5 habits of data-driven people

The world is filled with experts and thought leaders claiming to have the answers, but data-driven people don’t tend to be in that crowd. Instead, data-driven people make a habit of asking questions. Not only do they ask lots of questions, but they also ask good questions.

History is filled with data people who solved interesting problems because of their ability to ask questions others didn’t even think of asking. Albert Einstein had questions about what would happen if you were in an elevator in space, and that led to the theory of relativity. George Washington Carver invented crop rotation and then, upon questioning what to do with the new-found overabundance of peanuts, came up with 300 uses for the crop. They never could have encountered these solutions if they hadn’t first come up with interesting, novel questions. (Photo credit: iStock)

Most of us pride ourselves on sound judgment and unbiased thoughts, but an abundance of evidence reveals our natural inclination toward irrationality. Data-driven people aren’t less susceptible to irrationality, but they do make a habit of building awareness of the many ways their brain tends to trip them up. (Photo credit: iStock)

Analysis paralysis “describes a situation where the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits that could be gained by enacting some decision.” Data-driven people avoid this by asking the following questions:

Can we reverse the decision if it turns out wrong? If so, you may do better with a quick decision and measuring the outcomes to see if you should change course.

Is it worth my time? We can’t reverse the decision of what ice cream flavor we choose, but does it really matter? There may be an optimal solution out there, but before you fire up a spreadsheet and outline the merits of vanilla versus mint chocolate chip, stop. An optimal decision here isn’t worth it. (Photo credit: iStock)

Intellectual honesty is “an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude.” Data-driven people pursue this relentlessly. People who are intellectually honest aren’t out to find evidence for an assumption, or convince someone to share their opinion. They’re obsessed with finding the Right answer -- that’s Right with a capital R-- even if the Right answer ends up being one that proves their hypothesis wrong. (Photo credit: iStock)

Recently a developer was thinking around the characteristics of data-driven people. He was particularly focused on how mental biases get in the way of reason. His interest was piqued by the serial position effect, the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. But instead of just assuming that the theory was correct, he tested it by recreating the experiment and asking 12 co-workers to participate. Then he analyzed the answers, and the results closely matched those predicted by the serial position effect. (Photo credit: iStock)