8. Fake News!

Fake News is not limited to Media Barons or Political leaders. We generate it ourselves every day inside ourselves and our organizations. It’s a part of being human.

Shinkansen drivers in Japan have special protection against Fake News. They carry it with them in a leather briefcase. Their briefcase contains a stack of detailed instructions on how to deal with various faults or emergencies on the train or in the rail system. Drivers are regularly trained and assessed on dealing with those faults using the books they carry.

The drivers are not allowed to memorize the manuals. In the event of a fault or an emergency they are trained, and expected to follow the instructions, not their memory of the instructions. Airline pilots are trained similarly.

The reason? Our memories are not reliable. They create Fake News. Humans must refer back to instructions or Data to avoid serious errors of judgment.

As it is on a high speed train, or a jetliner, so it is in any sizable business.
We may think we know the business, and rely on instincts or memory to get us through, but when it comes to really important decisions we can’t rely on memory alone.

When it comes to Solving Problems we need Data.

Don’t misunderstand me here – “instincts” or experience have an important place in leadership decisions. The challenge is – instincts based on what? If on memory, whose memory? The boss’s? The trouble with memory is that everyone has a different one, and all are faulty.

That’s why the 4th important decision in BalancedKaizen is to Use Data.

The point of the instructions in the train driver’s bag isn’t that the instruction books contain every answer – it’s that our memories and instincts are unreliable and inconsistent.

Likewise, making Data usage a part of your leadership culture isn’t because the numbers are always right, it’s because the collective memories and instincts of a group of people are unreliable and inconsistent. Data can be a common point of understanding across your organization.

Your job as a leader is to shape how data is used. Shaping is not just the job of Finance or IT people. Your job as a leader is to create a system to ensure your team knows exactly where they are, as quickly as possible, so that they can make decisions and solve problems quickly & safely.

In doing this you will be fighting 2 Forces, not just from others but in your own mind:

1. The Need for Control

Solving problems and following the Leader’s directions often conflict. Data can threaten control by providing alternative information which doesn’t support the conclusions already made. Of course Controllers never admit this publicly. They simply don’t use Data efficiently, or selectively use it for performance management rather than Problem solving. Political leaders who are Fake News users are expert at this, but businesses have the same types too.

As a Leader you have a responsibility to sacrifice some control for the sake of achieving results. Your use of Data is a feature of, and a window into, your leadership style.

2. The Speed myth.

A common myth is that Data slows down decision making and restricts creativity. This may be true if most decisions actually needed data and calculations, which they don’t. Most decisions are made instinctively and data is often selected to back up the decisions already made. That’s just how people work.

The real purpose of data is to quickly track those decisions and provide evidence to either stay with the decision, or change it. A business without data is like playing golf in the dark.

Good data therefore allows teams to go faster, because they are confident any mistakes will be picked up quickly. Without good data any sensible team slows down to avoid fatal errors. Toyota and others knew 50 years ago that an effective way to accelerate change is to maximize data availability –

“Your use of Data is a feature of, and a window into, your leadership style…”

Data isn’t just for the leader, to track their own progress, it’s for all the team to know where they are and self correct. The best Data isn’t long complex analysis that is slow to gather, its at hand for all decision makers.

As a Leader you need to anticipate the data your team will need for decisions. You need to create a system to make sure it’s at hand when those decisions are needed, and a culture in which its frequently studied and used. More on that next week.

Good organizations report clearly to their shareholders. Good organizations also report frequently, efficiently and honestly to their own people. Whatever leadership role you have in an organization, fighting Fake News is part of your job.