You’re running all out but failing to reach a goal. Your team is grinding through tasks and decisions. If companies want to grow, compete, and win they need to accelerate decisions. It is estimated the average American makes 70 decisions per day, according to Professor Sheena S. Iyengar, at Columbia Business School. Given the frequency, the real need is for a practical approach to lead in a data-driven world.
Our research with 2,100 professionals concluded that data in high doses is harmful. It doesn’t speed decision-making, improve logic, or enable the best decision. In fact, while data is black and white, the truth is clearly gray. The gray comes from intangibles such as bias, risk appetite, history, stakeholders’ conflicting priorities, problem definition, and expectations: things we can’t know through numbers, but only through experience and intuition.
To make effective decisions across teams of different sizes, experiences, locations, and with varying amounts of data, we developed seven lessons to better faster decisions.
Mentioned Faculty
Oded Netzer
Professor Netzer's expertise centers on one of the major business challenges of the data-rich environment: developing quantitative methods that leverage data to gain a deeper understanding of customer behavior and guide firms' decisions. He focuses primarily on building statistical and econometric models to measure consumer preferences and understand how customer choices change over time, and across contexts. Most notably, he has developed a framework for managing firms' customer bases through dynamic segmentation.
Paul Magnone
Paul has over 25 years of experience in strategic planning, new product development, acquisition integration, alliance management, and consultative sales. He is a systems thinker and business builder focused on making the complex simple, understanding where technology and innovation are headed, and helping to answer what it means for any business. In his current work with Google, he is unlocking the next generation of business value through cloud computing and related technologies.
Christopher Frank
As Vice President of Global Marketplace Insights at American Express, Christopher Frank leads the advertising, brand, and communications research and analytics group. Prior to joining American Express, he spent ten years at Microsoft as Senior Director in Corporate Marketing Research.