Blockers to Becoming a Data-Driven Business
What's true? Well, if you're doing something worthwhile, you're going to experience resistance. And that's why it's so helpful to ask the question, ma'am, what are the blockers I could expect? And then what are some of the remedies? Because success leaves clues for overcoming those blockers.
Alex Judd:One of our coaches that works with business owners around the country, Matt Aiken, is deeply passionate about this topic of being a data driven business and its principles that he's really applied to the business that he owns and runs as well. And so he wanted to spend some time on this episode really articulating what are the blockers that are going to keep you from engaging with this and then how can you and your team proactively overcome those blockers in a way that would make you a more data driven and therefore more intentional business. Here's Matt.
Matt Aiken:All right, let's consider a story about a young lumberjack who challenges an older lumberjack to a competition. The older lumberjack accepts. The challenge is simple. Who can chop down the most trees in a single day? Let's consider our young lumberjack, right?
Matt Aiken:Strong, hungry, ready to make a name for himself. He sets out. He gets after it, right? He he starts knocking over tree after tree after tree. Chop, chop, chop, timber.
Matt Aiken:And every few trees, he looks over and he sees the old man sitting and resting. He thinks to himself, man, there's no way. There's no way I'm gonna lose this this battle. And they get to the end of the day and and they start to tally the trees. And it turns out the old lumberjack has felled twice the number of trees as the younger lumberjack.
Matt Aiken:And the young man says, but how? I never sat down. I never rested. I never stopped. How did you fell more trees than me?
Matt Aiken:And the old man looks at him and says, that's your mistake. I wasn't resting. I was sharpening my axe. Man, so many business owners are the young lumberjack in this story and we've got drive. We're ready to to tackle, our business with intensity.
Matt Aiken:We've got the stamina to just go, go, go, But so many of us fail to sharpen our axe. Now if strategy in this analogy is our axe. Right? Strategy is our axe, Then data is the whetstone we can use to sharpen our strategy. So we're we're in a three part series on on data and and knowing your numbers.
Matt Aiken:Last week, we talked about why it's so important for you to be looking at your numbers now. Not waiting, let let's get after it now. Next week, we'll talk about how you can get started with your numbers. But today, I I wanted to share some of my experiences as a coach here at Path for Growth, talking about some of the biggest blockers to knowing your numbers. In all my time coaching, I've spent so many conversations where leaders say, you know, Matt, I really, really wanna get into data.
Matt Aiken:I'd really love to build a KPI dashboard, but there's always a but. And they insert some reason, some blocker they're facing or some excuse. They range from legitimate to lazy. But over and over and over again, there's always some hurdle or some speed bumps that see leaders have to get through to get from where they are, not looking at their data and just executing all day to get to where they want to be, looking at their data, sharpening their strategy. So today, we're gonna look at five of the most common blockers I've seen great leaders have to overcome to become experts and data leaders in their organizations.
Matt Aiken:Let's go ahead and dive in with our first blocker. The first blocker, Matt. But here's the deal. I know my numbers. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.
Matt Aiken:But, Matt, I know my numbers. I don't need to go through all of this rigmarole to build a dashboard and start looking at Greg. I know I'm tuned in to my business. And here's what I'd say. There's a big difference between napkin math and real math.
Matt Aiken:Oh, that might have taken you back. That might get a little offended by that, it's true. We tell the napkin story in entrepreneurial mythology all the time. Well, we were sitting at the diner one day and I just pulled out a napkin. I started driving on it.
Matt Aiken:Napkin math will get you somewhere, but I'm not sure it's gonna get you where you want to be. Let's take Uber as an example. Back in the early two thousand tens, leadership of Uber was all in on scaling, scaling at all costs. Why? Well, they they had convinced themselves of a very simple equation.
Matt Aiken:If x number of drivers can produce y revenue, then 10 x drivers should bring in 10 y revenue. Seems like a very simple assumption, but did that come to fruition? No, it didn't. They encountered increased scaling costs. They they hit hurdles as it relates to compliance.
Matt Aiken:They failed to hire the drivers that would produce as well as their early drivers. They had a simple equation which turned out to be simplistic. Right? You see the difference. Simple, not complicated or simplistic.
Matt Aiken:Right? Overly simple, not actually taking into account all of the impacts. And so here's here's what I've seen leaders overcome with this objection. I know my numbers. They've overcome it through humility.
