Filum series— Episode #1: Communication with Data, what is it?
More than ever, communication is the key for success
Warren Buffet, when asked by recent college graduate Michael Hood which skill he recommends young people focus on, Warren replied —
“Invest in yourself. The one easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now — at least — is to hone your communication skills — both written and verbal. If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark — nothing happens. You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you have to be able to transmit it.”
As evolution, communication is changing the way it is done which is from words to numbers (generally called data). Communication with data happens in lots of cases: such as sharing the results of their work, managers needing to communicate in a data-informed way, or any presenters simply wanting to get their point across to the audience. And increasingly, in our ever more data‐driven world, those without technical backgrounds such as HR, Business are being asked to put on analytical hats and communicate using data.
Therefore, it's time to rephrase the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" to “A good visualization is worth a thousand words”.
But bad visualization misleads more than a thousand words
And what is the consequence of misleading? We will have to rework, probably using another thousand words to explain or correct the audience.
Let me show you some differences between good and bad visualization in communicating the idea.
Performance Analysis
When I was the CIO of An Gia Investment (a real estate group in Vietnam, $200M+ revenue in 2019), to build up the Data-driven culture, I asked the team to build a bot called Tech+ to centralize the incoming requests so that we can speak data whenever we need to examine the performance of the support guys. Imagine forwards, it would look like this chart:
The chart is barely bringing any meaningful idea or action needed. Simply said, this chart fails to communicate the performance of the team. Let's fix it:
Now you can see why and when there was a drop and hence you can make adjustment or recommendation on the resources: hiring 2 Support members to backfill the force.
This is another example when you want to compare the performance of solutions that every team is researching:
Survey Analysis
One center is doing a pilot program relating science with data-driven in mind, they started collecting the input before the program and after it is completed.
When you look at the following chart, the communication is just like saying: "Hey it is the results. Digest it for yourself":
But with a different presentation of the data with 2-column bar chart, we can highlight the key findings which ultimately can be used to trigger a more confident conclusion.
Pricing Strategy
Pricing decisions are being done frequently to make sure the pricing is competitive in the segmented market. Let's look at the following chart and ask one question: "What is the pricing we should set for 2015?"
To be competitive, we recommend introducing our product below the $223 average price point in the $150−$200 range which reflects clearly in the following chart:
What do you see through above examples? The communication is much better if we present it with data. The message content is clear. The action needed to take is obvious. Anything better do you want?
- Don't make assumption or implication.
- Don't confuse people with data and titles.
The clarification of the message is very important.
Take this as the final example:
You see what I am trying to convey through this writeup? :)
References:
- An article from my mentor:
2. And especially the book of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (I love this a lot). Thanks Cole!
The next part of the series would be on HOW to communicate using data. Filum series are about the stories, articles on how to use data for self-improvement, empowerment and business decision making. Stay tuned!
