The Data Daily
Less than 2 minutes to read each morning.
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5 days a week since May 1st, 2023.
Data artist and data liars
“Be data driven”
“We want a single source of truth”
“What does the data say about this?”
This is the data echo chamber that we live in.
But there’s a secret that we don’t talk about enough.
Data isn’t objective.
Data isn’t “facts” or truth.
Data is fungible.
It can mean whatever people want it to mean.
You can lie with statistics and with charts alike.
If you don’t set the rules for data, someone else will.
If you don’t have shared objectives, competing incentives will tug-of-war over the narrative.
Data is art and science.
Many days it feels far more like art.
I’m glad you are here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
The wrong kind of problems
If the problems you solve can be solved by GPT/LLMs it’s time to find new problems.
If the skills you are best at are quickly becoming the skills that GPT/LLMs are good at it’s time to develop new skills.
Don’t take this personally. I’m on your team. I want what’s best for you.
One problem that GPT/LLMs are far away from solving?
People problems. Human interactions. Team alignment. Shared goals. Creativity.
You and your data team can find years of security (without AI taking your job) by focusing on these challenges.
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
p.s. Don’t call The Data Shop for extra hands coding. Or to write documentation. Or for a technical training seminar. I’m focused on solving different problems.
They don't want data
We confuse what the business “needs” or “wants” with a technology solution.
But they don’t want a technology solution. They don’t want data.
Don’t ask the business to define technology requirements.
Don’t ask them what data solution they would like.
Don't ask what data fields they need in a dashboard.
Asking these questions will lead - inevitably - to feelings of
"They don't know what they want."
"Their needs are always changing."
Partnering with the business means allowing them to focus on their business goals.
And it means you are also focused on their business goals.
And dreaming, strategizing, and building things that will hit those goals.
Businesses are the experts at their business goals and activities.
It’s the data teams' job to support and empower that with data.
Have fun building,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
The mindset that stops you from partnering
t's hard to partner with the business when you assume they are wrong or don't know what they want.
I hear it all the time:
“They don’t know what they want”
“They change their mind too much”
“I should give them what they need, not what they want”
This mindset stops you from partnering and collaborating.
Instead, assume that…
They do know what they want.
They are the expert on their business domain, activities and goals.
Because they are.
It’s your job to help them get what they want.
I'm here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
p.s. Next week is Christmas and we will be taking a few days off from The Data Daily. Hope you are enjoying time with family and friends during these holidays.
Everybody wants the same thing
If you fail to understand partnership then your data team will fail.
Successful data teams embody partnership at DNA level.
What's partnership?
We win or lose together.
If I can hit my goals without you hitting yours, that's not partnership.
If I'm happy with the results and you aren't, that's not partnership.
I'm not satisfied until you are.
That's partnership.
“I gave them the dashboard they wanted. It’s not fault if they don’t use it”
“We delivered the customer analytics the asked for. That’s on customer service if they don’t hit their retention goals”
Real success is when you help others win.
Pursue partnership and trust between takes care of itself.
Chase partnership and competing incentives disappear.
Everybody wants the same thing.
And we all win together.
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Value, Data, and Business - EnergyBytes Podcast
I recently enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation about value, data, and business with the brilliant guys at the EnergyBytes Podcast.
Listen in here:
YouTube
Spotify
I'm here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Safe to create
The best data teams have it.
The average teams overlook it.
Creativity.
Creativity in...
design
development
question asking
problem-solving
But creativity requires one key piece.
Safety.
Safety...
From blame for failure
To have bad ideas
To make mistakes
To try new things
To be inefficient
If you are the leader of the team, creating safety - and therefore creativity - falls on your shoulders.
Creativity is way more fulfilling.
Safety is way more fun.
I’m here,
Sawyer
p.s. This is the reason I write every morning. Practicing creativity and fun. Y’all are a safe group. I appreciate you 🙂
Clear the fog
I spilled a lot of (digital) ink writing about value.
So, I’m going to cut through the noise, clutter, and fog about value.
Business value is delivering what the business wants.
This shouldn't be controversial.
Data people like to play semantic games:
"Well, what the business says they want isn't what they really want".
