Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Data Communication

Chapter 6 The Data Fluent Culture

The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.

Edgar Schein

MIT Sloan School of Management

The aim of this chapter is to guide organizational leaders in the formation of a data fluent culture. Although knowledgeable individuals are necessary for a meaningful exchange of ideas, the culture of an organization is the context that helps these individual efficiently support the mission of the organization. A culture of data engagement and fluency is built upon organizational leadership, shared understandings and conventions about data products, and everyday habits and processes that make data-informed communication a priority.

In this chapter, you learn about:

• How leaders can develop a data fluent organizational culture and communicate priorities
• How to establish key organizational metrics that guide individual and organizational efforts
• How to create a shared language and understanding of data in your organization
• How to incorporate data into everyday activities

It is natural that people in an organization look to their leaders to set expectations, model behaviors, and shape the culture. In fact, culture emerges from the modeled behaviors and reinforced expectations of the leaders. Initially, leadership actions drive culture. Over time, as patterns are established and the culture takes hold, ...