Knowing "the Usual Suspects:" An Underutilized Strategy for Leadership Success

In every organization, the people with the deepest knowledge surprisingly often do not have the highest titles. I learned this early in my career at Pitney Bowes, when my supervisor, David O'Hearne, Vice President of Legal Affairs, taught me where real expertise hides.

Working on a major antitrust trial in San Francisco, David frequently called to ask me to prepare affidavits on specific topics. What mattered most was not the drafting itself, but whom he directed me to contact: front-line career employees several levels below their unit presidents. These were people in windowless cubicles whom senior leaders rarely visited. By seeking them out, I gained a richer understanding of the company, its products, and its culture than any executive briefing could provide.

Many became lifelong friends and invaluable allies. When I treated them with respect and helped when I could, they repaid me many times over with responsiveness, insight, and honesty.

Over time, whenever cross-disciplinary teams tackled tough problems, the same people resurfaced—the company's informal "knowledge network." I called them the "usual suspects," borrowing Captain Renault's line from Casablanca.

Building Networks at Every Level

Conventional career advice emphasizes cultivating mentors and senior sponsors. That's good counsel—but incomplete. Senior executives have less time to meet with lower-level employees, and organizational layers shield them from the broader company.

As I rose in leadership, I shared the lesson from my learning experience with others. When recruiting or mentoring executives, I gave them lists of long-tenured people who had helped me learn the business. Pitney Bowes honored its veterans through the "Oval Club," and even retirees remained institutional repositories of knowledge. I frequently connected current executives with them when they faced unfamiliar challenges.

As CEO, I held about 150 "skip-level" meetings annually with employees who didn't report directly to me. These candid sessions provided unfiltered insights, free of the corporate gloss that accompanies upward reporting.

Learning from the Front Line

One of the most valuable people in this network was Bob Hoffman, who retired in 1995 after 56 years with the company. His modest title—"Assistant to the Vice President, Customer Service"—didn't capture his immense influence. Living in Pelham, NY, Bob commuted by train, and, as a reverse commuter living in Manhattan, I often took the local, instead of the express, to spend an hour talking with him.

Those conversations were mini-seminars in corporate history. Bob remembered why strategies succeeded or failed. His knowledge was contextual, not theoretical—precisely the kind that disappears when organizations fail to listen to their veterans.

Early in my legal career, I accompanied top sales professionals on client calls for a full day each year. In 1980, I completed the company's two-week sales-training program, meeting field veterans everyone sought out for guidance. That summer, I gave antitrust-law presentations at five regional conferences. More valuable than the podium time were the hallway conversations—where people shared insights no manual could match.

Meeting People Where They Are

As CEO, I visited about 20 field offices a year for town halls and small-group discussions. Sometimes I combined family trips with these visits—breaking away from my son's chess tournaments to meet local teams. During one Nashville tournament, I was driven two hours to Memphis to visit FedEx and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

I also visited telesales and customer-care centers in Spokane, Appleton WI, Savannah GA, Chesapeake VA, and Albany. During one visit, our National Accounts Customer Care Director revealed how much customized billing we were doing on low-revenue accounts—an inefficiency invisible in reports, but obvious to those taking the calls.

This cost little beyond travel expenses, yet built an invaluable reservoir of understanding that made me more effective as an attorney, HR leader, and operating executive.

Extending Beyond the Company

I applied the same philosophy in government and industry relations. Many CEOs focus on meeting members of Congress or cabinet officials. I met them too—but also spent time with the staffers who drafted legislation and shaped regulatory details. These were the "usual suspects" of public policy: they did the grunt work and often outlasted their political bosses.

With the U.S. Postal Service, one of our largest partners, I met with leaders of three postal unions, spoke at their conventions, and visited facilities few corporate leaders had seen, such as its Memphis National Change of Address Center.. I even befriended postmasters to hear what customers were saying on the ground.

Most of these interactions took place during off-hours and attracted no publicity. They weren't glamorous, but they were profoundly informative.

Solving Problems Others Couldn't

Because I listened to the right people, I often became the go-to problem solver. In 1982, when a New York State staff attorney blocked a multimillion-dollar contract, business leaders on both sides blamed "the lawyers." Instead of escalating, I called the attorney directly and drove three hours to meet him in Albany. His small, windowless office reminded me of those early cubicle conversations. Within an hour, we worked out a practical solution, and the contract was signed.

The Larger Lesson

My career confirmed a simple truth: in every system—corporate, governmental, or civic—the people who quietly keep it running know more than anyone else about how it actually works. By honoring and learning from them, leaders gain insights unavailable in reports or executive briefings.

Organizations that fail to "round up the usual suspects" lose both institutional memory and operational wisdom. Those that do build resilience, credibility, and effectiveness far beyond what hierarchy alone can deliver.

Many leaders resist this engagement, not out of arrogance alone, but because modern management systems reward efficiency over curiosity. It feels faster to read a dashboard than have a conversation. Time pressure, ego, the protective barriers staff members build around leaders, and the illusion of omniscience that data creates all discourage leaders from seeking out those below the radar. Yet the most important truths—the ones that determine whether strategies succeed or fail—rarely appear on a spreadsheet.

In the Age of AI and Remote Work

In an age when AI dashboards and remote meetings dominate leadership, the danger isn't too little data—it's losing touch with the people who hold knowledge no algorithm can capture. I walk into too many offices today that still have most employees working remotely and spending little time in the office. The leaders who will thrive are those who remember that insight still lives at the edges of the system—in the voices of the "usual suspects" who quietly keep it running. Without a critical mass of in-person workers, the learning path I followed cannot be duplicated today.