So, get them what they really want.
“Don’t give them what they want. Give them what they need”.
Again semantic games. The expert on what the business wants and needs is the business. Not the data team.
The business wants to achieve its business objectives.
Help them get what they want.
That’s how you become invaluable.
It's good to see you this morning,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Lead Up
This week my friend Dr. Neal Anderson is taking over The Data Daily emails. He’s the Founder of CARTO Leadership, a leadership development and coaching firm. This week he’s writing about leadership. Read his email from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
What does it mean to lead up? Why is it important to lead up? If there was ever a prime soft skill to develop in leadership, I believe it’s this one.
Leading up is the art and science of building influence amongst the leaders you report to and beyond.
Are you interested in developing this crucial leadership skill?
There are five basic principles to leading up. Individually, these are no-brainers. However, most clients I work with struggle to embrace all five as a collective approach.
1. UNDERSTANDING CULTURE
I have found that this first step is the most frequently missed step. Do you ever feel like you keep getting affirmation from your peers about your ideas, insights, and proposals for your organization, but they keep falling flat with your supervisor?
You might be lacking in your organizational cultural awareness.
2. ADDING VALUE
Your job isn't your job description.
Your job is to help your organization win by accomplishing its purpose. Meeting job performance expectations is the baseline. Adding value goes much further.
Adding Value = Your job description + looking beyond bullet points and seeing the spaces and opportunities for extra input and effort.
Show up to work and look for ways to create and add value. Doing the job well is a given. Doing the job in a way that adds value is leadership.
3. SOLVING PROBLEMS
Being able to see problems is not a special gift.
Leading up is about bringing solutions. If you see a problem, no one sees, great, bring it to your supervisor, but be sure you have a solution to accompany it.
Learn to solve the problems your supervisor experiences. Figure out how to help your organization thrive by finding a creative solution to a recurring issue. The more you see yourself as a problem solver, the more opportunity you will have for a seat at the table where decisions are made.
4. DISCERNING TIMING
Timing is everything.
Learn to read the signs of the times, both organizationally and departmentally. Consider the budget season you're in, the broader cultural context, the recent hires or fires that have taken place, and think about how you’re leading up in the midst of it all. You may have accurately understood the culture and added value, and now are looking to propose a creative solution to an ongoing problem, but the timing is wrong.
5. FOLLOWING WELL
Contrary to intuition, leading is directly connected to following. Author Ira Chaleff writes, “We are a society in love with leadership and uncomfortable with followership, though the subjects are inseparable.”
Here’s how they relate: Following well is about understanding how your performance and follow-through support your leader and leads to their success. Great followers are invaluable!
Interested in more?
CARTO Leadership created a mini-course called LEAD UP to help.
Neal Anderson, PhD
What is your leadership philosophy?
This week my friend Dr. Neal Anderson is taking over The Data Daily emails. He’s the Founder of CARTO Leadership, a leadership development and coaching firm. This week he’s writing about leadership. Read his email from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
“What is your leadership philosophy?”
Imagine being asked this question in an interview for that job you aspire to. How would you respond? Like many, you’d probably say something about listening first, developing your team, and making sure people were well-resourced to do the job.
That’s fine, but is it good enough to lead?
One of the underlying assumptions we have at CARTO Leadership is that many leaders are unnecessarily floundering, not because of a lack of desire to lead, but because they’ve lacked guidance and support to intentionally grow their leadership skills.
If you’re curious about what a leadership philosophy might look like, here are a couple of examples you might consider:
1. SERVANT LEADERSHIP: a focus and attention on putting the follower first.
“Servant leaders put followers first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal capabilities” (Northouse, 2013).
2. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP: a focus on appealing to motivation.
“It is concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals” (Northouse, 2013).
3. LEAD, DEVELOP, CARE: a focus on the holistic components of leading people.
“For leadership to inspire a solid, trust-based relationship, it needs to be purposeful and planned” (Cook, 2021).
Regardless of what your leadership philosophy is, it must be intentional.
In September CARTO Leadership hosted our first-ever 1-Day Leadership Retreat outside Denver, Colorado. The cohort-based learning approach offered a great setting to dive into many topics, especially team development. We focused on Cook’s model of Lead, Develop, and Care as it provides the framework for the type of leader the CARTO team seeks to support and build.
