To be seen use the front stairs, but to see… use the back stairs.
During my years in corporate leadership, I came to understand there were two quite different ways of moving through a building, and that the route I chose on any given morning shaped what I would know by lunchtime.
When the moment called for visibility, I took the front stairs, walking purposefully and professionally to exactly the place where people expected to find me, so that my presence was noted and my role was clear. Whenever I wanted to understand what was really happening, however, the back stairs served me far better.
I might slip through the basement filing room and emerge quietly on the far side of the building, which placed me in precisely the right spot, at precisely the right moment, to hear what people were discussing, to notice what was beginning to shift, and to understand how the organisation genuinely functioned once the formal performance had ended.
Over time, I learned to watch who went to lunch with whom, and when. There was one partner who never seemed to have a moment for me, yet having noticed his habits, I would occasionally “bump into” him in his favourite sandwich shop, where, quite suddenly, he had plenty of time to talk.
The managing partners’ PA became a friend, and she understood the rhythm of the place better than anyone: who was in, who was out, what was coming over the horizon, and what mattered to whom.
A formal organisation chart shows you who reports to whom, while the sandwich shop, the car park, the caretakers, security and the PA’s desk show you where the useful information actually travels.
In the interests of full disclosure, my hair also had the good sense to grow during working hours, so it seemed only reasonable to have it cut during working hours too. This was only possible because I’d created my levels of visibility and invisibility, knowing when to be silent and when to be heard from a distance.
Knowing when to be visible and when to be quietly useful became an art in itself. There were afternoons when I remained in a department long after I might have been expected to leave, deep in conversation with its head or helping someone untangle a problem, and on those afternoons anyone searching for me found me remarkably elusive, yet hiding in plain sight.
Most days I rode my motorcycle to work and parked in the partners’ car park, keeping a change of clothes in the office so that I was ready well before anyone else arrived and could leave long after most people had gone home. Those quieter edges of the working day gave me a different view of the organisation altogether, because different conversations happen at seven in the morning and seven in the evening, and different people are around to have them.
My education in all of this came from curiosity and from patient attention to patterns: who trusted whom, where decisions were truly being shaped, who held the knowledge that mattered, what people did once the meeting ended, and what they chose to leave unsaid. Often it could take many months for all the pieces of the jigsaw to finally fall in to place with the pleasing Ahh, now I understand.
Every organisation has two maps
That kind of observation matters because every organisation carries two maps. The official one sets out roles, reporting lines, procedures and meetings, while the human one records relationships, habits, loyalties, bottlenecks and the people everyone quietly turns to when something needs sorting.
Anyone who walks the countryside will recognise the distinction. The signposted footpath tells you where the landowner intends you to go, yet the narrow trails pressed into the bracken by deer and badgers, worn smooth by years of nightly passage, tell you where the life of the wood really moves. A good tracker reads both, and so does a good leader.
Research into informal networks bears this out, showing that the way people actually communicate can depart from the structure set out on paper. In one study of a global manufacturing company, Orbach and colleagues found that the communication they observed between teams differed from what the formal work processes suggested was needed, while Larsson, Segerstéen and Svensson described informal leaders as people who help interpret and pass on knowledge across an organisation. The back stairs, you might say, are where the human map becomes visible.
My purpose was presence rather than cleverness, staying close enough to notice what was happening before it hardened into a problem, or before it became an opportunity everyone else had walked straight past.
What the human map means for the value of your business
In business we tend to look for answers in dashboards, plans and formal conversations, and they deserve their place, although they capture only part of the picture. The most valuable insight often lives in the small, repeated signals: who is carrying too much, where the energy drops, which conversation keeps being postponed, and where people go when they need a decision unstuck. These signals are the energy and emotion supply chain of your business made visible, and they carry real commercial weight.
A buyer studies the official map during due diligence, and the price they pay depends on how well the human map works without you.
When the human map runs through a single trusted person, or through the owner alone, the business becomes fragile in ways that stay invisible on the organisation chart, and an astute buyer will sense that fragility long before the numbers are finalised. A business built to work hard for its owner has a human map that is healthy, well travelled and capable of functioning when you step away, which is precisely what makes it valuable on the day you decide to sell.
So here is my question for you: which stairs are you taking today?
You might choose the front stairs, where you are seen, or the back stairs, where you can see, and both have their place, because the real skill lies in knowing which one the moment calls for.
When you walk both staircases with intention, the noise begins to quieten because you understand what is really happening, your attention returns to the clients and the work your business was built to serve, and the results follow naturally, because a business whose human map is healthy delivers well, keeps its best people and grows steadily in value.
If you would like to explore what the human map of your own business might be telling you, let’s have a confidential conversation that costs nothing, but might change everything. No script and no sales pitch, simply an honest conversation – the type you might never have had before Get in touch.
Love. Gail.
Research referenced
Orbach, M. et al. (2015), “Sensing Informal Networks in Organizations,” American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214556810
Larsson, M., Segerstéen, S. & Svensson, C. (2011), “Information and Informality: Leaders as Knowledge Brokers in a High-Tech Firm,” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051810390048