Data Driven Leader

Imagine being in the board room, presenting to the board of directors of your organization about a new initiative that your business unit would like to do.  The budget is a $5 million investment for the organization.  You give your presentation, and the chairman of the board asks you the question.  "What is the return on investment?  You tell him 2.5 years, and he asks how you arrived at that figure.  

You don't know.  You stumble to answer the question, and ultimately tell the chairman “I don’t know"....but why don't you know?  

The answer to why you don't know could be many, but it begs the question on who is leading you in the usage of data?  Who is responsible for analyzing the ROI on your project? 

Do you have a strong IT department who is in charge of database administration who has given you information in the past?  A department dedicated to reporting and information output in the organization?  Several departments with analysts that should be helping each business unit with data analysis?  

The truth is regardless of who is responsible for providing data, everyone in the organization needs to own their job responsibilities, and the data necessary to do their job.  The simple answer to the question of who owns the data is...You.  You are the data leader.  

A data leader knows what information is necessary to gauge their successes.  A data leader knows how to effectively measure their S.M.A.R.T goals.  A data leader knows how to compare last year to this year, and how to project what next year may look like.  A data leader knows the data (and the ROI) around the projects that they propose.  

You may have some questions about where to get the data, or how to combine it to make it useful.  There likely is someone in your organization ready to help you succeed in this area - lets call them the 'data guy'.  This is the person in your organization that really enjoys analyzing, is detail oriented, seeks to quantify the organization's strategy, and desires to help you succeed in fulfilling your part.  If they haven't reached out to you, give them a call.  Have a conversation with them, and have them help you apply data to your strategy.  

A few questions for your conversation:

• How do you determine in what ways you can better serve your customers? 
• What is your business unit's part in fulfilling organizational strategy?
• What does improving your business unit look like?
• How do you determine if you need more staff?  
• How do you communicate to your team their status in reaching their goals? 
• How do you determine if your team is working at or over capacity? 

If you don't have a data guy in your organization...find one fast.  They will prove invaluable in helping you reach your goals and helping you get the information that you need to prove it.  

Never lose sight of the fact that YOU are a data leader.

Own it.