It's Proms season in London right now. One of the concerts I went to was a world music celebration. The last act was from Mali - Bassekou Kouyate and his band. They played a range of music from 17th century traditional to more recent works. What was fascinating to me was to see the thread that connects this music to US black southern music to jazz. The connections were really clear.
Bassekou had wireless mikes on most of the instruments so they could move around on the stage and dance. As the leader he spent a huge amount of the set walking around, looking at and connecting with the other musicians individually. He was definitely in charge and making sure that everyone was connected. My wife leaned across - "management by walking around" - was her comment and it was really true.
As we move away from meetings and offices and more into the electronic, home working, remote office scenarios, I wonder how we create the electronic equivalent of management by walking around? I have been spending more time away from my office location recently and haven't found a really good way yet to replace the eyeball contact with co-workers. IM, phones, netmeetings, email, video conferences, all have their own place. But I haven't found a better way to keep the team focused and positive than physically walking around. Any one else got any better ideas?
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