So, what’s your leadership philosophy? Can you articulate it in a sentence or two? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Hit reply and let us know how you approach leading.
If you’re unsure, consider connecting with us for a free session to learn more about how we serve and support leaders in their leadership development. CARTO Leadership serves clients in a variety of industries around the world.
Neal Anderson, PhD
Build great relationships
This week my friend Dr. Neal Anderson is taking over The Data Daily emails. He’s the Founder of CARTO Leadership, a leadership development and coaching firm. This week he’s writing about leadership. Read his email from Monday, and Tuesday.
Scholars debate the best leadership definitions. Not the kind of party I get excited about, but to each his own.
Regardless of where you are in your understanding of yourself, what leadership is, and how the two fit together, I can tell you one thing with certainty - in the most basic sense, leadership requires followers. If you’re doing everything a great leader does, but look around you and no one is following, you may just be an awesome person, not a leader.
My point; leadership requires people, and people presupposes relationship.
The most simple thing you can do today to increase your leadership impact, influence, and productivity is to build great relationships.
In fact, an entire leadership theory is devoted to explaining the phenomenon of leader-follower relationships and how the better they are, the greater the impact the leader can make. It’s not rocket science, and the best stuff out there is often the simplest. It’s called the Leader-Member Exchange theory, or LMX for short.
The basic premise of LMX theory focuses on aspects of the leader-follower relationship, as opposed to leadership traits, behaviors, styles, or leadership characteristics. It’s all a fancy way of saying, that when a leader has a positive and healthy relationship with a direct report or follower, there is a greater level of trust, which often translates to a more impactful working relationship.
Don’t overcomplicate it. Start with building an actual relationship with the individuals you get to lead.
Ask questions, and get to know what they like.
Learn about their family and significant people in their life.
Be sincere.
If you build a relationship with a follower where one hasn’t existed, I promise you’ll see results. However, don’t expect results overnight. Relationships aren’t built in a day and neither is effective leadership. Take your time, settle in, and make intentional, relationship-building conversations a part of your leadership approach.
Neal Anderson, PhD
Developing a team
This week my friend Dr. Neal Anderson is taking over The Data Daily emails. He’s the Founder of CARTO Leadership, a leadership development and coaching firm. This week he’s writing about leadership. Read his email from Monday.
As a leader, one of your primary responsibilities is to maximize the effectiveness of your team. Maximizing people can sound utilitarian, but in reality, it’s about helping your followers realize their full potential. Research shows that investing in your people, providing them resources to grow in their careers, and elevating their success opportunities lead to greater performance and engagement. Leadership is people stewardship, and when you invest in your people’s development, the return is tenfold.
So, you have a team, or you’re new to leading a team. Where do you start? Here are three steps you can take to move from managing your people to leading them by developing them:
1. GET TO KNOW YOUR TEAM PERSONALLY
Get to know about each team member’s hopes, aspirations, and career goals. Take an interest in their journey. Ask questions about what got them into the role in the first place. Ask about what gives them the most energy and excitement. Ask, listen, and learn. Be a relationally-oriented leader. You will build trust and create a foundation for building a personalized development plan for each team member.
2. ASK EACH TEAM MEMBER TO CREATE A DEVELOPMENT PLAN
There are many templates out there. Don’t have one? I’d happily send you a template I use. Use it or adapt it, but get your team to put pen to paper and think about their hopes and dreams for growth. This step aims to set the vision as the first piece toward co-creating a development plan. This may be a good place for your underperforming employees to include some elements you would like them to focus on. However, the primary point is the majority of this plan is follower-crafted and owned.
3. REVIEW PLANS REGULARLY AND CHAMPION DEVELOPMENT.
During your next 1:1 with your team member, have them share their development plan with you and walk you through the rationale for each step. As they do this, take notes about the goals, resources that come to mind, or ways you can help them realize their aspirations. A professional development plan with a 6-12 month, 1-2 years, and 3+ years timeline provides enough room to dream and think bigger than the job while also giving clear tangibles to focus on in the immediate future.
