Delivering Data Happiness
Jim Harris in Blogs, Books, Data Quality tagged Change Management, Data Governance, Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen, Philosophy Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 3:00AM Recently, a happiness meme has been making its way around the data quality blogosphere.
Its origins have been traced to a lovely day in Denmark when Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen, with help from The Muppet Show, asked “Why do you watch it?” referring to the typically negative spin in the data quality blogosphere, where it seems we are:
“Always describing how bad data is everywhere.
Bashing executives who don’t get it.
Telling about all the hard obstacles ahead. Explaining you don’t have to boil the ocean but might get success by settling for warming up a nice little drop of water.
Despite really wanting to tell a lot of success stories, being the funny Fozzie Bear on the stage, well, I am afraid I also have been spending most of my time on the balcony with Statler and Waldorf.
So, from this day forward: More success stories.”
In his recent blog posts, The Ugly Duckling and Data Quality Tools: The Cygnets in Information Quality, Henrik has been sharing more success stories, or to phrase it in an even happier way: delivering data happiness.
Delivering Data Happiness
I am reading the great book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.
Obviously, the book’s title inspired the title of this blog post.
One of the Zappos core values is “build a positive team and family spirit,” and I have been thinking about how that applies to data quality improvements, which are often pursued as one of the many aspects of a data governance program.
Most data governance maturity models describe an organization’s evolution through a series of stages intended to measure its capability and maturity, tendency toward being reactive or proactive, and inclination to be project-oriented or program-oriented.
Most data governance programs are started by organizations that are confronted with a painfully obvious need for improvement.
The primary reason that the change management efforts of data governance are resisted is because they rely almost exclusively on negative methods—they emphasize broken business and technical processes, as well as bad data-related employee behaviors.
Although these problems exist and are the root cause of some of the organization’s failures, there are also unheralded processes and employees that prevented other problems from happening, which are the root cause of some of the organization’s successes.
“The best team members,” writes Hsieh while explaining the Zappos core values, “take initiative when they notice issues so that the team and the company can succeed.”
“The best team members take ownership of issues and collaborate with other team members whenever challenges arise.”
“The best team members have a positive influence on one another and everyone they encounter. They strive to eliminate any kind of cynicism and negative interactions.”
The change management efforts of data governance and other enterprise information initiatives often make it sound like no such employees (i.e., “best team members”) currently exist anywhere within an organization.
The blogosphere, as well as critically acclaimed books and expert presentations at major industry conferences, often seem to be in unanimous and unambiguous agreement in the message that they are broadcasting:
“Everything your organization is currently doing regarding data management is totally wrong!”
Sadly, that isn’t much of an exaggeration. But I am not trying to accuse anyone of using Machiavellian sales tactics to sell solutions to non-existent problems—poor data quality and data governance maturity are costly realities for many organizations.
Nor am I trying to oversimplify the many real complexities involved when implementing enterprise information initiatives.
However, most of these initiatives focus exclusively on developing new solutions and best practices, failing to even acknowledge the possible presence of existing solutions and best practices.
The success of all enterprise information initiatives requires the kind of enterprise-wide collaboration that is facilitated by the “best team members.” But where, exactly, do the best team members come from? Should it really be surprising whenever an enterprise information initiative can’t find any using exclusively negative methods, focusing only on what is currently wrong?
As Gordon Hamilton commented on my previous post, we need to be “helping people rise to the level of the positive expectations, rather than our being codependent in their sinking to the level of the negative expectations.”
We really need to start using more positive methods for fostering change.
Let’s begin by first acknowledging the best team members who are currently delivering data happiness to our organizations.
Related Posts
Why isn’t our data quality worse?
Declaration of Data Governance
The Balancing Act of Awareness
Podcast: Business Technology and Human-Speak
Reader Comments (4)
Jim, I really enjoyed reading this.
Just a couple of days ago I had this conversation about the curse of IT in general:
When it works no-one notices or gives credit; it's only when it's broken we hear about it.
