How to get organisations to be better at using data

Spoiler… it’s not about tech or skills.

There’s been a significant increase in the appetite for data collection, analysis and interpretation in the public sector (or at least the bits of the public sector we deal with).

This is good stuff but, as regular readers may be aware, we argue that the main barriers to getting better with data are not technical or skills based, they are cultural. You can have as many dashboards as you like. You can recruit as many data scientists as you please. But dashboards don’t change anything. Nor, shock horror, do data scientists. At least neither change things by the fact of their existence.

I am specifically aiming this post at business analysts, researchers, performance teams etc. The sort of people that really care about data and are locked in the corporate centre with their Excel, PowerBI and R installations (or maybe dispersed across departments with their Excel, Tableau and R installations). But the general concepts of encouragement vs praise are useful to managers, professional leaders and, basically, everyone.

Ultimately what we need is for individuals and teams to change their behaviour as a result of the data that they, or the business intelligence team, gather and analyse.

The factors that affect our behaviour are complex, highly culturally determined and affected by our history and experiences. It would be naive in the extreme to believe that simply presenting people with some numbers on a graph would lead to radical shifts in behaviour.

Instead we should think of data as a form of feedback most effectively provided over a long period.

And when providing feedback we need to understand what sort of feedback we are providing.

Encouragement
Encouragement is given in private, it focuses on effort not attainment, it encourages the recipients to own their actions and to link their actions to the outcomes for customers / service users.

Encouragement is when a coach takes a runner to one side and quietly says “do you see how all that work in the gym has paid off today”. Encouragement is when a manager sits down with a planning officer and asks them to reflect on what they have learned over the past 6 months and how that has affected the quality of their work.

In the context of data: encouragement is where individuals see the data as a tool they can use personally to understand the impact of their own effort. Encouragement is where individuals see the data as linked to their actions and to the impact on customers.

Encouragement is likely to be effective in helping people shift their behaviour as a result of the feedback.

Praise
Praise is given in public, it focuses on achievement not effort, it encourages the recipients to link the consequences of their work to their status amongst their colleagues and peers.

Praise is when a coach singles out the runner who, once again, came first in the race in front of everyone in the club. Praise is where a manager in a team meeting points to a planning officer and says “the chief executive was very impressed with your work on the Marchford case”.

In the context of data: praise is where individuals see the data as an external system by which they will be rated (league tables, awards, nice letters from the Chair). Praise is where data is something that is seen as unrelated to the work but just measures the (usually arbitrary) outputs.

In short encouragement is helpful in promoting a data-driven culture. Praise is unhelpful.

So if you have the role of providing feedback (data/analysis) to other individuals and teams think about the context in which you provide that feedback.

Praise is likely to entrench or strengthen existing patterns of behaviour.

As a business analyst/performance specialist:

Carry on, try to do more of this sort of thing. You are moving your organisation up the ladder of data awesomeness.

As a business analyst / performance specialist:

Do you share the feedback in public? For example

Do you emphasise the importance of hitting targets and ensure that success against metrics is celebrated across the organisation.

So far as you are able: Stop it. It will not help and you are making things worse.

Reflect on your own behaviour. How effective have your efforts been in changing the behaviour of the teams that you support? Don’t worry about what the boss sees, consider what you can evidence. Try new things and reflect on what the data tells you about the impact. Stop looking for praise. Look for encouragement.

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