A wise headmaster once told his plucky young pupil: “It is our choices…that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.” That was Albus Dumbledore, reassuring a young Harry Potter after his showdown in the Chamber of Secrets. And while business has little in common with vanquishing dark lords (depending on who you … Synthesis: the missing link between data and action
If you are interested in quickly answering basic questions, saving time and resources while reducing risk, read on. This post is for you. In my last post, I wrote about how people often prefer to be precisely wrong than vaguely right. All too often, clean-looking datasets are prized over messy information that may actually speak … The art of being approximately right
Data doesn’t drive anything. You drive. It’s not about data-driven decision making, it’s about decision-driven data analysis. Yes, data matters. Full stop. But it is the supporting character not the main character in your decision process. How can you tell if the data you collect is good enough to inform a decision? You wouldn’t build a plane with faulty … Making your data decision-grade
Wandering down the road, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” it responds. “I don’t much care where—” she says. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” the cat interjects. “—so long … Don’t fall down the rabbit hole. Work backwards instead.
In my last article, I explored the power of Powerful Questioning, an approach to asking questions that drives clarity and uncovers deeper truths. But what happens before you even start asking those questions? How do you ensure you’re focused on solving the right problem in the first place? Enter IWIK™: “I wish I knew.” It’s … Framing the problem to make better decisions
In my last article, I unpacked Quantitative Intuition™ (QI): the ability to make sound decisions with incomplete information. This isn’t guesswork. It’s a proficiency you can build using context, synthesis, and one overlooked skill: asking questions. Yes, something we learn around 36 months of age but somehow forget when we are 36 years old. We … Better decisions: asking powerful questions
In a world where dashboards refresh by the second and KPIs cover every surface, something surprising has happened: We’ve made data easier, yet decisions harder. This isn’t an information failure. It’s a misplacement of attention. We’ve been conditioned to believe that more data equals better decisions. It does not. The truth is, data doesn’t make … Better decisions: the certainty myth