Matt Aiken:Right? You have to be humble enough to only claim what you know to be true, not what you feel should be true. We've got to treat assumptions as assumptions. And so here's a couple of actions that I've seen leaders take in order to overcome this blocker. One, they validate their assumptions with real data.
Matt Aiken:They go and look in the marketplace. They go and look at data that they've got. They they go and figure out what is real and true. Does it support what I think that I know? Or or said a better way, does it prove me wrong and my assumptions wrong?
Matt Aiken:The second thing they do is they look at unit metrics and economics, not total market size. Right? We saw this with WeWork. If we just capture a small slice of the office market, Then our valuation will be through the roof. If we do this, then this will happen.
Matt Aiken:Well, the reality is is that that just didn't work out for WeWork as well. Right? They were looking at this market size, not looking at their unit economics. And here here's the last thing. You've gotta consider hidden variables.
Matt Aiken:We've gotta go and, if we've called this a mystery of data is something we use to reveal the mystery, we need to really figure out what's hidden from us. What's what are their culture challenges? Are there competition challenges? Are there changing trends? We can't just pretend to know our numbers.
Matt Aiken:We have to actually know our numbers. Peter Drucker says this, the most dangerous thing a business the most dangerous thing in business is the illusion that everything is fine. Right? And so here's the challenge. Right?
Matt Aiken:If you wanna overcome this blocker, here's the challenge. Ask your team what would make our math or our assumptions totally wrong? What would prove me wrong? Ask that of your team and listen and figure out, hey, do I actually know my numbers or do I just think I know my numbers? Alright.
Matt Aiken:Let's let's dive into the second blocker. And this one's this one's a legitimate blocker. I don't know what data to look at. Matt, where where do I start? I I don't even know what I don't know.
Matt Aiken:And think this is actually a great blocker and one that we shouldn't just breeze through because there's there's three possibilities, right? There's three options ahead of us. We can not look at anything. We can look at what we have or we can ask the question, what do we want to know? And so, so many great leaders that they have, especially in our community, right?
Matt Aiken:They adopt Stephen Covey's approach. We've got to start with the end in mind. If you're at this blocker, start with the end in mind. Ask yourself, what data do we really want to look at? What do others look at?
Matt Aiken:Do we have that data? Can we easily maybe take a look and answer the question? If this data is true or if we have access to the data, this will help us understand if we're on the journey towards what our vision, what we want. I recently was was dealing with this blocker in my business. I I own a board game publishing company.
Matt Aiken:We make board games and I was recently looking at signing a new two player game. Two player the two player market is is historically tough. I knew that. We've released a two player game in the past and it's challenging. But we got really excited.
Matt Aiken:We were looking at it. We're like, man, we should do this. Right? And so what do we do? We ran out and we said, man, let's go look at all the data that we have on two player games.
Matt Aiken:Oh, we popped on Amazon Connect Four. Millions of copies. Right? Checkers. Oh, man, there's so many great two player games out there and there seems to be a huge addressable market.
Matt Aiken:You see, what were we doing? We were talking ourselves into it, but then we took we took a different approach. We we said, okay, like, well, let's start with the end in mind. What would it take to grab enough of the market to make it worth it to us? And we started looking at the data of what would it take?
Matt Aiken:How does that compare to our current performance? And we realized the answer to that question was it would take too much. And so again, we've got to start with the end in mind. Man, if you're on this step, take time to think. So many leaders fail to take time to think.
Matt Aiken:Not just around the data. Don't think in terms of data. Think in terms of, well, what am I trying to accomplish and what data would help me understand if I'm making progress towards that desired state? Here's the challenge, right? If you're in this spot, if this is you and blocker number two is what you're currently overcoming, here's what I do.
Matt Aiken:Go to your team or even just ask this of yourself. If your team shared a data point with you, they just shared something. They said, hey, leader, I've been in our data and I saw this. What when they told you that would cause you to throw a party like, oh, my gosh, I didn't even know. I had no idea that we were performing so well in this area or, oh man, I didn't know we were on track for this kind of success.
Matt Aiken:Right? And then ask yourself the other thing. What data, if someone came to you and presented it to you, would change everything around your team's focus? Right? That starts to tell us, okay, we already know the metrics that matter.
Matt Aiken:If we knew them, it would change the way we're going about business or would it cause us to celebrate? Ask the question, what if they shared with me would change everything else? Right. Let's get into to blocker number three. Blocker number three is so common.