Your job as the leader is to speak encouragement into these plans. Connect your team members with colleagues or friends who might help them on their development journey. Gift them a book. Send them to a conference. Give them a new responsibility that helps hone a skill they want to grow in. Resource them and cheer them on!
Leaders don’t develop their people by teaching. Leaders develop followers by asking questions that prompt them to further their development, and then they champion them on the journey!
Neal Anderson, PhD
Leaders are innovators
This week my friend Dr. Neal Anderson is taking over The Data Daily emails. He’s the Founder of CARTO Leadership, a leadership development and coaching firm. This week he’s writing about leadership.
Leaders are innovators. They have to be. The world changes so fast that if you can’t adapt, you won’t have anything left to lead. For entrepreneurs, this truth is innate. In order to develop innovative leadership, we should consider leading with an entrepreneurial framework.
One of my favorite leadership concepts is generative leadership, leadership that multiplies. Generative leadership includes the ability to set high aspirations in uncertain economies, to bring together various experiences and perspectives from diverse backgrounds, to adopt innovation quickly, to provide space and incentive for risk and new initiatives, and to reward experimentation without punishing failure.
It's developmental and growth-oriented.
So, do you want to be more innovative in your leadership mindset? Do you want to embrace a generative leadership mindset to allow your team, division, or organization to grow and adapt?
Here are 3 things you can do:
1. PROMOTE CREATIVITY
Modeling and encouraging organizational creativity is essential for a generative leader.
Leaders who seek to develop their creative leadership capacity and foster an organizational value of creativity should consider assessing their risk tolerance and work to increase it; incentivizing creativity among employees through a reward system, and working toward detaching performance from compensation.
2. BE CURIOUS
Increasing an organization’s curiosity is key to developing a creative and innovative company.
Numerous studies have found that giving employees greater autonomy to exercise self-leadership is one of the best ways to foster curiosity that pushes conventional boundaries. Consider this the resource of freedom and trust to self-direct, lead, and manage.
3. RETHINK COMPETENCY
Innovate leadership is the framework and strategy a leader or organization uses to drive free thinking, creativity, and entrepreneurial initiatives. The generative leader understands that competency must be understood in terms of trajectory rather than a benchmark. When competency becomes a trajectory, it becomes dynamic and something that can grow.
Neal Anderson, PhD
p.s. I invited Neal to contribute to The Data Daily because I think he is an exceptional leader and coach. His skill and expertise can offer value to this group. This is not a paid ad and there is no financial relationship between The Data Shop and Carto Leadership.
Day 5: Allocate Budget, People, and Time
This is 2024 Data Team Planning week. Read Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.
Planning requires prioritizing.
Prioritizing requires allocating limited budget, people, and time to what’s most important.
Your tactics will fail to hit your success metrics if you skip this last step.
Today, look over your goals, tactics and success metrics. What will it take to get there?
Think about these three areas:
Budget:
What are your budget constraints and opportunities in 2024? Do your goals require new or upgraded technology? Does your team need training? If you goals require outside help, what budget do you have to work with vendors or consultants?
People:
What are the members of your team currently focused on and what are their skill sets? How does their current focus and current skills align with your goals? What investment is needed in your team to make progress toward your success metrics? Does your team need to hire? What tasks, focus areas, or competing prioritizes need to be removed from someone’s plate?
Time:
The calendar year moves very fast. Budget time now to hit your goals. Based one what you now know about your budget and people consider assigning your goals to specific quarters or time periods in the year. If your goals are dependent on budget or hiring new team members, chart out a timeline on the calendar.
To keep focused and make clear progress, I recommend no more than two goals per quarter. Based on the size of your team, one goal might be more than enough.
It’s possible you will need to go to your leadership for additional budget investment this calendar year. By working through the above three areas you will be well prepared to approach leadership with clear goals, timelines, and validation for the additional funds.
Planning for a new year can be a lot of work. Investing the time into this work now, can save you months of mis-prioritized time and effort. I put together an Assessment and Roadmap project to help make this work as smooth as possible for your team.
I’m glad you are here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Day 4: Plan Tactics and Success Metrics
This is 2024 Data Team Planning week. Read Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
Most of us start our planning here. With tactics. Action steps. Battle plans.
