The data-driven organization questions everything

The path to successful business transformation travels through data-driven dialogues prompted by questions.

The recently published article “Data-Driven Dialogues Will Define Success” detailed the need for managers to incorporate data and the use of digital information into critical discussions within their organizations.  Data-driven dialogues were proposed as a necessary “new normal” for our leaders, our workforce, and our interactions with members.

However, today, new technologies, sometimes fueled by access to actionable data, are too often the primary focus of people’s efforts to address the change they see around them.  And that’s a problem. Because it’s not the technology that will drive us to successful change.  It is people.  People create change through imaginative thinking, active planning, and diligent implementation.  It’s not the forces around us that drive change; it’s us. You may be responding to your environment, but in the end, it’s your skill and initiative that lead to results.

Thoughtful, knowledgeable people create change that sustains success.

Strategic, proactive thought and action, done by people focused on evaluating change and opportunity, is the most effective way to drive organizational transformation. And the best people will make sure that the transformations are real, relevant and intentional.

To do this, we must recognize that organizations are most successful when they are built to learn, built to change, built to grow into the shapes and content needed to succeed in our inevitable futures.  And those organizations pursuing positive change will ensure that all form of dialogue is driven by, and illuminated by data.  Not technology, but data; properly sourced and effectively analyzed, data is the foundation for reality-based discussion and action.

Sound management delivers predictive, prescriptive data-driven solutions and transformative change.

For managers to deliver predictive, prescriptive data-driven solutions and transformative change they must drive learning by challenging their peers and subordinates to ask the “right” questions — those questions that demand honest, relevant answers found through data analysis, data-driven dialogues, and efforts to reconcile outcomes with previous decisions and actions.

Questions lead to learning, which leads to repeatable success.

Asserting that there are “right questions” to ask and answer may signal hubris on behalf of the author of any such list. But, no matter where you land on this question of “right and wrong”, you will surely recognize that some of the best questions we ask ourselves focus on our assumptions regarding what we know, what we believe, and what we want to achieve.  With that measure in mind, consider the following:

  • Are your assumptions valid?
  • Is what you know about your customers based in fact?
  • Do you understand your competitors’ motivations and behaviors?
  • Will your organization’s culture tolerate the degree and speed of needed change?
  • Do your teams have the skills and capabilities needed today, and tomorrow?
  • Do you have the right systems in place?
  • Are you using the right tools?
  • Are you risking unnecessary regulatory scrutiny?
  • Are your results the products of your plans and decisions?

Others will ask questions and use data (regarding your customers, your market, and your company) to improve their business.  Will you do as much with your own information?

Asking the right questions, and using data to help formulate the answers, will bring you to assess your situation realistically.  And with that, you can engage all levels of your organization in articulating a vision and strategy that inform actionable plans.  All of which will help you to choose the processes and tools needed to succeed.  Evaluating and choosing the system solutions and applications needed to succeed, becomes easier and more profitable when you know where you are going and what you want to do when you get there.

Successful management means better-informed planning and greater control over a changing environment. My own experience has helped me to see that it is possible to cultivate the culture, develop the processes and apply the tools to deliver results that are the product of intentional decisions.  You must start by asking the right questions – they will come through your people, and their effective use of data.

Greg Crandell

Greg Crandell

Greg Crandell provides strategy, market planning, business development, and management consulting to financial technology firms and their clients – Credit Unions and Banks. For more years than he wishes to admit, ... Web: queryconsultinggroup.com Details