Look Before You Leap (and Afterwards, Too)

Before you make a decision, you should have some support for why you think it is the right call. Afterwards, you should be able to check and see if it is working.

Yeah, we are talking about data.

You might think that data analysis is a role for a bunch of number-crunchers in your company, the kind who stare at a screen all day and maybe don’t talk to actual people very often. But the reality is that, as data become more and more easily available, companies are making use of it to find customers, do their strategic planning, recruit and compensate employees, and expand. Data analysis is not just for accountants and the marketing department’s survey teams anymore; it’s for leaders at all levels. If you are not using data effectively, there’s a good chance your competitors are, and you are likely to get left behind.

So, as you are trying to make decisions, look for data to educate you. Before expanding your service offerings, determine if the market for what you want to do is already saturated. As you are looking to hire people, determine the median salaries in your market to help you decide what to pay. If you want to recruit free agents from beyond your local area, target your recruiting efforts on those places that have the factors that help create your ideal employee (educational system, population, large creative industry, etc). The information you collect does not necessarily need to be quantitative in nature, but it needs to be relevant to the success of whatever decision you make.

As you are doing your planning, also figure out how you are going to evaluate your decision once you implement it. How will you know if you got it right? How will you ensure you are on the right path? You need to set your “standards for success” before you implement your decision — if you wait until afterwards, it’s too easy to ask “hmmm, what seems to be working?,” and then decide that is your standard, and let’s face it, that’s cheating. Figure out how you will want to measure success, know how you will collect the information you need for that evaluation, and then move forward.

I realize that talking about numbers sometimes freaks some people out. If your idea of “higher math” is balancing your checking account, then this might seem scary. But it shouldn’t; we are not talking here about solving the mysteries of the universe, we are simply trying to see if there is a rational basis for that “gut instinct” you have, and we are trying to find ways to determine if you are accomplishing what you say you want to accomplish. Nothing more. While it certainly helps to understand some basic statistical and analytical tools, you do not need to be a statistician. You just need to have some reason for thinking what you think.