Matt Aiken:Every leader goes through this. But, Matt, I don't have good data. I don't trust it. I have no belief that even if we got the data that it would be valuable. And again, that might be a legitimate blocker.
Matt Aiken:It's a good thing for us to pause and say, okay, well, what do we need to do about that objection? Because great data is better than good data and good data is better than no data, but bad data is way worse than no data. And so we've got to make sure do we at least have good data? And so we're going to we're going to spend time really diving into that. Like great leaders ask the question, what do we want to focus on?
Matt Aiken:And then they need to ask the question, is this reliable? Why? Because you can create a data culture, but if you don't have buy in, if you don't have belief from yourself or from your leaders, then this is just gonna be a flame that ignites and then and then goes out. And so okay. Hey.
Matt Aiken:Like, what do we need to do? Well, we need to get buy in. How do we get buy in? Well, we start by proving that what we have could be valuable. And so a couple of easy ways to start doing this.
Matt Aiken:Take the the data that you have and start saying, what does this look like year over year? Okay. Maybe you don't have this tracked a year ago. Maybe you just have, you know, what you've pulled in the last couple of weeks and just say, okay, well, is this reliable enough to draw not a conclusion, but to to draw a point on a map that's taken us where we need to go? You might also have a bit of a data nerd on your team.
Matt Aiken:And so lean on them and say, go to them and say, okay, hey, I'm interested in this number. I want you to go and prove to me that this number is right. I have a background in IT audit. So what I would do is I'd travel around the country and I would say, okay, so and so person, you say that you had a million dollars in revenue. And I would go to them and I'd say, okay, prove to me that all of the revenue you've earned made it into the system and that you made it into the system accurately.
Matt Aiken:And and we did that. And consistently, we'd find times that there wasn't good data, but then we'd also find times where there was. And the the times that we could find good data were when people understood the process of how data gets into and through their system and they can prove it. And there's a ton of information on how to get started on this on YouTube. Go ahead and Google it.
Matt Aiken:Okay? And so, like, I I don't have good data. Great. What do we need? We need to get buy in.
Matt Aiken:And the way we often get buy in is to prove that our data is good. Take that next step. Don't let that block you from forward progress. And so here would be my encouragement. If you're in this stage, here's the challenge I have for you.
Matt Aiken:Pick one piece of data that you want. Right? Think about start with the end of mind, block or two. Hopefully, we're we're over block or two and we know a little bit what we want. And say, if I want this data, what would cause me to trust this number?
Matt Aiken:K. And then once you have that, now that I trust the number, what would cause my team to get bought in? Right? And I just didn't say approach this with insane levels of curiosity. Alright.
Matt Aiken:Block blocker number four. Two more to go. It would take more effort to collect and review the data than to execute on it. Right. This is our young lumberjack.
Matt Aiken:But, Matt, I just want to go, go, go. You heard Alex tell the story of starting this podcast and just going like, yeah, I'm just going to record. Let's go. Let's record And not asking the question, well, what is our aim? How will we measure success?
Matt Aiken:Proverbs says this. Proverbs four twenty six, ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Right? Who is Proverbs written to? The simple, the young, and to those who are already wise.
Matt Aiken:And so just think about our young example, our young lumberjack. He is the audience, the who, the the people that Proverbs is written to. And and what does Solomon say? Ponder the path of your feet. Listen.
Matt Aiken:I I'm not saying that you need to overcomplicate this. I get it. We need to go make sales. We need to execute. Time is money.
Matt Aiken:But we also need to make sure that we're spending time pondering the path of our feet, sharpening our axe. And so here's what I encourage you to do. Don't overcomplicate it. Make it easy. Follow the principles.
Matt Aiken:Simplicity scales and consistency compounds. We've got to spend time going, hey, it's worth it. Right now, we've said we might not know our data very well. We've overcome the blocker of I don't know what data to look at. Now we're saying, hey, I've got a little bit more confidence that I've got at least good data and not bad data.
Matt Aiken:And so what do we do? We we start executing on that. We take a first step to collect it and review it. And and so he here's the challenge. Right?
Matt Aiken:Here's a very simple action you can take to to start making progress in this direction. The next time you have a leadership team meeting, take ten minutes and open it by saying, hey, y'all. I wanna see what we have available to us, and I'd like for us to start pulling it forward. I want everyone right now to take ten minutes and I want you to bring me one fact backed by data that we have access to that you believe is valuable for this leadership team to know. Right?
