The intimacy of data with narrative!

Raise your hand if you have heard “data is the new oil” or “in God we trust but everyone else asks for data”. Even if you haven't I'm sure you had an epiphanic moment right there nonetheless. It is true! The world of analytics is growing really fast. In the last few years companies have invested billions of dollars to get the most-talented resources, setting up systems to amass zettabytes of data and run it through their algorithms to extract signals, trends and predictions in the most unprecedented volumes.

It’s working too—to a large extent. Data has begun to change our day to day behavior and habits in areas as varied as healthcare, banking, retail, sports, education, real estate, marketing, even law and public policy! In fact, very few of us want to live without it today in spite of all the privacy infringement debates. Think of search engines, one-day deliveries, social media newsfeeds, not to mention the e-wallets, ride-hailings and food-orderings of today.

But despite the success stories and the constant focus on data driven decision making, many companies aren’t getting the value they could from data. Even well-run operations that generate strong analyses fail to capitalize on their insights or even worse, make strategic blunders in spite of all of the analytics. So somewhere, somehow, something is missing. I wonder why.

It has been over a decade that I've been a part of the corporate, business and startup world, and for most parts my roles have been around a lot of numbers and analytics. If there is one thing I can shortlist as the answer to our problem today that would be storytelling! Building a narrative is by far the most powerful human tactics but unfortunately one of the most underutilized in the world of analytics. The ability to present data insights as a story will, more than anything else, help close the communication gap between algorithms and executives. It is critical to understanding the structure and mechanics of narrative and be able to apply it to our story the next time we are standing in front of decision makers trying to get our idea approved.

The manifestation of this communication gap is most visible inside the organisations when you hear both data analysts and decision makers vent their frustration. Data teams know they’re sitting on valuable insights but can’t sell them. They say decision makers misunderstand or oversimplify their analyses and expect them to do magic with the numbers. Bosses on the other hand complain about how much money they invest in data science operations that doesn’t really provide the north-star they had hoped for. They don’t see tangible results. The gap is only there because the hypotheses or the results are not communicated in the language that they understand.

Gaps between business acumen and technology types aren’t new. I came across this very interesting example from over 100 years ago, way before coding and programming, when the writer quoted in his book: “Time after time it happens that some ignorant or presumptuous member of a committee or a board of directors will upset the carefully-thought-out plan of a man who knows the facts, simply because the man with the facts cannot present his facts readily enough to overcome the opposition... As the cathedral is to its foundation so is an effective presentation of facts to data.”

The same mantra is true even today. Observe any senior executive in the corporate world, or in the Dragons' Den's of the world if you are into fundraising, and you'll notice the importance of storytelling. My suggestion for you today, dear reader, would be to focus on developing both the skills simultaneously. If you are starting off your career, are a mid level manager or a leader, its never too late to learn and there are always bigger boardrooms or bigger stages where you can showcase these skills. If you are a data person who needs help with storytelling, or a subject expert who needs to understand some statistical principles; know where you can improve upon, work on it and see the magic happen. Wish you all the best!