When Darren Huston, chief executive officer of the Priceline Group, has a decision to discuss with one of his managers, he often heads outdoors for a walking meeting, away from the hubbub of his open office in Amsterdam.
“Walking clears my brain,” he said.
President Barack Obama understands. He often ends his working day, especially now that the weather is warmer, by walking around the White House grounds with his chief of staff, Denis McDonough. While conferring about the latest political and policy issues, he strides several laps on the asphalt loop around the South Lawn before joining his family for dinner.
Photo: Bloomberg
The president is among a growing number of executives who’d rather walk than sit in a conference room when they want to mull and make important decisions. While certainly not brand new — Apple founder Steve Jobs was famous for it — walking has become a full-fledged fad among executives.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg clinched his deal to buy WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service, for US$19 billion in February after taking hour-long walks around Silicon Valley with WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum.
The trend is partly being stoked by executives trying to get a little bit removed from their overly plugged-in desks, with all of the demands of smartphones and computers. It’s also boosted by the increasing number of open-space offices, which give even top executives little privacy to speak candidly or have any alone time.
Photo: Bloomberg
Creative Juices
“Walking meetings not only liberate the butt, they liberate the creative juices,” said Nilofer Merchant, a technology consultant whose Got a meeting? Take a walk talk at a TED Conference last year has been viewed online more than 1.4 million times.
“Outside, you get to step away from the computer screen, and when you’re walking side by side, you’re shifting the power to be more equal,” Merchant said.
Hikmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union Co, uses walking meetings near his company headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, and at locations he visits around the world to encourage frank exchanges with employees. The practice also gives Ersek, a former professional basketball player, the chance to fit in a bit of a workout during business hours.
“People become much more relaxed, and they talk from their hearts if you go for a walk with them,” he said. “And they get to the point they want to make much more quickly.”
Not long ago, Ersek was in his office with his chief communications officer, Luella D’Angelo, discussing how to encourage employees around the world to better serve Western Union customers.
Fresh Air
“It was a complicated subject and all of a sudden I jumped up and said, “I can’t stand sitting here any longer, let’s go outside and get some fresh air while we talk,” said Ersek. “Luella was wearing high heels, but she had to follow me — and, walking, we came up with some new ideas.”
D’Angelo agreed. “Whether it’s on heels or flats,” she said, “adaptability is key to getting my job done.”
Huston of Priceline, which was founded by Jay Walker, said he often thinks more clearly when he’s on his feet and outdoors. He’s based at the company’s Booking.com office on Rembrandt Square in Amsterdam where, instead of a corner office, he sits at the center of what’s called “the front end,” surrounded by scores of employees who search online for hotels for customers in 200 countries.
This trading-floor atmosphere is good for customer service but not quiet contemplation, Huston said in an interview. So when he needs to confer about a new idea or prioritize strategy, he walks the cobblestone streets beside the canals of Amsterdam with one or two of his managers.
Zukerberg Walks
Facebook’s Zuckerberg caught some of his walking bug from Steve Jobs. The two entrepreneurs took a stroll in Palo Alto, California, in 2010 when Jobs was interested in having Ping, Apple musical social networking service, incorporated into Facebook, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named.
Although the partnership never happened, Zuckerberg now often takes people he wants to hire on a walk near the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, according to the person.
The area, with its year-round balmy weather and abundance of quiet leafy streets and hiking trails, is conducive to walking meetings. Among the many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who conduct regular walk-and-talks are Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter Inc and Heidi Roizen, operating partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
You don’t need a woodsy trail to walk and talk — it’s possible even in crowded cities, said Nihal Mehta, co-founder and chairman of LocalResponse Inc, a mobile advertising company, and founder of ENIAC Ventures, which invests in mobile technologies. He regularly asks potential investors and entrepreneurs to take walks with him and his office dog Stanley in New York, where he works and lives.
Dog Stanley
“Having Stanley, who has to be walked every few hours, is one of my inspirations, but holding meetings outside is memorable, and no one complains in New York if they’re getting a little exercise,” he said.
US presidents have walked from time to time, from Harry Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson. It was on a walk on the White House grounds that President Bill Clinton’s lawyer Robert Bennett once pressed him about rumors involving past relations with women, Bob Woodward wrote in his 1999 book, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate.
On that walk, Clinton told his lawyer he was “retired” from escapades with women, and said of the White House, “this is a prison.”
Last August, Obama walked for 45 minutes before announcing that he’d seek congressional authorization rather than call a strike on his own against Syria.
Obama’s Routine
Better known for his weekend golf outings and love of basketball, the 52-year-old president began his South Lawn walks under his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, although they walked only a few times, according to two aides who are familiar with his schedule and didn’t want to be named. Obama walked periodically with his next two chiefs, Bill Daley and Jacob J. Lew, now his Treasury Secretary.
It was with McDonough, a fitness buff who regularly jogs or cycles to work, that the president began walking at least several times a week. One lap around the South Lawn loop at an easy pace takes about five minutes. Obama’s walks typically range from 10 to 30 minutes.
On March 31, he paced the South Lawn loop as he awaited word on whether his administration would hit its 7-million target for health insurance sign-ups before the close of Obamacare first open enrollment period.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would