Matt Aiken:Just ask people, hey, ten minutes. Yeah. The leadership team meeting is already an expensive meeting. Totally. I get that.
Matt Aiken:You got your your your key leaders here and you've carved out that time. Build this into your ideas of saying, hey, I I think we've we need to be spending time sharpening the axe. Let's all right now take ten minutes. Pull me one fact based on data that we have. Alright.
Matt Aiken:Let's wrap up. Blocker number five. And let me tell you, this this is probably of all these the most emotionally charged one that that I've experienced with my with my leaders I've worked with. Here's the blocker. We've tried this in the past and it didn't take us anywhere.
Matt Aiken:How many of you that's that's you. Right? I've done this. My team, we've put time, energy, effort, resources behind trying to solve the data problem, become a data driven culture and it just didn't stick. It just didn't stick.
Matt Aiken:But but here's the here's the lie that so many leaders believe as it relates to this blocker. They believe the most important step is the first step. And the reality is that's not true. Yes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Absolutely.
Matt Aiken:But the journey to complete a thousand miles, what's the most important step a man can take? It's the next step. You see building a culture of data isn't about getting it done right once. It's about showing up consistently. I'd love to kind of take us into, Lord of the Rings.
Matt Aiken:Like one of the most powerful moments in Lord of the Rings occurs when Frodo and Sam, they're in Mordor, they're almost to Mount Doom, right? They're almost at the end of their quest and they're exhausted. They've encountered so many trials and failures. They're burdened by the weight of the ring. They're dehydrated.
Matt Aiken:They're starving. They're barely able to move. Broda's completely overwhelmed and that there's this moment I can't take another step. But Sam, right? Seeing the importance of the mission, he refuses to let Frodo stop.
Matt Aiken:He says, come on, Frodo. I can't carry the ring for you, but I can carry you. Listen, maybe your first attempts at data didn't work. I get it. Maybe your team is feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of trying to pull together what you guys need to know.
Matt Aiken:Maybe everyone is just Again, they're committed to this idea that it's easier to execute than to stop and analyze. But the truth is that the hardest part of this data journey you're going to go on is that it's going to be hardest right before the breakthrough. And so what would it look like for for leaders in this community, for us, for you, to be the kind of leader that gets us to that breakthrough moment. See, like like Frodo, leaders don't need to do this alone. You don't have to be you don't have to be the one who is committed to this process getting to the finish line.
Matt Aiken:You need to be the one who leads the team to the finish line. Your commitment and your execution to get the people over the finish line is what matters most. And so here's what we want. We want leaders that trust that are bought into reviewing and refining their numbers even when it feels tiring, and before it leads to success. So here here you go.
Matt Aiken:Reviewing your numbers doesn't have to be perfect. Here's what I've seen my leaders adopt the mentality that the belief that they held intrinsically that got them over this blocker. They committed to reviewing numbers and saying that we don't have to be perfect at this. We just have to be consistent. And so here's the challenge I would encourage you.
Matt Aiken:Here's the question I'd like for you to answer. Ask how can I lean on my team as we commit to this path? And then ask the opposite. How can my team lean on me as we commit to this path? Again, Proverbs four twenty six, ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.
Matt Aiken:That's what we wanna do. We wanna ponder. We wanna take time like the old lumberjack to sharpen our axe. And we don't wanna let any of these blockers stand in our way. Okay.
Matt Aiken:So again, what are the blockers? Let's go through them again. We don't wanna get stopped by I know my numbers. We don't wanna get blocked by I don't know what data to look at. We don't wanna get stuck saying, but I don't even have good data and throw up our hands and walk away.
Matt Aiken:We don't wanna buy into the lie that it takes more effort to collect and review data than to execute. And most of all, we don't wanna let our past failures prevent us from future success. Y'all, I I really hope that this has been helpful. We, again, are in a three part series and so you can expect next week. Like if you're you're here right now, you're like, man, I'm I'm ready to overcome these blockers.
Matt Aiken:We started to ask ourselves a couple of questions. But how about we take a next step and I just give you a guide of how I help leaders take that next step once they get through these blockers? We're gonna have a how to guide next week on how to start looking at your numbers right now. Y'all, you know this. We're rooting for you.
Matt Aiken:We're praying for you. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
Alex Judd:Well, there you have it. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode. If you want any of the information or resources that we mentioned, that's all in the show notes. Hey, before you go, could I ask you for one quick favor? Could you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast episode?
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