GEMBA Walks are Stoopid

Everybody’s got a GEMBA recipe for sale.  They want you to believe that if you follow their formula [just click on this link and send money] you can become a charismatic leader.

In fact, GEMBA walks only get between you and your followers.

I hasten to add, GEMBA Walks – stoopid – should not be confused with ordinary Management by Walking Around (MBWA) which is essential.

Below in bold are some GEMBA instructions from a typical Lean Management website contrasted with what you should be doing. 

1. Prepare your team workers

No!  Don’t wait.  Get out and start walking around immediately.  The workers are going to know right off the bat who you are and what you’re doing better than your own mother.  If you’re just a jerk with a clipboard trying to find someone to blame, they’ll know it instantly.  Their BS detectors are far more sensitive than yours.

2. Strategically plan your GEMBA walk

No! Planning your Walkaround is the worst thing you can do.  It distracts you from your real purpose, which is to get to know your people and what they think.  Walk through your department a couple of times/day when you’re in town RANDOMLY.  The timing is random.  The route is random. 

Make it short.  15 minutes is long enough to get a feel for the zeitgeist.  Frequency is more important that length.

3. Focus on collaboration and value stream

Of course, you want to help people collaborate!  Everybody knows that.  Seriously, are you going to pay money to some stupid website to have them tell you that your employees should work as a team??

And “Value Stream”.  Don’t ever use words like that in front of real people.  They will know that you’re a phony right now.  If you want to talk about money, say profit.  Be honest with them.  They know that the company needs to make a profit to stay in business.

4. Structure your data

No!  Walkarounds are not for data.  Walkarounds are for people.  Focus on your people.  If you are tabulating while you talking, the workers will realize that they are just a number to you.

5. Walk the floor in teams

Oh yeah, right.  Descend on a worker with a team of bosses and interrogate them.  That’ll get ‘em to open up and tell you what’s really wrong.

No, go alone, naked in front of the workers. 

6. Change the schedule of the GEMBA walk

Agreed.  Make it as unpredictable as possible.

7. Communicate with your employees

No!  You are not walking around to “Communicate with the Workers”; at least, not in the way that most managers think of communication, which is to talk at them.  No, you are there to listen.  And bear in mind that everyone you’re talking to can sense when they are talking and you’re just thinking about what you’re going to say next.

So, polish your listening skills

8. Measure key KPIs

Yes, obviously.  If you can measure it, you can manage it.  But don’t do it while you’re walking around.  It would be poison.

Ok, did this make sense.  I’m going to be blunt here.  If you need to have a set of instructions to check off while you’re trying to get the pulse of your department, maybe leadership is not for you. 

How about you?  Do you have a similar story?  Comment below.