Ensuring that boards receive relevant and reliable management information remains one of the central challenges of effective governance. Experienced directors often have a strong sense of what they need to see. Yet as businesses evolve—through new products, changing processes, and shifting regulatory expectations—the demands on boards continue to intensify.

Innovation, while essential, can present risks. Those closest to developing new products are not always best placed to assess their downside. The period leading up to the 2008 financial crisis offers a clear warning: complex credit derivatives were widely promoted as reducing risk, yet many institutions failed to recognise the fragility of the underlying lending. Technical sophistication obscured fundamental weaknesses.

Risk, however, is not confined to complex or “exotic” products. The widespread mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) imposed significant financial and reputational costs on UK institutions. It is difficult to conclude that boards fully understood the risks embedded in sales practices—or, if they did, that they acted decisively.

While every institutional failure has its own characteristics, a recurring theme is insufficient challenge. In some cases, boards did not press executives hard enough—either on the information presented to them or, critically, on what may have been missing. Recognising this gap is straightforward; addressing it is not. As Donald Rumsfeld famously observed, the greatest risks often lie in the “unknown unknowns”.

One practical way to mitigate this challenge is for directors to step beyond formal reporting lines and ‘walk the floors’. Direct engagement with staff—particularly those operating at the front line—can provide insights that are diluted or lost entirely in aggregated management information. While many boards maintain regular contact with senior executives, fewer systematically engage with employees below that level.

Such engagement should extend beyond head office. Visits to branches, operational sites, and smaller business units can surface perspectives that are otherwise inaccessible, offering a more grounded view of how strategy is executed in practice. Most people love to talk to curious and interested others about their role, what they do and why it matters. Skilful non-executives have a genuine interest in people and the work they do and, develop the ability to get to understand the business through the eyes and experiences of the people who work in it.

Some boards remain hesitant. Concerns are often raised about undermining management, creating misunderstandings, or disrupting day-to-day operations. These risks are real but manageable. Genuine transparency as to contact made with staff and a clear understanding among board members as to the boundaries of their role as non-executives, should help to ensure that concerns about non-execs wanting to ‘walk the floors’ do not arise. With clear communication, ‘walking the floors’ can be positioned not as a means of second-guessing executives, but to strengthen oversight—enabling directors to ask better-informed questions and support management more effectively.



In an environment where formal reporting can never fully capture operational reality, informed curiosity is a critical attribute of effective boards. Sometimes, the most valuable insights are not found in board papers, but on the ground.