Maybe it’s not pure MBWA (management by walking around) examples but I think that it is very close to it. I’m happy to announce - I’m currently working as an editor of non-fiction literature in publishing house. The publishing house is a part of Respublika book/lifestyle shops and here is the history how it worked out.
The Respublika chain opened a bit more than a year ago. One of their first movements was making a livejournal community (which is very popular in Russia). They made a cafe on the second floor of the shop and if you wanted to meet administrator of the blog - you could find him there. For about 4 months I was just visiting the shop, meeting new people, employees, administrator himself. That was cool, that was fun and interesting.
After certain period of time, I talked to the administrator guy (his name is Eugene and he was a PR person at that time) about the business shelves and proposed a project - reorganization of the categories and nomenclature. I get the project and I worked for about 2 months on it - visited the shop a few days a week, met all the personnel. This wasn’t simple but wasn’t very hard also. Today I’m finishing the presentation but that’s not the point.
Being always near, always around gives you great opportunities. After the start of project - I again talked with Eugene - and he described me the project of publishing house. I started to work on it too - organized a few meetings, prepared a list of preferable books. I got no money for this - but this was interesting and I feel that my work is not in vain. Finally was the Friday meeting, where I presented and described my part of work. The result is my position.
This example shows, that personal connections and your personal investments (time and work) will give you a feedback. Of course it depends a lot of the people you work with - I’m absolutely sure of Eugene and all the team. If you feel not comfortable with the people you work just drop it.
Another small example is about my friend. He was very fond of one club-cafe. He passed there almost every evening. He got known with the barmen, than administrator and all the personnel. A year passed. He was organizing his parties in the place, played as a DJ. What seemed to be just a hobby turned out an to be an opportunity. And even now, when the place is closed for reconstruction, his connections allowed him to be a DJ in a very popular Moscow cafe.
Tags: mbwa, management, respublika, publishing
In Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about a man, who had enormous amount of contacts. And this thing worked for him, because he was a link between them, connector.
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