Statistics tell your story, but also from others

One of my first blogs discussed the power of numbers, Numbers do the talking! But how they 'talk' is not by using them as they are.

The blog I referred to, expressed my opinion that being in control, means you need to quantify in many dimensions the past, current, and future state of your organisation. Not just in financial terms, but in any terms that you consider being important for the value you bring to your 'client'.

In many cases you will use analytics and graphs to translate numbers into digestible and visual information. Specifically if you want to get buy in or sponsoring of plans going forward (or to proof to your management you reached your objectives 😉), it is important that you visualize in the best possible way.

There are countless ways to produce visuals with numbers. One lesson I have learned is to let the audience lead your design (eg. tune your language). Internal financial meetings require detail, sometimes to the bare bone. Decision making sessions require simplicity and almost self-explanatory figures and data. Likewise update sessions with your team(s).

And if you present data in graphs, I would advise you to visualize graphs going upwards from left to right. So if the data you present forces you to create a graph in a downwards direction from left to right, find a creative solution to present it the other way around!

In a way statistics give you a great opportunity to bend the outcome to your objective. For example, if you want to compare and position your organisation in relation to other similar organisations, you might have a desire to come out better or as good as. If the revenue outcome on itself might not give you that position, maybe the revenue per FTE headcount, or the revenue related to size of country, might. Similarly, you could look at margin, or productivity. In fact, there is an old Dutch saying, 'The writer lives on'; You are in charge of what you present, telling the story you want!

The power of the many ways to present data is clearly visible in the daily news that is brought to us. Most focus on the outcome of those models, charts and graphs. And of course, as a consequence most debates concern the consequences and actions needed. Just what the storyteller had in mind, conscious or not.

Only few ask questions about the origin of the data used, about its reliability, completeness and quality before looking at the result. If the input would need to be changed, maybe the story would be totally different.

So, although I feel it is important that you use statistics to your advantage in your management practice, you should also be aware that others use similar practices.

In case you get presented models produced by others that are of concern to you, I would advise you to focus on the data (ie. their input) used to produce them first and beforehand. Once you understand the origin, quality and completeness of the data, you will also understand what is presented. Because, like you, most stories being told have an objective, not necessary in line with yours...