Reminds me of Ernie Angelicola who was a mechanical engineer among many other things.
He told me of one of his jobs, where the owner of a large manufacturing company hired him to study their process and recommend ways to improve it.
So Ernie just chatted with workers and asked them about it, then prepared a detailed report of what they had said.
After he presented it to the owner and the rest of management, the owner paid him.
Ernie asked him why he paid him $50,000 for just compiling what the workers had told him.
The owner said it was well worth it as the managers would never have accepted the info directly from the employees, but now, coming from the "outside expert engineer" they would.
In my first job I did the same thing. They gave me the book on how the plant was supposed to be run, but I found it wasn’t true; the employees had modified it substantialy. So checking to make sure what they did was beneficial, it became my expertise too.
One of my best days was to set the guy who had written the book straight on what was really happening.
This was my routine ever after.
Borrow a guy’s watch to tell him what time it is.