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Break this rule to run your business better
The real story doesn’t live in the dashboards.
Michael Girdley
May 24, 2025
Hey everybody!
I wrote about the fog of war in business recently. And I heard an interesting anecdote about it that I wanted to share.
It’s about a multibillion-dollar retailer run by a famously sharp CEO. The business is a total juggernaut, and they do a ton of things right.
But I learned one thing the CEO does that I thought was really special:
He calls up front-line employees on the regular.
Here’s what I mean.
I was talking to someone close to the business recently.
I asked him, “Who are the stars of this business?”
He said: “The store managers.”
Which is a little surprising for a massive retailer, but cool they realize that.
And here’s the thing: the CEO, a multi-billionaire in charge of tens of thousands of people, is texting with a bunch of those managers directly.
It’s skip-level meetings on steroids — he’s skipping like seven or eight levels of management.
And it’s not to give instructions. It’s how he learns what’s happening. Because the truth gets filtered at every layer between you and the frontlines. There’s spin, polish, distortion, and lost context.
This stuck with me. And it clicked when I had a similar moment myself recently.
At one of my companies, we saw a sudden 50% drop in sales activity. Leads, qualified calls—everything was down.
We went to the data. We looked at SEO. Ad spend. Lead quality. CRM bugs. Nothing jumped out.
But within three minutes of picking up the phone and calling people close to the customer, we had our answer: a government policy change had basically frozen all demand in the market.
It’s not that the data lied. It just didn’t explain things. The anecdotes told us what was actually going on.
So here’s the lesson:
KPIs and dashboards are great, but you’re flying blind if they’re all you look at. Make conversations with your customers — or people close to your customers — part of your regular routine, and get your head out of the boardroom.
FREE EVENTS COMING UP
Thurs June 5 — Why most offshore dev hires FAIL. Michael Girdley will be chatting with Near CEO Hayden Cohen about the ins and outs of hiring offshore developers. Beginner-friendly, with lots of time for Q&A about offshoring in general. RSVP!
Thurs Jun 12 — The best franchise models on the market. Franchise-curious? There are a ton of different options out there, and they’re all over the map. Connor Groce will walk us through the best opportunities you can find this year. RSVP!
3 things for this week
Appetizer: America is waking up. One of my recent videos is blowing up a little — check it out!
Main: My colleague Robyn Smith is now a YouTuber. Her long-term goal (post working in my world) is to get into the financial planning business for Gen Z ladies. She's making videos to create awareness. Super impressed with her first ever video.
Dessert: Sometimes capitalism is the answer. Am I right?
That’s it for today!
How do you stay close to what’s really happening in your business?
Hit reply and let me know.
Thanks for reading,
Michael
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