The effectiveness of management-by-walking-around
Subtitle: a randomized field study
By: Anita L. Tucker, Sara J. Singer
Contributors: Singer, Sara J.; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 12-113; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 12-113
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 36
Work titles: Randomized field study of a leadership WalkRoundsTM-based intervention
Description: Management-By-Walking-Around (MBWA) is a widely adopted technique in hospitals that involves senior managers directly observing frontline work. However, few studies have rigorously examined its impact on organizational outcomes. This paper examines an improvement program based on MBWA in which senior managers observe frontline employees, solicit ideas about improvement opportunities, and work with staff to resolve the issues. We randomly selected 19 hospitals to implement the 18-month long MBWA-based improvement program; 56 work areas participated. We find that the program, on average, had a negative impact on performance. To explain this surprising finding, we use mixed methods to examine the impact of the work area's problem solving approach. Results suggest that prioritizing easy-to-solve problems was associated with improved performance. We believe this was because it resulted in greater action-taking. A different approach was characterized by prioritizing high value problems, which was not successful in our study. We also find that assigning to senior managers responsibility for ensuring that identified problems get resolved resulted in better performance. Overall, our study suggests that senior managers' physical presence on their organizations' frontlines was not helpful unless it enabled active problem solving.
Notes: "June 2012. (Revised September 2013.)"--Publisher's Web site.

Revision of A randomized field study of a leadership WalkRoundsTM-based intervention.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 31-34).