Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years, you know the importance of using data to drive your decisions. However, while we have an army of well-trained data scientists and analysts producing data and findings, there hasn’t been that much attention paid to the people consuming that data. Knowing how to use the results of an analysis is as, if not more, important than the analysis itself.
Here are three common attitudes or beliefs that might be hurting your ability to consume data effectively.
You can consciously control where you focus – Many leaders ask for more rather than less when looking at data. They believe that they can weed out information that is not important and lock in on information that is. We know from the past 30 years of cognitive psychology and neuroscience research that simply isn’t the case. Most of our attention and focus is driven unconsciously. That is also where 99% of the data that goes into a decision get processed. The more data that is put in front of you, the more likely that hidden biases will be applied without you even knowing. Don’t ask for data, ask for answers supported with evidence. That will help you remain focused and will speed up your decision making.
You need to see the charts and graphs for an analysis to be credible –Leaders tell me that they ask to see the detailed analysis as part of their “due diligence” to be sure it was done. There are three problems with this:
- you can’t consciously control where you focus (see above),
- walking through the analysis shows a lack of trust; either you don’t trust that the person did it correctly or you believe that they would lie about what the analysis said. If either are true, you need a different person doing the analysis. Walking through every step is a waste of time. After all, they can just as easily screw up or alter the analysis as well. Frankly, it’s much easier to trick someone with a well crafted data dump than with a simple argument.
- seeing the charts and graphs creates an illusion of rigor or credibility that can influence your decision-making. In one study, students were more likely to believe an outrageous claim about how the brain works when that claim was accompanied by a random fMRI image of the brain.
You need to perform due diligence, but don’t become an auditor. Instead, question and challenge findings that don’t make sense. Ask for evidence. Explain what you expected the result to be and see if they are able to provide a credible counter argument. That will be much more effective in helping you understand if they’ve done a credible analysis.
Your decisions are based upon numbers – Leaders like their reports to show a lot of numbers. Numbers are just an intermediate step in your decision making. Your decisions are based on what numbers tell you, not the actual number. Often, I’ll ask a leader what they are looking for when they are reviewing a color-coded report. The most common answer; they are trying to find the “reds” and “yellows”. In other words, they don’t care about the values. They are trying to figure out what items are in trouble.
Having a lot of numbers on a report slows down that process, even if the report is color coded. You still have to scan each line, check the color, look back to the first column to see what it was that has that color, and remember which were yellow and which were red. Wouldn’t it just be easier just to start with list of the items that are red or yellow?
There is no value in looking through a list and collecting items that meet some criteria. Let your computer do that (it’s better than you are anyway). Your value lies in figuring out what to do with the answer. Don’t ask for reports of numbers. Ask for “reports” that simply answer your questions.
Focus on decisions not data
Being a data-driven leader isn’t about focusing on numbers. It’s about driving-decisions and actions that are based in fact. You need to have data underlying all of your decisions, but you don’t necessarily have to talk about it all the time. Instead, talk about what really matters: your business, your products, your customers, your processes, and your people. Those are the things for which you are making decisions. That’s where you should be focusing your attention.
