Monthly Archives: July 2013

#193 You don’t understand me

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Early in your career when your co-worker does not understand you, you might conclude one or more of the following:

  • “What a loser!”
  • “These people don’t deserve me.”
  • “This is so obvious, why don’t they get it?”
  • “What have I done to deserve this person as a co-worker?”
  • “These people are clueless, what a waste of time.”

With a little work and effort, the following perspectives will come naturally:

  • “They have not understood me, I wonder why?”
  • “How much do I need to work to help them understand?”
  • “Is the effort worth it?”
  • “I need to sharpen my communication and messages.”
  • “These people are so clueless, I am going to look so good when they understand me!”

It takes a deep self realization, self esteem, and self confidence to change perspectives. Not to mention discipline and effort. It is worth it. In fact, you will see there is no other choice.

Complaining that your co-worker “does not get it” may signal a lack of skills on your part (listening, people, communication etc.). If you have to complain or coach, be specific, be precise in your request for change. You will stay calm, and more important, you will get better at communicating.

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#192 Value of analytics and reporting

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With all this talk about “big data” and the power of data-driven decisions, it is relevant to assess the steps to insight using numbers. Analytics and reporting can provide you at least three immediate benefits:

  • Broken process: If you are new to using data, the first set of reports will make no sense. Before you dismiss them as “useless,” know that you are looking at the symptoms of a broken process. If the steps to perform work are random, unstructured, and unpredictable, your analytics and reports will simply reflect that. Use the analytics and reports to make your business processes structured and predictable.
  • Bad behavior: If you have a process defined (fully or partially) you may find that co-workers are willfully ignoring policies and procedures. While analytics and reports will flag the bad behavior, transparency will drive compliance. Meaning, just having policies and processes is not enough, co-workers must follow them for meaningful analytics and reports.
  • Bad data: This is a subset of bad behavior, but it indicates other problems as well, such as defects in systems. If the data is bad, the analytics and reports will be meaningless. If you think it is because of bad data, better roll up your sleeves and get to work cleaning the bad data.

Once the above three benefits are realized, even partially, true insight will be available. It could be that 50% of your data is unusable, but you can get insight from the remaining 50%. Don’t ignore the problems that can be identified and solved by assuming or pretending that you need perfect processes, behavior, and data.

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