I’ve just summarised another paper exploring the impact of a manager walkaround program (not the attached image). You know the types – senior managers take to the floor to observe work, talk with workers, and discuss potential improvements.
Interestingly, this paper found that the walkaround programs (compared to controls without the intervention), led to a **worsening** in perceived unit performance.
That is, workers in a hospital unit with a management walkaround program, on average, believed performance to be worse than before it was implemented.
I’ll post this paper in the next week or two. Two conditions existed where performance was seen to be improved – covered in the summary.
However, I’ve summarised 3 other studies looking at the impact of manager walkaround programs (see attached image and links in comments – this image isn’t the paper I discussed above).
One reason of walkarounds failing relates to “seagull management” (Martin et al. 2014): managers fly into the workplace, make a lot of noise, crap issues into the laps of workers, then blissfully fly away.
While there are undoubtedly benefits to having such programs and engagements, there are also some potential negative effects and boundary conditions, where management walkarounds or managers:
Rottea et al. (2014):
1) “tended to regard executive visibility as an end in itself and generally did not engage with staff concerns beyond the walkrounds encounter”.
2) “believed they understood patient safety issues better than front-line staff and even characterised staff concerns as ‘stupid’”.
3) “acknowledged that they often controlled the conversations, delimiting what counted as patient safety problems and sometimes even steered the conversations to predetermined topics”.
Martin et al. (2014):
1) may reinforce existing power differentials rather than flattening organisational hierarchies and empowering frontline staff.
2) may encourage staff to “be on their best behavior” during executive walkarounds and thereby provide inaccurate pictures of reality.
3) may become more exercises of “public relations” that “overshadows other functions” (p3) and highlight things that managers may commit to fixing but not act on have been described by some staff as “disruptive “seagull management” (p3).
Image source: Rotteau, L., Shojania, K. G., & Webster, F. (2014). BMJ quality & safety, 23(10), 823-829.
Other walkaround studies:
1) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-think-we-should-just-listen-get-out-qualitative-views-hutchinson
2) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/walkrounds-practice-corrupting-enhancing-quality-study-hutchinson
4) Link to the LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_ive-just-summarised-another-paper-exploring-activity-7080687966917980160-XtO5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
SafetyInsights.org 
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