In recent times, most decision-making processes have been data-driven. However, this is only peculiar to people in the decision-making seat of the organisation, which shouldn’t be so. Employees and other stakeholders in the organisation are also involved in decision-making, though sometimes on a much lower level. Hence, this indicates that everyone needs to be data literate, and this first starts with building a data-driven culture.
According to HBR, “the biggest obstacles to creating data-based businesses aren’t technical; they’re cultural.” It’s easier to teach employees how to be data literate, but it’s far more difficult to create the mindset that embraces a data-driven culture. However difficult it is, it has been regarded as one of the most important cultures that a successful business will establish. Let’s look into the following pivotal cores of creating a data-driven culture:.
John Maxwell, in most of his leadership books, proves that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” This also applies in corporate settings, as every successful event that takes place in an organisation depends on the strength and quality of leadership in the company. Leaders have the responsibility to lead by example, so that it becomes a culture that employees and other stakeholders are willing to imbibe. For example, in a firm, the senior managers could spend a good time in standup meetings using research results to measure their progress and how much work they still have to do as a team. As this happens progressively, it raises the standard for communication between the employees and the top leaders. With time, it becomes a culture, even among employees.
2. Simplify access to data:
Meetings that centre around data and figures will be fruitless if employees are denied access to data. Therefore, give them access to the company’s data dashboards and information that aids their understanding. Also, employees should be continually referred to data sources in the organisation to create interest in data integration among the employees. Many employees, mostly data analysts, complain of being starved of information in the organisation, hence negatively impacting their work output. To solve this, you could carefully rearrange data files, keep the confidential information or give access to a few important personnel, and give other employees a good level of access to the remaining data. This is to ensure that employees are given access to data equitably.
3. Offer specialised training programs for employees:
Most companies invest in generic training programs for employees, which end up adding little or nothing to their experience. While training employees on certain programming languages or tech skills is good, it’s even more efficient to invest in specialised training programs, such as how to use certain data analytics tools and interpret results from data analysis. Applying the skills in their daily routines will make the training sessions stick with them more and help them understand data-based events.
4. Make data concepts easy to interact with.
Normally, data is boring and makes no sense to those who cannot interpret it. In building a data-driven culture, the best thing you can do for employees is to make data easy to understand and interact with. One of the ways to do this is by introducing data storytelling and using interactive dashboards to communicate data concepts with them. Data stories relate concepts in such simple terms that even the least educated employees can understand them. Though dashboards are a little more technical, they are simple enough for anyone of any level of digital literacy to understand.
5. Integrate data into daily operations:
The essence of establishing a data-driven culture in any organisation is to ensure that it is integrated into the daily operations for improved decision-making and performance efficiency. Therefore, the leaders and executives must ensure that all operations and decision-making are data-based. Also, establish clear, data-driven goals for teams and employees and use data-based tools to track progress and performance, so that providing feedback will also be based on these metrics. Encouraging collaboration in daily operations will also help employees become accustomed to the data-driven culture for improved performance.
For new companies that are just starting to embrace the data-driven culture, it might take a while to establish this culture; however, it takes patience coupled with the right strategy to effect it. Leaders should understand that affecting any change in an organisation starts with leading by example and encouraging the employees to follow suit. By integrating the right training initiative to equip employees with data-based skills and centering their daily operations around this culture, the whole organisation will soon get accustomed to it and allow it to influence both major and basic decision-making processes for performance improvement.
