Dispel Your Team’s Fear of Data

Kenneth Andersson

Most people are uncomfortable with data.  Estimates, analytics, and data-driven predictions — they can all be confusing and overwhelming. Some of this discomfort is based on experience. Everyone remembers a time when their data was simply wrong, a prediction was misleading, and the consequences were serious.

Until recently people could easily ignore data in their daily work. The company’s “gearheads” and “quants” were isolated in specialist departments, tech handled the mundane stuff, and managers could brush off the benefits of improved data quality with the attitude, “We’re doing just fine. Why bother?”

But now that’s changing. The headline result of my most recent “scan” of the data space is that fear has replaced apathy as the number one enemy of data. More and more managers and their direct reports sense that, sooner or later, data will infiltrate every nook and cranny of every industry, company, and department, transforming work, relationships, and power structures. Uncertainty around “what will happen to me, my work, my department, and my company?” is seeping into hearts and minds of individuals at all levels. You can spot the fear in a number of ways: Some don’t make the effort to share potentially useful data, and others (increasingly) complain that the data is too difficult to access, understand, or use, so they ignore opportunities to include it when making an important decision.

This atmosphere of fear has profound significance for managers. Fear can paralyze both individuals and teams. Workers clam up when they’re anxious, and keep valuable thoughts to themselves. Fear prevents people from trying out new ideas, lest they suffer the costs of failure (or just look stupid for trying). It hampers productivity, as people waste time dissecting rumors, envisioning budget cuts, and fearing layoffs, instead of focusing on their work.

Good managers don’t allow fear to fester in their teams. And the best way for managers to help their direct reports grow more at ease with data is to lead by example. Here are a few steps you can take to learn to use data more effectively and pass those skills on to your team.

To get started, take a hard look in the mirror. It’s okay if you’re nervous. Just don’t let this fear stop you.  Instead use it to drive a sense of urgency in gaining the knowledge and experience you need.

Next, read and study. Find stories in the news and articles on the web about data to learn more about it. Pick a book or two on the topic and ask yourself, “What does this mean for me and my department?”  Here’s a short list to choose from:  Davenport and Harris’ Competing on Analytics, Lohr’s Data-ism, and Silver’s The Signal and the Noise (or my own book, Data Driven).

Then, find ways to practice using data. Pick something that interests you, such as whether meetings start on time, your commute time, or your fitness regimen, and gather some data, recording it on paper or electronically. Create some simple plots (such as a time-series plot) and compute some statistics (such as the average and the range). Ask yourself what the data means and explore its implications.

As your knowledge grows, push forward. Dig into other data sets to uncover the stories behind the data. Learn the distinction between causation and correlation. Construct graphics to help visualize what you’ve found. Share these visuals with your team, so they can see what you’ve discovered and how it improves your work.

Bring your new experience with data into your daily work. In an earlier piece, I outlined twelve habits of the data-driven. Pick two or three and put them into practice. For example, “the data-driven recognize the importance of high-quality data and invest to improve it.” Here, you can identify and eliminate the root cause of one data quality issue in the data you use to manage your department. Show this to your team, and get them involved.

Or consider this habit: “The data-driven bring as much diverse data to any situation as they possibly can.” Practice this habit with those you work with. When discussing an important topic, ask, “Have we really assembled the total picture? Or are there other ways of looking at this that we should consider?”  Encourage your team to look for more information, and make sure that at least one new piece of data or perspective emerges.

But my favorite habit is, “The data-driven make decisions at the lowest possible level.” Push back when a subordinate asks you to make a mundane decision. Challenge him or her to gather all the relevant facts themselves, sort through the options, and make a firm recommendation. Chances are high that your subordinate will allot more time, gather more diverse data, and thus think more carefully about the decision. Routinely following this habit has the salutary effect of facilitating comfort with data and making the entire department stronger.

In the face of fear, your department looks to you for leadership. You can become a credible leader and dispel the fear of data in your team as well as your own fear by increasing your abilities and inspiring the entire department to embrace data. After all, if fear is the number one enemy of data, knowledge is the number one enemy of fear.