A lot of data. A lot of analytics capability. A lot of dashboards. All aimed at supporting business users in their quest to make sense of business data. Yet the ‘penny dropping moment’, when the user ‘gets’ the message from data-generated insights, seems to elude organizations. Organizations across the globe have spent millions looking for this magical transformation moment that data was professed to bring about. Perhaps it is time to seek reasons for failing to achieve lasting business transformation from data-driven insights.
One reason is that achieving the ‘penny dropping moment’ is anything but instantaneous; long established patterns of sense-making behaviours in an organization are not likely to change simply because there’s a lot of data, analytics and dashboards. The main lesson from the history of science is that humans have always been slow in accepting the truth, however objective. Recent neuroimaging studies show that brain regions that activate for pain are the same ones that activate for any kind of change. Which means that achieving behaviour change in business users and organizations as a whole is a considerable challenge. Initially, a strategic approach to bring about a culture change in sense-making behaviours is needed to facilitate the right context for the ‘penny dropping moments’ to take place naturally. Once again we can look to neuroimaging studies for guidance. It shows that humans are a lot more likely to comprehend information if it is presented as a story. This means, if organizations are keen on bringing about a real change, then the focus should be on data telling stories. Stories that business users can connect to and that help them make sense of the underlying information.