physically active job opportunities, based on information from the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Census Bureau”:
- Registered nurse
- Physical therapists
- Physician assistants
- Elementary school teachers
- Radiologic technologists and technicians
- Kindergarten teachers
- Occupational therapists
- Secondary school teachers
- Police and sheriff’s patrol officers
- Veterinarians.
Granted, most of those jobs aren’t considered “executive” positions. But you might find more in Laurence Shatkin’s 175 Best Jobs Not Behind a Desk. In the CareerBuilder article, Shatkin says,
“The shift to an information-based economy has meant a constant increase in the proportion of workers who manipulate data for a living, and who therefore spend most of the workday behind a a desk…. Fortunately… there are still plenty of high-activity jobs for people who prefer them… active jobs that have good earnings and are expected to have good job opportunities. They allow you to use your brains as well as muscles and involve the kinds of people and problems that can keep you interested in your work.”
– from “Out in Front”, in the News & Observer careerbuilder.com section, 4 November 2007
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Amusing related quote: “MBWA is a hyperactive, out-of-the office, interventionist top management practice.” –Vadim Kotelnikov
