Being Data Driven is Hard

What does it mean to be data driven? We hear it all the time: 

“We are data driven”

“ we make data driven decisions”

“The data tells us what to do, not our gut”

But are we making data driven decisions or are we making data informed decisions? Are we really trusting the data and letting the data tell us what to do? You see, the dilemma in organizations today is that being data driven comes with a lot of risk. It comes with the risk that what we've been doing this whole time has been wrong. You see, when we start to really understand the scope of our business, we start to question what we’ve done in the past. What do we do when the data doesn't show us what we like? Well, for most of us, our first instinct is that you don't trust it.

“Something must be wrong, that data is not correct”.

This could just be basic metrics that we're looking at. It could also be the actual summary data that's coming through. The numbers in this case, don’t matter, because the people that are using it don’t trust it and won’t use it. What we see in people, is that they immediately have a knee jerk reaction to try to protect themselves. It's only natural, it's only human. It’s human to feel a sense of defensiveness. It's the same feeling that people get when we talk about automation. “You know, all these bots are going to replace so many jobs and it's just gonna get rid of everything”. For some, automation is a trigger. Even if we know that it will make our lives easier or make the company better, we still put up a barrier. 

Data driven decisions or trying to get to a data driven organization is hard. It's hard because change is hard. My leadership in organization professor at NYU told us that change management is an oxymoron. Management is about managing the known and since change is unknown, change management is about managing our past so that we don’t repeat the same habit, the same ideas, the same perspective, tasks that will prevent us from implementing that change.

What does that mean in the realm of changing an organization into a data driven organization?

When making any change in an organization, albeit if that's putting a new system in place, rolling out new KPIs, or even new leadership, change is hard! Change is difficult because we are so used to our ways and we are creatures of habit. There are very few people that I’ve met that really thrive on change and love dealing with constant change. So, if change is so hard, can an organization ever be data driven? To me, I don't think it's a yes or no answer, it’s not a categorical one either (you’re either data driven, data informed, gut driven, etc.). Being data driven is a process. It has stages, it evolves. You don't wake up one day and say “hey, we're a data driven organization” because there are always areas in an organization that can always use improvement.

To say the job is ever done is to be negligent of  innovation or negligent to whatever change may come. Change is something we need to adapt and be able to grow with. After all, an organization that doesn't change is an organization that dies. So yes, data may have been something that was probably only privy to a handful of people in the past, but with the rise of technology and information at our fingertips, that wealth of knowledge spreads to more and more people. If you are one of those people that are part of a data driven or data informed organization, don’t stop there. Data is an asset to an organization. If you don't leverage your data, you will end up failing. I don’t mean failing and then getting back up, I mean failing and never coming back. I urge you to find new products and new ideas that can take your company to the next level. If you’re not in one of those companies, then it's time to change.

Change is hard, but failing your company is worse. Dare to be data driven, dare to be data informed, dare to change even if it means knowing that what you’ve done in the past doesn’t work anymore.