Executives make better decisions and build stronger organizations when they stay close to frontline employees, customers and the day-to-day realities of how the business actually operates.

One of the biggest risks executives face is becoming too disconnected from the reality of their own business. It becomes easy to experience the company through dashboards, presentations and filtered conversations instead of direct observation. Information gets summarized, simplified and cleaned up before it reaches the executive floor. Over time, leaders can start managing reports about the business instead of the business itself. That disconnect creates dangerous blind spots.

I learned early in my career that conference-room reality and frontline reality are often very different. A new strategy hire, fresh out of Wharton in a Brooks Brothers suit, asked me how she could succeed at our Fortune 100 company, I told her to work in one of our brick-and-mortar stores for a year. She was incredulous, but she took on the challenge, and after nine months, we plucked her out of the store and promoted her into a director role. Her doubters could not help but understand how talented and equipped she was to handle the responsibilities.

Employees closest to customers usually know where friction exists long before executives do. They see operational inefficiencies, customer frustrations and cultural problems in real time while leadership teams are still discussing quarterly trends.

The issue is rarely bad intent. Most executives genuinely want accurate information. The problem is that organizational layers naturally soften reality as information moves upward.

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