MBWA did improve performance when leaders used it for problems that were easy to solve (e.g., moving nurses who prepared medications to a less cramped room). MBWA backfired, however, when leaders used it for more difficult problems (e.g., lab results that came back too slowly). Nurses reported that these regular chats with the boss about big recalcitrant problems wasted their time, rarely led to improvements, and drew attention to leaders’ failings. Nurses complained that, instead of blabbering and wasting staff’s time, bosses ought to focus on fixing the broken parts of their organizations.