A typical example is government IT over here in the UK. Some projects have worked well; others have been spectacular failures. Guess which we hear about? We review failure mercilessly but sometimes forget to do the same with success so we can document and repeat the good stuff too!
I find the best case studies are the balanced ones that say: this is what we wanted to do, this is how we did it, these are the benefits. Plus this is what I'd do differently next time (lessons learned). Maybe in those lessons learned we should also make a big effort to document the positive learnings and not just take these for granted. Yes these do come out in "best practices" but again, best practices never get the profile of disaster stories...
I wonder if much of the gloom is self-fulfilling almost, and therefore quite unhealthy. So we say it's difficult, the failure rate is high etc etc - commonly known as covering your butt. Then when something goes wrong you can point back to the low expectations you created in the first place.
But maybe, the fact we have low expectations means we don't go in with the right attitude? It creates a negative cycle - like when you tell a child he'll probably end up bad because his father was... No-one likes a moaner.
The self-defeating outcome is that many large organizations are fearful of getting to grips with their data problems. So lots of projects we should be doing to improve things are put on hold because of the perceived risk, disruption, cost - things then just get worse making the problem harder to resolve.
DQ professionals surely don't want to be seen as effectively undertakers to the doomed project - professional yes, necessary yes, but surrounded by the unmistakable smell of death that makes others uncomfortable.
Sure the nature of your work is often to focus on the broken, but surely what is needed is a “Bob the Builder” vibe:
“Can we fix it? Yes we can!”
Quite apart from anything else isn't it always better to be cheerful?
Teresa
telesperience.com
Thanks for your great comment, Teresa!
Yes, it often seems like the only news is bad news. Everyone likes reading about IQ Trainwrecks, but success stories are not as popular, which makes it seem like success is far more rare than it really is.
I will admit to being a natural pessimist. I remember reading The Power of Positive Thinking while in college and dismissing it as a saccharin perspective that didn't acknowledge how optimism alone can not change anything.
In my previous post, I discussed the psychology term negativity bias, which explains how bad evokes a stronger reaction than good in the human mind.
But prior to the late 20th century, psychology was mostly negative, focusing almost exclusively on trying to figure out how to get people who had something wrong with them to become more normal, more well-adjusted to society's expectations.
Given the reality of negativity bias, perhaps psychology was a self-defeating philosophy of maintaining low expectations just like everyone else. Most psychologists never bothered to examine what would make normal people happier, which the new field of positive psychology has begun to explore.
I am not sure if it is always better to be cheerful, but we definitely need to start using more positive methods for fostering change, and we definitely need to be telling more success stories.
Although switching from an all-negative perspective to an all-positive perspective could be just as unproductive, perhaps we should heed the sage advice of Aristotle - “moderation in all things” - like the balanced case studies you noted, which explain this is what we wanted to do, this is how we did it, these are the benefits, this is what we'd do differently next time, so that our lessons learned document both the positive and the negative.
Cheers,
Jim
Jim,
We also need to stop using such polarizing language when describing issues/perspectives.
Negative/Positive vs. Cause and Effect, what is useful to know for future, what is just information but not pertinent to this situation. We don't all need to skip around with little blue birds singing around us and beams of sunshine, although it really freaks out the IT folks when you do - I once had an IT manager command me to "Stop Smiling so much!"
Bringing some balance to the pursuit of happiness or even misguided happyness, data or otherwise, is a more Zen approach to our work. I don't know if it will catch on but it has in some interesting places to work - Apple, Google, Twitter.
Sorry that the majority of examples that I know are from California but then it is easier to be positive when the sun shines and birds follow you...
“In seeing things
To be or not to be
Fools fail to see
A world at ease.”
— Nagarjuna, “Verses from the Center” (as translated by Stephen Batchelor)
Thanks for your great comment, Corinna,
Yes, many complex challenges are often viewed as a binary problem, where at first it appears we must choose between two polar opposites. A more balanced perspective, a more middle way between the extremes, is definitely a better approach.
As for a non-California example, Zappos (although they originated in San Francisco) is based in Las Vegas :-)
Best Regards,
Jim