What if the janitor in your building knows more about your business than your CEO? What if the person you overlook the most holds the exact insight that could save your company millions?

And what if the only reason you have not heard it is because no one ever thought to ask?

According to sociologist Gary David, that is not a hypothetical but a pattern. In every organization, the people at the lowest point of the org chart often have the clearest view of what is actually happening on the ground. But leaders rarely talk to them. They design strategies from the top down, rely on the wrong signals, and then wonder why their customer first initiatives are burning out employees and weakening morale.

Gary has spent 26 years at Bentley University teaching business students to think like sociologists: to study systems rather than just individuals, to map stakeholders from the ground up, and to understand that data without context can easily mislead.

In this episode, we explore why the Starbucks mobile order shift created unintended pressure points, how a well intentioned grant tied to underage drinking distorted crime data, and why the janitor in The Breakfast Club might have understood the system better than anyone else in the room.

Because if you are not designing with people, including the ones who clean the floors and staff the front desk, you are not really designing at all.

In this episode, we discuss:

[00:00] Why systems matter more than individuals
[01:57] What shaped Gary’s interest in human behavior
[03:56] Why we act differently in different settings
[07:09] The power of social identity
[10:45] Discovering sociology and thinking at scale
[13:08] Bringing sociology into business
[16:31] Where leaders fail at “including people”
[18:38] Why the lowest levels have the best insights
[21:04] The Starbucks breakdown of experience design
[27:32] Limits of design thinking
[30:15] Inside-out problem solving
[36:07] Thinking about data at a small scale
[39:00] The key question before acting on data
[41:00] Business, ethics, and real-world impact
[46:00] The role of business in society
[50:22] Co‑creating the first DEI major in the country
[55:12] What Bentley grads do differently
[58:30] What other business schools should copy from Bentley
[01:00:15] Where to learn more and connect with Gary

Notable Quotes

[00:05] "We have to look at people within context, people in systems, and how those attempts we have at making things better can ripple in ways that are unanticipated." – Gary

[00:33] "Before you act on the data, critically examine your data, make sure you know where it's coming from and what's creating it." – Gary

[19:12] "The people at the lowest point of an org chart can have the greatest insight in terms of how to improve things, but no one ever talks to them." – Gary

[17:07] "Focusing on customer experience to the detriment of employee experience resulted in a worse overall experience and actually degraded their brand." – Gary

[33:39] "Data plus context equals information. Data itself doesn't say anything." – Gary

[34:53] "People don't leave an organization, does that mean it's a good organization? No. It just means people may not have the ability to leave." – Gary

[54:35] "I can start to notice things I otherwise would never have noticed. And that noticing becomes an opportunity for designing and innovating." – Gary

[58:36] "100% of customers are people, 100% of employees are people. If you don't understand people, you don't understand business." – Simon Sinek (quoted by Gary)

Gary David

Website: https://www.garycdavid.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gary-c-david
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@garydavid9535/videos
Podcast: Experience By Design

Billy Samoa Saleebey

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/billysamoa/
Email: ⁠billy@podify.com⁠ and ⁠saleebey@gmail.com⁠

Insight Out

Website: ⁠https://www.insightoutshow.com/

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Why the Lowest-Paid Person Knows What Your Business Is Missing - Gary David