Senior leaders love to be challenged, when you prove them right!

Unfair? Yes. There are plenty of great leaders who truly want their staff to speak up. However, even some of these may suffer from measurement blindness.

When it comes to numbers and decision making there are three positions people take.

Believers

These people believe measurement enhances decisions. They will ask for measurement and readily listen to the numbers being presented, they will look to see if there are any abnormalities and when satisfied, they will trust the numbers.

Swingers

These are the people that like the numbers when it suits them and not so when they don’t. They will accept data that affirms their position, and they will reject data that goes against their conclusions.

Gamblers

These are the gut feel decision makers. The ones that follow the mantra that there are three types of lies: “Lies, damned lies and statistics”. They simply don’t believe what comes from a “black box”.

When nudging the CFO, presumably they are believers in measurement. When nudging other executives, it is important to understand if they are a believer, a swinger or a gambler.

For believers your mantra should be “If you can observe it, I can measure it, but I’ll closely consider the cost of measurement along the way.”

For swingers and gamblers, your mantra should be “I can give you some further insight to help you with this decision.” That is, don’t talk data and measurement, talk insights. The marketing insights teams worked that one out many years ago.

Stay safe and adapt – with better measurement!