The buzz around data and artificial intelligence (AI) often overshadows a fundamental truth: the core of any successful endeavor remains distinctly human. As businesses navigate the complexities of the digital age, the importance of human insight, empathy, and value-driven strategies becomes increasingly evident.
Read MoreTaxonomy v Folksonomy
The concepts of taxonomy and folksonomy hold significant implications, especially in the context of emerging technologies like OpenAI. While traditional taxonomies offer structured hierarchies of knowledge, allowing for a systematic approach to information organization, folksonomies represent a more fluid and emergent way of categorizing information based on user-generated tags and metadata.
However, the challenge arises when technological advancements fail to incorporate divergent thinking and promote groupthink through convergent taxonomies. This phenomenon is particularly evident in language models, where developers' linguistic and cultural biases can influence the interpretation and representation of (the dominant) language.
Read More4 Perspectives to drive effective data translation
When driving data projects, you will encounter business stakeholder challenges that often go unspoken. This is not always because people hold back but because they don't fully know how to vocalize their constraints.
If they can't directly address their requirement, chances are we can't either. To hear others' speech, we start by asking questions from different perspectives.
Read MoreResistance mitigation strategies
Change management wouldn’t be so hard if it weren’t for…the people. Open issues or objections left unresolved today cost time down the road. Suppose work starts before these concerns are mitigated. Stakeholders might get frustrated or begin to hold back their participation. Work produced might have difficulty getting implemented. Buy-in realizes impact.
Read MoreLinking projects to strategy
It can be challenging when stakeholders cannot translate business questions into technical requirements or do not provide enough context for data teams to do so. From there, the data team is often left to maintain the status of a series of ad hoc projects rather than connect these business questions to a larger more defined data strategy.
Read MoreFinding Meaning in Data Projects by Asking: Why
Most data teams cover WHAT and HOW with standard reports and KPIs. They will optimize processes and analyze business domains impacting the company's bottom line from a data perspective.
But how many data teams truly understand the WHY behind the reports they generate? How many actively consult with the business as a true partner to understand the underlying business concerns behind the numbers? Without the WHY, delivering true value in the WHAT and HOW is ten times harder.
Going Deeper: Making Projects Work
When defining needs is ignored, it can stifle progress faster than the stickiest government red tape. For example, when we cannot translate our business requirements into data or more technical requirements, we lose the ability to make informed decisions. Or, when we lack the courage to confront the poor content of a colleague, we lose the collective ability to influence as a team and move the group, initiative, or business forward. Guess what? That was in our control, too.
Read MoreProfiles in Craft: Jane Goodall
CURIOSITY 101
Curiosity starts with empathy. Bring curiosity wherever we go to increase possibilities for connection and creativity.
Read MoreProfiles in Craft: Julia Bonds
COHESION 101
A genuine consideration and regard for others that makes the group stronger and more resilient.
Read MoreBest Practice: Maintaining Tension (between knowing and not knowing)
Purpose: to adopt a mindset of both “believing and disbelieving” to learn something new or widen your perspective.
Most of us are taught in school and later in our jobs that once we are successful then we’ll be happy. Yet, research demonstrates that happiness is a precursor to success. Optimizing for tangible “success” is so seductive. We even refer to them as “tangible outcomes” forgetting to observe the process for achieving them. We will suffer through arcane methodologies and esoteric language to achieve these “outcomes” forgetting to take note of the experiences we have along the way. We often had to learn the hard way that success is merely a byproduct of a particular approach, not an end goal.
A key component of happiness is curiosity. Curiosity is what makes us open to new ideas and unfamiliar experiences. Buddhist’s refer to this as entering with “the beginner’s mind.” Researchers call it “growth mindset.” Children naturally embody it. Adults when forced to change, experience it under duress. Curiosity helps us see new things, see old things in new ways, and be open to multiple truths. Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the notion of “muscular empathy” which challenges us to be open to some of the most difficult truths.
Muscular empathy is not the soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. Coates describes muscular empathy as deeply rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand a difficult topic, “it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity.” He counsels us to look at ourselves, first, and painfully examine ourselves before determining an opinion.
The first rule is this--You are not extraordinary. It's all fine and good to declare that you would [have done more, known more, been more]. But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't have and then ask, "Why?" —Ta-Nehisi Coates
Certainty is the enemy of curiosity. Or as “Google Genius” Tom Chi explains, knowing is the end of learning. Being certain and knowing things is so tempting. Most of us, me included, have learned that knowing things and being certain is how we prove how smart or wise we are. The opposite is actually true.
Our certainty about people, organizations, and the world makes them predictable and it gives us a false sense of comfort and control in our understanding of how the world operates. This belief in a fixed world is an illusion and the source of our entitlement to certain outcomes and lays the foundation for our frustration, irritation, and sadness when things don’t work as we think they should.
We seek control when we feel out of control. This is most acute when we are tipping forward toward change as individuals or enduring change in organizations. The more control we seek, the more out of control we feel. It’s a cycle of our own making.
The most insidious illustration of this concept shows up in our relationships with others. When we feel out of control we try to control those around us. “Can’t they just be different? more like us? do what we want or need them to do? Others experience us like a vice, constricting their ability to express themselves, ignoring their needs, and dominating us.
It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility. —Albert Einstein
Every individual is growing, evolving, learning, and changing everyday. We are movies, always evolving toward a conclusion. We are not photos, frozen in time. When we make others predictable we rob them of that same possibility.
When others become predictable in our minds we give ourselves permission to stop listening. When we stop listening we aren’t really interacting with others, we are simply interacting with the simple (and convenient for us) versions of them we have created in our own minds. Sometimes we even make others predictable in a negative way to shift responsibility for what we don’t like from us to them.
If you feel out of control, let go of trying to control things. Life becomes magical when you let go of as much control as possible over what is beyond you and simultaneously claim as much agency as possible over what is within you.
Consider an event and write about it. It can be anything from seeing someone at lunch to a major meeting. Choose something that isn't too emotionally jarring. List the aspects of it that were completely in your control and which weren't. This might yield some initial insights on what is or is not in your control.
Here is an example:
IN MY CONTROL
The intent to show up on time to the meeting
Valuing my boss's opinion of me and my work
The wish to reduce my close rates and turnaround times
The desire to get actionable advice from my boss (if it'd help meet most of my goals)
Conscious nervous thoughts/what I tell myself
OUT OF MY CONTROL
Actually showing up on time (another meeting might have run late)
My boss's opinion of me
Meeting my close targets (I can't force the engineering team to implement ALL my fixes!)
Actually getting useful tips
Automatic nervous thoughts and physical feelings of anxiety
Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves successfully in their pursuit of mastery. Learn more about the 25 Skills.