Unpopular Opinion

Unpopular opinion: Data doesn't drive decisions. People do. And the people are the problem.

"We need more data" is fear wearing a fleece vest and carrying an expensive laptop. It sounds responsible. It's almost always just a deadline extension on a decision everyone already knows needs to be made.

I've sat in rooms where twenty slides of color-coded metrics justified a decision that fifteen minutes on the floor would have told you was wrong. But nobody had been on the floor. The dashboard was right there. On a very large screen. With a legend.

Confirmation bias doesn't disappear when you add a bar chart. It just gets a title slide and a distribution list. Your data is only as good as the assumptions behind it. Your dashboard is only as honest as the people who built it.

Data tells you productivity dropped. It won't tell you productivity dropped because the new director is a walking HR incident and your three best people are updating their resumes during your mandatory engagement survey. That requires presence. Judgment. Actually talking to humans.

Data informs. Leaders decide. The algorithm doesn't have to look anyone in the eye when it's wrong. You do. Act like it.