Why ‘Managing by Walking Around’ Can Backfire, According to New Research

One of the many iconic Shakespeare moments is when King Henry the Fifth, “Harry,” walks around to chat with and motivate his troops on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. It’s a powerful scene. And it has a weird parallel in one popular business leadership trick: the office “walk-around.” Managers amble among their workers’ cubicles and desks, imparting a little advice, checking in, asking about progress. The goal is to seem more accessible, and get a finger on the workforce’s pulse. But new research says sometimes this habit can actually do more harm than good, particularly if it feels forced or unnatural.

The studyby two Idaho State University management professors, looked into the walk-around habit which Phys.org explains was popularized by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in the 1980s. Their investigation suggests that from an employee point of view “management by walking around,” or MBWA, can sometimes feel like something that is mere performative ritual. Essentially it can seem like managers are taking part in MBWA without enthusiasm, or even just because it’s a part of strict company policy. The report argues this disempowers and devalues MBWA, and can even stoke cynicism or distrust among workers, and even harm intra-company communications on a broader scale.

The study notes that “formalized MBWA programs have been implemented more frequently” over the years, sometimes “in response to new industry regulations” and also because “funding models in industries such as healthcare and manufacturing that mandate formal assurance-of-quality initiatives.” These initiatives are supposed to “reduce errors, generate innovations from the bottom-up, and thereby improve customer outcome.” All of which sound like lofty but valuable goals.

The issue is that workers aren’t mere machines—they’re smart, they’re socially-savvy and they have their own feelings, reactions to and interpretations of company policy. So if they feel like a manager is merely doing the walk-around because they have to, or, worse, if they feel an untrustworthy manager is doing it as a gentle form of surveillance, it can go wrong.

This creates a “peculiar paradox for organizations that implement formalized MBWA,” the report says. Imagine a supervisors’ performance review includes measuring frequent chats with workers. This can seem like a policy that increases useful face time between leaders and staff. But if things become too regular or “scripted,” then frequent “MBWA interactions between supervisors and employees increases the risk that those conversations become perceived as ‘drive-by’ chats” and workers can feel there’s “little focus on soliciting or sharing information that would be valuable.” On the whole, this may lower workers’ perceived value of other manager-worker interactions, perhaps at events like team meetings, and thus potentially impact information sharing.

We can see the psychological parallels of the negative sides of this habit, perhaps, in some of the strict “return to office” mandates that are increasingly popular in the post-Covid era. Ostensibly meant to boost in-person discussion and innovation (and despite research that disproves this idea), RTOs can seem merely like management enforcing a kind of untrusting, scripted, corporate employee supervision. You may even argue that those managers who enforce “cameras have to be on” rules during Zoom meetings are tapping the same dark vein.

But if your manager is a good sort, who really cares about the interactions that happen during a walk-around, actively listening to staff and providing meaningful support, then everything is different.