Sam Walton, MBWA, Tom Peters and Workplace by Facebook

Stumbled over this Twitter exchange this morning and was prompted to curate some links on these subjects.

This is effective leadership in action. Want to know how your business *really* works? Listen to your employees, ask questions and get your boots muddy. Your people know your organisation from the inside out. https://t.co/lxrvUgeEEV

— Rachel Miller, All Things IC (@AllthingsIC) 27 November 2018

Good to be reminded of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart and MBWA, one of my fave leadership and management practices.

I have tweeted a few times in Twitter Chats about the power of MBWA and even more these days for those in senior leadership positions to not only practice MBWA in physical spaces of the organisation but also in the increasing variety and complexity of the organisation's closed and open virtual spaces.

Some info on MBWA:-

• Tom Peters video:
  
  
  
  
• Economist article

Great to see Sam Walton's office space. One of my fave content series is Lifehacker's "How I Work":

• UK site
• US site

Sam Walton has been a retail and a technology inspiration to me for many years. I started my career in the mid-80s on Asda (now owned by Wal-Mart)'s first ever graduate store management training programme when Asda were pioneering out-of-town hypermarkets and electronic point-of-sale bar code scanning systems. In those days, store ordering was done by telex.

Julien referenced Wal-Mart using Workplace by Facebook. This reminded me that Wal-Mart were an early user of Facebook Live for corporate comms (see my blog post that also includes a tech quote from Sam's auto-biography which is a must-read for every retail and/or technology professional.

Also see this recent Wal-Mart webinar on their use of Workplace by Facebook for frontline staff.

James, thanks for posting the Sam Walton office pic and for your company's past history and current operations. I remember hearing your Dad on this episode of BBC's Desert Island Discs

Rachel, thanks for you referencing James’ tweet ... you set me off ... it does not take much :)

Julien, thanks for providing me with Workplace by Facebook for use in an educational context for WOL circles, Book Clubs etc on a non-commercial basis. Actively using the platform for these groups on a small-scale thus far. I am a big advocate for ESNs and Workplace by Facebook specifically.