How do you know?
Recently Joseph Michelli gave an excellent podcast and also the transcription was up on his blog, asking the question “How do you know?”
In his podcast Joseph talked about in his experience of dealing with some business clients, that they’ll state a particular situation is the case and Joseph will then ask the question “How do you know?” What data is being collected to verify this stated fact?
I would like to also endorse the comments of Joseph Michelli. It is critically important in business to have the facts at hand to make informed and correct decisions.
Too often assumptions are made about how the customer is behaving, how the staff are behaving, that are not actually based on fact. They may be generally held belief within the business or organisation, but nobody has undertaken the task to collect some data to verify the reality. Yet it is only with this data that you have a starting point to determine how to improve the business, or a part of the business.
Data does not to be collected using the most complex IT system, collecting everything. There are many simple tracking and analyst tools for collecting useful data of a business. The key thing is actually to determine what area is important that we need to focus on.
What is the engine of the business? What has the potential to drive future value in the business. Often there is one key area that the whole business needs to focus on for a period of time, or it may be one area per division of the business. But it is important to have the data as the starting point.
Don’t make assumptions. Don’t accept generally held beliefs without some verification. The data allows informed decisions, and the application of intuition to the development of the business. Constantly ask yourself an your team “How do you know?”
Photo :- LauraKGibbs
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