Put data in the driver’s seat and you can find yourself 3 times better when it comes to making decisions.
It may be time to give up the image of the leader who flouts evidence, suspects science, and disregards data. This style has lost its allure. In this economic era of sudden upheaval, who can line up behind individuals who are flying blind or going with their gut?
If “know thyself” is more accurately translated as “know thy measure”, then leaders must know the data they have in house. They should also know how that data is impacting their organization and how they can use it to reach their business goals. Without that data, a business stumbles around in the dark, doing its employees, customers, and shareholders untold disservice.
Data-driven may have become cliché, but it’s not going out of style any time soon. Not long ago, you had to drop the term to validate your point or your expertise. It credentialed you to speak in certain spaces. Data was everything. And it still is.
When “data-driven” sprang into popularity during the 1990s, it transmitted a charge of legitimacy. The business world made the term its own. Data-driven signaled backed by science, thoroughly researched, unbiased, not subjective, not arbitrary, trustable, and trustworthy. Data-driven meant that decisions were informed by careful study and leaders’ insights were grounded in much more than intuition or hearsay.
Data holds multiple powers. Decision makers need data to avoid shot-in-the-dark leadership. It enables businesses to zoom in on growth and deal with barriers. And when things get going, data can help businesses optimize efficiency and move quickly.
Even as some experts are urging businesses to become more “natural” or “intuitive” and less data driven, leaders require data to illuminate the path ahead. And they may need it more than ever. Without data, uncertainty can rattle the business and bring decision making to a halt.
Data about opportunities, processes, and competitors help frame and test leaders’ choices. In post-COVID-19 economies, opportunity and uncertainty may run on the same track. Policy changes and emerging technologies present possibilities and barriers. Data analytics can empower leaders to cut through the complexity, find insight, and make trusted decisions. The right use of data also accelerates the decision-making process.
In addition to agility and legitimacy in decision making, data can bring opportunities into better focus. Now is not the time to think of data as a habit to be broken.
In a number of industries, especially those that are supported or enabled by new or emerging technologies, there are no shortages of shiny objects. Which one to choose and which way to go can burden organizations and leaders. Time spent bogged down in the decision process dulls a company’s competitive edge. Without the solid foundation of data, decisions may be weakened by doubt. Leaders lose followers.
Timid or conservative decisions that are steeped in data have significant advantage over bold, profit-promising decisions formed without extensive data insight. In addition to potential unpredictable risk, data-poor decisions don’t rally the troops. Leaders who make these kinds of decisions do more than expose their businesses and people to undeterminable risk. They can become isolated. Few people will line up behind them, and they cease to be leaders.
Once businesses take advantage of data to identify opportunities and allocate their resources, they can go forward using data to optimize and accelerate their processes. Data will reveal how well the results of a decision are working.
Efficiency is a crucial factor in leadership. Leaders require data to gauge and optimize efficiency. Here again, organizations that assume they need to disconnect from a reliance on data may lose insight into how well they are doing the things that define them or make them competitive.
Just as they need to be efficient to be effective, organizations often need to move quickly. Rapid change may be demanded by the landscape or the nature of the business. Without data informing choices and guiding movement, a company’s activity will be less than agile. Innovation, changes in law and policy, shifting demand, regional conflict, and other factors can require that a company decides quickly and moves fast. Data serves as the guidance system in these cases. Without data, nimble and agile soon turn to awkward and clunky.
Following the backlash against cryptocurrencies and with the gradual mainstreaming of virtual reality and other technologies, leaders should realize that this is not the time to end their relationships with data and data analytics. More than ever, data marks the path forward.
Leaders want certainty for themselves and their businesses. That certainty is found in data. It helps them identify and select opportunities. Data also help leaders build consensus. Getting everyone onboard and taking swift, accurate action are among the benefits of reliance on data.
Within organizations, leaders can use data to break silos and wire their businesses for agile, optimal expressions of talent and innovation. Data-driven decisions reduce the incidence of leadership that seems to consist of idiosyncratic choices and share a sense of leadership that is transparent, democratic, and rational.
- Remain informed and driven by data, even if something more natural or intuitive briefly becomes the prevailing trend.
- Use data to understand and improve your company’s efficiency and reach your business goals.
- Employ data to speed up decisions and keep your organization nimble, effective, and competitive.
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