Making The 'Switch' To A Data-Driven Culture

Brent Dykes Director of Industry Consulting Adobe Systems

Change can strike fear into the hearts of anyone who has grown accustomed to doing things a certain way, and this apprehension frequently results in resistance to new ideas. Analytics and optimization efforts can run into this challenge. Shifting a corporate culture from its subjective, intuition-driven approach to an objective, data-driven approach can be a significant and daunting challenge for any company. Many marketing executives and Web analytics professionals see the value of introducing a data-driven transformation at their companies, but quickly discover how difficult it can be to orchestrate.

Last year authors Chip and Dan Heath published their second book, called Switch, which focuses on change management (subtitle: “How to change things when change is hard”). As I read through it, I decided to examine how their concepts could be applied to someone trying to introduce a data-driven culture within a large organization.

But before I get into the juicy bits, I need to describe a simple, three-part framework or model that the authors lay out for change. It is based on a simple analogy of someone riding an elephant, where our emotional side is our Elephant and our rational side is our Rider. Each side has strengths and weaknesses. The Elephant’s strengths are its energy and drive, while its weaknesses are its laziness and tendency for immediate self-gratification. On the other hand, the Rider’s strengths are its long-term planning and direction, while its weakness is wheel-spinning or analysis paralysis.

“Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-ton Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose.”

A key point that the Heath brothers make is if you want to change things, then you need to appeal to both the Rider and the Elephant. If you reach your people’s Riders but not their Elephants, people will have understanding without motivation. If the inverse happens, you’ll have passion without direction. You may need to determine which side is more dominant in the group of stakeholders you’re trying to influence, and then bring both sides to equilibrium. Based on this Elephant-Rider analogy, the authors identified three key areas for driving change:

1. Direct the Rider: What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. With the volume of Web data and reports available to marketers aside from handling all of their normal responsibilities, the Riders may end up going in circles with their Elephants. People need crystal-clear direction on what to do with the data. For example, helping people to focus on KPIs rather than ad hoc metrics can be part of the clarity the Riders need.

2. Motivate the Elephant: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change can be hard and requires self-control from the Rider to constantly steer an unmotivated Elephant in the right direction. Over time the Rider will exhaust the mental muscles required to deliver the desired change in behavior. Motivating employees’ Elephants to want to be data-driven becomes critical. One approach for generating more motivation from your Elephants is to publicize the data-driven successes that are already occurring within the organization. This approach gets people excited about finding the potential data-driven opportunities within their role, team, or department.

3. Shape the Path: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. Rather than saying your marketing people are dumb and don’t get Web analytics, perhaps you need to evaluate the situational aspects that may be preventing your marketers from leveraging the Web data like you’d like them to (e.g., training, bandwidth, goals, etc.).

Next: Tactics for “switching” your culture.