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I feel like there must be some shame/stigma among leadership types to say that your decisions aren't "data driven" even though we've all experienced that most d

by Spivak 1y ago

I feel like there must be some shame/stigma among leadership types to say that your decisions aren't "data driven" even though we've all experienced that most decisions are based on some executive's intuition. Which is funny because if the path forward was an obvious conclusion from the data we wouldn't need decision makers—the company direction would be set by a council of data science nerds.

themafia 1y ago
The data you cannot possibly access would be "is our staff going to be capable of handling this challenge within the time frame alotted?" Or "will any new issues present themselves during this time frame and reduce the amount of available staff?" Or.. well.. any of dozens of known failure cases in business. Good business is about hedging your bets. It's not about creating business processes that always make the right bets. It's also not the case that good business is the only way to survive. Which is one of my favorite stories from FedEx's beginnings. They were short on cash and couldn't make fuel payments or payroll the next day. The CEO extract cash from the business, took it to Las Vegas, increased his holdings by gambling, then returned the money to the business the next day. If it worked, then great, you "saved" the business. If it didn't, then bummer, you're now a felonious embezzler.