Leading data-driven teams
These days I see lots of companies and leaders talking about building a culture of data-driven decision making. The idea is terrific in concept. After all, who doesn’t want a deliberately developmental organization listening to their customers and focusing on driving impact? The problem is— put in practice, without the right culture and leadership mindset, this can quickly go sideways. So with that in mind, here are some hard-earned lessons I can share on how to build a culture of data-driven decision-making on your teams.
Don’t weaponize data. I’m starting with a major don’t which can rear its head in large and small ways. If you want people to get comfortable with data and admit there is room for improvement, you as a leader want to be thoughtful about how you talk about it, use it in setting context, and engage in conversations about it. Is reviewing data a once-a-quarter activity (or annual) activity as you think about performance reviews? Personally I get it, results matter. Yet if that is the only time you ask teams about their data, it stops being a helpful tool for them to improve and quickly becomes a “gotcha” reflecting on performance against targets while missing so many opportunities to learn and improve along the way.
Simply put, as a leader you have a chance to support your teams in thinking about leading and lagging indicators which can help them IMPROVE performance in those quarterly and annual (or whatever) reviews down the road. I could probably write an entire blog post on what not to do. For now, ask yourself the question as you engage in conversations around data on your teams: “Am I supporting my teams to explore and learn and make better data-driven decisions, or am I punishing people?”
Facilitate a discussion so the team can learn and understand the KPIs. Many of us use metrics everyday, and yet have varying degrees of understanding on what the metrics might mean and why they matter. Take time to explain, and then give the team space and opportunity to discuss and align. If you are working towards sales targets, for example, spend time making sure everyone is clear on the logic for the calculation, definitions, etc. Once people are comfortable, it becomes easier to engage and dig deeper.
Make space to have the team explore the context. Say we saw a dip last March of 2020 in productivity. On the surface as a leader you might feel anxious because the team wasn’t crushing it like always… Maybe it’s time to give them a reminder on the importance of delivery? Not so fast. Ask the team to share some theories on the context of what was happening that might have caused an impact to the KPI (e.g. going from in person to remote within a week during COVID last year as an example). Then take a deep breath and explore some more to get everyone sharing their experience and context to bring the data to life.
Spend time reflecting on insights and actions. So we have developed some theories on leading and lagging indicators in our data, now it’s time to hone in on areas we might like to improve, and actions and experiments we might want to take. This should comprise the bulk of your dialogue with the team. Encourage people to vote on which items they think are most important. Then ask each person to share an action or insight. At the end of the session, you should have a clear view of what the team has learned, where they want to focus, and who will champion the data-driven decision.
Rinse, and repeat. This conversation should happen quite regularly. If your team runs retrospectives, that’s a perfect place to use this technique. And any action in progress should be regularly discussed by the team like any other piece of work they are collaborating on. There are many ways you can inportate data-driven decision making into your everyday. This is just a quick example. What suggestions do you have for people to try? What other “pitfalls” should leaders avoid?
