An insight isn’t enough. You have to be able to sell the action you want to take.

There it is! Suddenly the room lights up like a sunrise. It’s the bright lightbulb that just appeared over your head as you find a critical insight in your data. You know exactly what has to be done and you know it will mean big bucks for the business, but if you don’t know how to properly share the insight with your peers and stakeholders, your brilliant insight might go to waste.?

The modern enterprise is a tangled web of group and individual objectives complicated by resource battles and the constant churn of employees. If you just charge into the fray looking to make a change, you’re likely to get tossed around and lose your opportunity. Here’s a better way. Follow this process and you’re more likely to find success.

Explain the insight in clear, concise terms

The first step is to share the key insight you uncovered that will drive your recommended action. Keep it simple and clear, in terms that your whole internal audience can understand.?

For example: “We discovered that when the temperature is below 45 degrees, our stores sell out of soup on average 2 hours earlier than when the weather is warmer.”

Tell the story of how you arrived there

Be prepared to share details of the data that you used to find the insight, and what steps led you there in the first place. Sharing this story will give stakeholders a better level of confidence in your findings. Additionally, when you walk them through the process, they might chime in with some critical details you didn’t know about.?

Propose, but don’t presume

Explain the action you believe should be taken to capitalize on the insight. The key word in that sentence is “believe”. In many cases, the action you are proposing will require cooperation and effort from other stakeholders. You may not fully understand the level of effort, competing priorities, dependencies or other implications of the suggested action, so you don’t want to presume that it will be easy, fast or even feasible for the other participants.?

Example: “Based on this, I believe we should supply the stores with 15% more soup when the weather prediction is for sub-45 degree weather”

To which another stakeholder may say: “Actually, our supply plans have to be consistent over 14-day intervals and they have to be finalized 30-days in advance.”

Quantify, quantify, quantify

In a world of limited time, money and resources, the numbers really matter. Your proposal will not be the only one on the table, and you will have to convince others that it is worth pursuing more than the other options. To do that, you need to quantify three key things:

1. The opportunity. How much will it net the company if you are right? How long will it take to see that benefit?
2. The cost. What kind of resources will be required to put your plan into action??
3. The risk. What are the odds of success? What happens if it doesn’t work out? Is it reversible? Could it cause collateral or permanent damage??

Share your assumptions

Both your proposed plan and the analysis that got you there are probably built on a variety of assumptions. Don’t keep them to yourself. Document them and share them along with the plan. This gives your collaborators a chance to share what they know, validating some assumptions and questioning others. This increases your chances of success and also looks good for you on a personal level.?

Seek buy-in

Even if you have the power to force a change through, you are better off getting as much buy-in as possible from the people involved in making the changes as well as those who may be impacted by them. Don’t wait for full consensus (that may never come), but don’t rush things either.?

Be prepared to measure the impact

Once the change is made, make sure you can measure the impact on the business. This goes beyond the primary metric you expect to improve, and should extend to secondary metrics and any other effects the change may have. Document this analysis. If you were right and the change has helped the business, you want to be able to proudly share it. If for some reason the changes have had a negative effect, you need to be ready to explain it to other stakeholders and discuss corrective actions.?

Following this process doesn’t absolutely guarantee that the group will follow your lead, but it gives you the best chances of success. It also protects and improves your relationships with your peers.?

#insights #communication #leadership

Glymr can help you incorporate data-driven decision-making into your entire organization.