And that's why most goals and plans fail. They have sky-high ambition, but limited foundation to support them. The time you spend going over the last 3 days is the foundation you need to build tactical plans with longevity throughout 2024.
Today is about taking your goals and getting them on the ground. Specifically, we need to establish Tactics to achieve the goals and Success Metrics to know if we are getting closer.
Get your list of goals from yesterday and write Tactics and Success Metrics for each.
Tactics:
Design 2-3 thoughtful activities for each goal that have a high probability to help you achieve that goal. Tactics are action-focused.
Success Metrics
What other things would be true if you accomplished the goal? Take some time to imagine the surrounding impact that hitting your goal would cause. Sometimes if the goal is difficult to measure by itself, there are several supporting areas that you can more easily measure to track your progress.
Example:
Goal: In order to move from slow and delayed deployment of stakeholder requests to a first-class data platform we will decrease our new data request delivery time period by 25%.
Tactics:
Analyze bottlenecks in the development process.
Implement automated testing for Data models.
Success Metrics:
The Data Team can identify multiple areas for improvement in development and delivery.
Stakeholders report higher levels of satisfaction with data team responsiveness via quarterly surveys.
This work might take some time to do well. Pull in senior members of your team to develop your tactics and success metrics. Run them by peers or other members of your team to see if the tactics and success metrics align with your stated goals.
And if you ever need help,
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Day 3: Identify Gaps and Goals
This is 2024 Data Team Planning week. Read Day 1 and Day 2.
Planning is creating the future.
On day 1 and day 2, you spent time looking back on the last year, and looking at the current mission and vision of the business. Today, is your opportunity to leverage the work you did the last two days in two key areas:
Identify Gaps
Establish Goals
Identify Gaps
Look at what you uncovered on Day 1 about your team’s work from 2023 and compare it to the mission and outcomes you collected on Day 2. Where are their gaps? What is the mission articulating that hasn’t been reached yet? What activities, projects, and people from 2023 weren’t aligned with the mission and outcome? This might be uncomfortable. Leadership often is.
List at least 2-3 areas where there is a gap between your 2023 accomplishments and the mission and vision of the business.
Establish Goals
Goals are for closing the gaps. They are based in accurate and honest assessment of where you are at paired with a clear vision of where you are headed. Goals close the gap.
For each of the Gaps identified, craft a goal. Here’s a format to try In order to move from X (Current state) to Y (Mission/Vision) we will [describe the outcome that will close the gap between X and Y]
It’s often hard to identify gaps when you are on the inside. If you are struggling to articulate where you are at, where you are headed, and the gaps between the two, you are not alone. This is common situation to pull in outside perspective to gain insight into what’s happening. There are many ways to get outside perspective - one option you can explore right now my Assessment and Roadmap service.
That’s all for today. See you tomorrow.
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
Day 2: Remember the Mission and Vision
This is 2024 Data Team Planning week. Read Day 1.
The only way a data team can create and deliver value is by aligning with the mission and vision of the business.
Today is about consciously reviewing the mission and vision of the company. Depending on the size of your company when you look up the org chart you might see this:
Company → Organization → Division → Department → Data Team
Each level should have an articulation of mission and vision. When done well, the mission and vision statements give you a clear vision of where you are headed as a business, division and department.
In the largest of companies, you will need to collect mission and vision from 4-5 tiers. Do the work to review Town Hall meetings, quarterly updates, shareholder earnings calls, etc. Based on where your role, you might even have the chance for personal conversations with leadership about these items.
Pull out and write down what you see and hear.
Run it by your leader and see if it matches their expectation.
Only when you’ve accurately articulated what the objectives for your company are can you deliver value.
In medium size company you might end up with:
Acme Corp Mission and Vision
Acme Technology Department Mission and Vision
Acme Data & Insights Team Mission and Vision
This will be your golden goose when building a plan for your team and for sharing results with your leadership throughout the year. It’s crucial that you don’t just articulate your team mission and vision, but you can also align to the tiers above you.
