If you are going to spend time working on a project, in a team, etc., make sure the work is significant to you, and that you care for the people you are engaging with. Sure, there will be trying times and moments where self-discipline is needed in the absence of motivation, but on the whole, you will always be best served by doing work you can love with people you can love.

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If someone on your team is more skilled, more capable, or more ready, get out of their way. If you are the most skilled for an assignment, then you must go first. Just do not confuse the two. If someone is more skilled than you, choose them to do what they do best while you take on a supporting role.

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As a manager, you might get people to do what you tell them to do, but what happens when you are not there to tell them? If people choose to follow because they believe in the vision and mission of the work they are doing with you, they will not need to be micromanaged. They may need some assistance solving problems and operating more efficiently, but they will not need you to always tell them what to do.

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At some point along the way there was a fallacy, a make-believe story, that a person could behave one way “at work” and a completely different way “in real life.” Here’s the thing: people see right through that. Those who have chosen to follow you will observe everything about your life, the stories you tell and the way you live. Live a life you are proud of!

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Think of the people whom you have followed in your life. Why did you choose to follow them? Was it because you trusted them? Because you admired them? You wanted something they had? These are all reasons one person may choose to follow another, and there are many more. Now--think to yourself--why would you want someone to choose to follow you? Is it because you live out the ideals of integrity and success? How do you choose to lead?

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During analysis and exploration, analysts will use many different types of charts in slightly different ways, because they try to find something in the data. However, when they find a meaningful insight, they should use different, more specific charts for presenting to users, designed for ease of interpretation and impact.

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The information system’s goal of mimicking the structure of the business processes allows users to understand what happens and make decisions accordingly. Sometimes users will ask for specific reports they need short-term, but one must see beyond that. When modeling business events (with facts and dimensions at the lowest grain), that would already cover the reports they wanted (and many others). By modeling business events, one enables a plethora of insights, anticipating the most common questions.

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The “potential” value of the data in the lake comes from having it available for advanced data science analytics and further processing (such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, etc.). These usually produce a structured result, which the team can then feed into the data warehouse or reporting for user consumption. The “actual” value of the data gets realized when a business user can apply it to making a decision, not before.

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In a growth mindset culture focused on learning, executives do not expect people to blindly follow decisions that might lead to the wrong outcomes. They expect the teams to use data as part of performing actions to assess impact, and if someone learns that the decision might lead to problems, they expect the team to speak up and avoid those negative consequences. They don’t want anyone justifying later with, “I was told.” They expect everybody to proactively bring value and challenge the status quo.

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Reaching a target means that the team appropriately planned the “who does what and how by when,” given the guiding priorities and strategies. Conduct analytics to identify constraints on missed targets. Maybe the team needs more people, time, investments, or a different process. Focusing analytics on the causes for missing the previously planned targets will inform future planning, options and course corrections. This defines learning.

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