Seeing the Front

You're seeing a failure to See the Front when leadership makes confident strategic decisions based entirely on dashboards and executive summaries, without anyone in the room having recently talked to an actual customer.

You're seeing Seeing the Front when a founder regularly watches user sessions, reads support tickets, or sits in on sales calls — maintaining direct contact with how the product meets reality.

As your company scales, your distance from the front increases automatically. Fight it deliberately. Schedule recurring time with customers, support teams, and operations. The moment you rely entirely on reports, your strategy starts drifting from reality.

Walton was legendary for seeing the front. Even as Walmart grew into the world's largest retailer, he spent most of his time visiting stores — not headquarters. He'd arrive unannounced, talk to associates, examine shelving, check prices, and observe customer behaviour firsthand. This wasn't theatre; it was his primary information-gathering system. Walton trusted what he saw on the floor more than any report, and his strategic decisions reflected ground truth that competitors' executives, insulated in corporate offices, simply didn't have. Founders can apply Walton's discipline: make front-line exposure a non-negotiable habit. The information you get from being there is categorically different from the information you get from being briefed.