A key part of the Assessment and Roadmap service I offer is interviews with leadership from both the business and technology teams. This is what makes it possible to articulate value and vision for how the data team impacts surrounding areas of the company.
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
p.s. if you took a stab at articulate the mission and objectives for the groups above you on the org chart, I’d love to hear how it went. Hit reply.
2024 Data Team Planning - Day 1
This is 2024 Data Team Planning week.
Day 1: Assess and Reflect on the Facts
Planning begins with an honest evaluation of where you are at.
Begin today, by looking by on 2023 in 3 key areas.
Open a word document, pull out a pen and paper, or hit reply and type your answers in line below (I’d be honored to read them)
People:
What dynamics did hiring, attrition, and promotion create on your team this year?
What were the biggest wins from a team and personnel perspective?
What is the current state and morale of your team?
Technology:
What key technology projects or initiatives occurred in 2023?
What were the biggest technology wins? What were the biggest technology challenges?
On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your effectiveness of your technology stack?
Stakeholders:
What were key stakeholder wins from 2023?
What key changes occurred among your business stakeholders in 2023?
On a scale of 1-10 How do your key stakeholders rate your effectiveness at meeting their needs? (Hard mode: drop them a IM and ask them).
The focus of these questions is to get the key facts out on the table and honestly look at them. This is the first step I take in when I work with customers during my Assessment & Roadmap service.
This is the step where we find the things we are proud of and things that make us uncomfortable. This is a safe space where we can be honest with blame-free and judgement-free reflection on the facts.
I’m here,
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
2024 Planning for Data Teams
2024 is rapidly approaching. Ideally, a turning of the calendar is an opportunity to evaluate, plan, and strategize for the new year. However, holiday season is here and for many it becomes a blur of activity in and out of the office.
Accidentally, you will wake up in early January without any purposeful thought or planning for your data team in 2024.
Over the next week I’m going to outline a template to help you and your team prepare for the next year.
Invaluable data teams are purposeful in their assessment, planning, and strategy.
There will be a small bit of homework each day. A question or task for you to spend a few minutes reflecting on.
If the fall season flew by before you had time to plan for next year.
If you feel uncertain about the direction of your team.
If you hope for better alignment in 2024.
This is for you.
Day 1 (Monday): Assess and Reflect on the Facts
Day 2 (Tuesday): Remember the Mission and Vision
Day 3 (Wednesday): Identify Gaps and Goals
Day 4 (Thursday): Plan Tactics and Success Metrics
Day 5 (Friday): Allocate Budget, Resources, and Time
Carve out 20 minutes each morning for the next 5 days.
Read this email. Complete the homework.
And (as always) hit reply.
I’d love to help on this journey.
Sawyer
from The Data Shop
The Transfer Portal
For decades, transferring between universities as a collegiate student athlete was rare. There were several pieces of intentional friction to prevent a student from moving between schools. The primary point of barrier for most athletes was a rule that forced the athlete to sit out for a year and lose a year of valuable year of eligibility.
Instead of being able to play 4 years of their sport, they would only get 3. The vast majority of athletes were unwilling to give up a year to pursue transferring to a new school.
But if you follow college sports at any level you know that things are different now. In 2018, the NCAA (the governing body of college athletics) introduced a the Transfer Portal. The portal is essentially a database of student athletes to announce their interest in transferring to a new school. The portal is public and coaches across the country can now evaluate, contact, and recruit players who have entered the portal to come join their school. The second monumental shift in college athletics happened 2021 when the NCAA removed the 1-year penalty for transferring.
Now, athletes can publicly announce their interest in transferring with no effect on their eligibility.
As you could guess, the number of athletes transferring schools skyrocketed. With 20,000+ athletes entering the portal last year.
Athletic talent flows freely between schools all across the country now.
People will continue to debate whether the transfer portal is good for college athletics, but I can promise you a “data transfer portal” is good for your company.
When data can move freely across teams, organizations and departments. Without penalty. Without loss of eligibility. Without friction. Then the data can land where it’s most needed.
The data needed to fill a gap. Answer a question. Explore an opportunity.
If you are college sports fan, think of your data platform like the transfer portal. And make the movement of data as robust, compelling, and opportunistic as possible.
I'm here,
Sawyer