DataStory

Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story

Nancy Duarte

• Publisher: Ideapress Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781646870196
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Information Management
• Index: Business

Scientists have proven that stories make the brain light up in ways no other form of communication does. Using story frameworks as a communication device for data will help make your recommendations stick and be acted on.

Organizations use data to identify problems or opportunities. The actions others may need to take today from your insights in data could reverse or improve the trajectory of your future data. So, communicating data well, drives very important outcomes.

Even though most roles depend on data, communicating well is the top skill gap in roles using data. The essential skill for today's leaders (and aspiring leaders) is shaping data into narratives that make a clear recommendation and inspire others to act.

Almost every role today uses data for decision making. As you grow in your career, you can become a strategic advisor and ultimately a leader using data to shape a future where humanity and organizations flourish.

Duarte and her team have culled through thousands of data slides of her clients in technology, finance, healthcare, and consumer products, to decode how the highest performing brands communicate with data.

DataStory teaches you the most effective ways to turn your data into narratives that blend the power of language, numbers, and graphics. This book is not about visualizing data, there are plenty of books covering that. Instead, you'll learn how to transform numbers into narratives to drive action.

• It will help you communicate data in a way that creates outcomes both inside and outside your own organization.
• It will help you earn a reputation as a trusted advisor, which will advance your career.
• it will help your organization make faster decisions and inspire others to act on them!

Nancy Duarte is one of the preeminent storytellers in American business and the acclaimed author of Slide: ology, Resonate, and the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations comes this book that will help you transform numbers into narratives.

Communicate Data to Others

CHAPTERS

I. Becoming a Communicator of Data

II. Communicating to Decision-Makers

I.

Becoming a Communicator of Data

Invest in Data Communication Skills

Virtually every company in every industry already has access to vast stores of intelligent data that can offer a competitive advantage. International Data Corporation forecasts a tenfold rise in worldwide data by the year 2025.7 That’s somewhere in the realm of 175 zettabytes.^*

Digital tools passively listen to and watch us constantly, monitoring our every move. We can use data to invent new business models, help employees become more productive, and improve customer experiences. Customers now expect the data they want to use to be easily accessible at any time, wherever they are in the world. If you don’t provide that, your organization could lose.

The challenge of collecting, storing, analyzing, and providing all of that data is daunting, and yet the bigger challenge is using the data well to drive decisions. To make sense of the overwhelming onslaught, more people in a greater number of roles must understand how to leverage the various kinds of data at their disposal and bring the findings to life. Executives must constantly make decisions based largely upon data analysis. They want it presented to them in an expert manner.

Marketing has market analytics, sales has conversion rates, software developers have code churn, HR measures retention, and academics, scientists, policy specialists, and engineers must pull insights out of complex data as a foundation of their work. According to PwC, 67 percent of job openings are for roles that are analytics-enabled.8 I expect you’ve come to this book because you’re in some such job.

Maybe you have a job that requires you to live in data all the time and dig discoveries out of it, or maybe you regularly have to leverage data as a secondary part of your job, whether in your own decision-making or reporting to others. Perhaps you often give presentations that are based significantly on data, which might be findings of your own or those of others. Or maybe you’re just getting started learning how to incorporate data into reports or presentations.

No matter what your role, your career trajectory will get a big lift from knowing how to first understand, then explain, findings in data well. If you learn how to communicate data clearly and persuasively, you will stand out from others.

“Today, for anyone who wants a shot at a well-compensated position . . . comfort with data is increasingly essential.” 9

Josh Bersin
Deloitte

Explain Data Through Storytelling

A significant skill threshold stands between exploring, explaining, and inspiring with data. Your career path can stop at analysis, or it can advance into more advanced problem-solving with creative and critical thinking. When this is coupled with the strong skill of communicating well, you’ll become a driver of change as your recommendations get approved and deployed.

For some of you, the exploration of data is very comfortable. Maybe you spend much of your time diving into pools of raw data looking for patterns or potential problems and opportunities, crisscrossing through tables, and pulling nectar of insights from charts. That work can be wonderfully energizing. You can feel like a detective let loose in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Some data lovers consider it beyond their pay grade to make recommendations about what higher-ups should do with regard to their discoveries. They see themselves as stewards of data, keeping it in good shape and making sure it’s accessible. That’s just fine if people are okay with their career path ending with data exploration. But if they’d like to move into roles that help determine what an organization should do in light of data findings, they must develop communication skills. As artificial intelligence and machine learning get smarter, only exploration of data will put your role at risk. You must learn how to communicate where data is suggesting the organization should go.

For others, digging into pools of data to build a case for some course of action is your norm, and you now want to become more adept at influencing others to take action.

Making a recommendation requires that you first judge the data: This chart went up. Was that good? Was it expected? Should we keep going in this direction, or change course? Do we have all the data we need to make a good decision?

Then you’ve got to construct a point of view based upon your conclusions. Communicating that point of view takes guts. For some of you, it will be crossing a chasm in your career, taking a leap into an exciting but perhaps nerve-wracking position of greater responsibility. Making a recommendation comes with great responsibility, but also accountability. How well you present a case can be a make-or-break, career-defining moment. If you learn to present recommendations well, you will become a trusted advisor.

Become Like the Mentor in a Story

A mentor plays an important role in most stories. At a moment when the hero is stuck, the mentor provides the insight that shows the way—giving others just what they need, in the nick of time, to m...