DATA LEADERSHIP

Data is one of the most essential ingredients in creating and measuring change —and it can also be the biggest blindspot for organizations. Most people have a desire to understand data, but struggle to engage with it in a meaningful way. Before we learn to run with data-inaormed decision making, we must help people get to the starting line. Decipher offers beginner, intermediate, and advanced data fluency workshops.

Navigation between institutional researchers and leaders is often needed to reduce misunderstanding of data parameters, definitions, and questions to be answered. Institutional researchers often pursue Perfect Data, for national reporting, ranking, or accounting, while leadership teams look for trend analysis that would inform business decisions. Both are necessary, and each one requires a different approach to pulling data sets.

Drawing actionable insights from data sets can be considered an intimidating endeavor: There is much data and little support to leverage its power. Workshops or coaching can help organizations understand how to make significent inferences and decipher which data points create the call-to-action necessary to reach their goals.

Translating data into digestible and visual soundbites that “non-data” people could approach and engage is a winning strategy. Infographics and simplified data visualization were keys for leaders to access data as a decision-making tool, while increasing data literacy throughout the organization. The key is to understand data so deeply that you can explain it simply.