Get Out of the Weeds: How Data Can Be a Distracting Crutch During Change

The following is adapted from Change (the) Management by Al Comeaux.

As business leaders, we need to tread a delicate balance between focusing on data and keeping an eye on the big picture. If we’re not careful, we can end up in the weeds, bogged down with tunnel vision, losing sight of what’s really going to move our business forward.

Leaders who live in the weeds can be especially lethal to major change initiatives. People naturally resist change, which means we’re starting from a disadvantage as we work to get employees on board. If leaders announce the change and then wait for the data from the outcomes, the project can crater. By focusing our attention on the factors that impact our change program the most — especially the inputs — we can keep everyone on track.

Let’s take a look at what it means to be stuck in the weeds and see how we can get ourselves out — and get our companies moving forward.

First, Keep It Simple

The dangers of being overly data-driven can be true in business and elsewhere. Take, for example, political campaigns. In his memoir of the 2008 Obama campaign, The Audacity to Win, campaign manager David Plouffe writes about the early days of the Democratic primary campaign, which took place in 2007.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, he tells us, had the messaging data and capabilities that a highly sophisticated and well-funded campaign would naturally build. Clinton’s pollster and messaging guru, Mark Penn, had written a book titled Microtrends, and he focused on data — on microtargeting different populations and precincts with very specific, targeted messages.

For their part, the Obama campaign, largely newcomers to presidential politics, didn’t find this necessary. “We thought this was an election with one big macrotrend — change,” Plouffe says.

Obama and his team didn’t get tied up in the minutiae that might get in the way of their overarching thinking. They understood that a simple, high-level message would have to work in their campaign. So they kept it simple and pushed their “change” message easily into every conversation, even on complex issues such as diplomacy.

They weren’t unsophisticated; their heads were just clearer — and their strategy worked.

Think “Inputs” for Better Outcomes

Keeping their thinking simple and focusing on the macro ideas worked for Obama’s campaign, and it works for business leaders, too.

As executives, we can’t allow data to be our safe space. While we have a responsibility to ensure the trains are running on time and in the right direction, we don’t need to know about every working part of each train, each car. We don’t have to get so deep into the process — and be so reliant only on data — that we lose sight of what’s going to drive the outcomes we want.

And what’s going to drive the change? Inputs. We need to recognize that, now that we’re leaders, our jobs are about inputs. Our leverage point is the input; the outcomes will only be as good as the inputs we provide.

When we focus so much on outcomes — all the nitty-gritty data worry when a KPI is red or flipping from green to yellow — it’s often too late. We needed to spend our time and focus on the front end of the change effort, priming the change.

Preparing for Change

Often, problems in our data occur because we haven’t primed the change. We haven’t done the legwork necessary to get our people ready for a transformation. We must motivate our people to want to change.

Heart — our employees’ emotional buy-in — is one of the inputs we need to manage as leaders. Without the hearts of our people, we have little chance of getting them to want to do anything specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, or timely anytime soon, all of which are necessary to achieve our change goals.

Being in the weeds is an enemy of change. To be clear, others in the organization do need to focus on and track progress as we accomplish the change or transformation we’re all going for, and we should be aware if we’re not meeting the goals. But as executives, we’re steering the ship, so we need to be looking toward the horizon. We must make sure the ship keeps moving forward and isn’t getting stuck in the weeds. Otherwise, our changes will never land.

Focus on the inputs that will drive change, like heart, and the great data we long for — the great outcomes — will arrive.

For more advice on leading a company change initiative, you can find Change (the) Management on Amazon.

Al Comeaux, a former executive at Travelocity, GE, and American Airlines, is a decorated corporate pioneer and global authority on change from inside organizations. His career championing change as a senior leader at uber-disruptive dot-coms as well as established, world-renowned companies — and his 20-year journey researching why so many change efforts fail and what’s needed for success — make him one of the world’s most forward thinkers on what leaders must do — and how they must think — to succeed at change. In 2019, Al founded Primed for Change, a disruptive new project created to prepare leaders to take organizations successfully through change. Al and his family live in Ft. Worth, TX, where he is deeply involved in his family, faith, and community.