The Data Sets You Free
Accepting harsh truths is essential for progress
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“The less a man knows about the past and the present, the more insecure must prove to be his judgement of the future.”
— Sigmund Freud, 1927
“2+2=5”
— George Orwell, 1949 (from Nineteen Eighty-Four)
We all want facts and figures to make us look good. It’s human nature to want to present the best possible version of ourselves.
We’ve seen the length people will go to in order to boost their standing — online dating profiles that overstate height and understate weight, improbable golf scores, résumés that inflate importance and accomplishments, falsified business records to reduce taxes or lower insurance costs…
Self-preservation and self-aggrandizement are easy when you manipulate data.
But data is reality. Running away from it or trying to change it doesn’t change reality.
One Ford
That’s the culture that Alan Mulally stepped into when he was named CEO of Ford in September of 2006. He found executives who inflated numbers to look good, hoarded information (because knowledge is power), and in some cases, worked to undermine their colleagues.
When I joined Ford as an executive in July 2008, I was given the responsibility of setting the company’s global social media and digital communications strategy.
By that time, Alan had begun to transform the company through a clear and compelling vision, a set of values and behaviors that changed the culture, and a commitment to data-driven decision making and accountability.
As part of this new leadership and management system (later branded as “Working Together©” or the WTLMS), executives were expected to show at the weekly business plan review (BPR) to deliver updates on their progress toward the company plan.
In these meetings, there would be no judgment over any executive’s report; the charts, tables, graphs, and updates in the PowerPoint slides simply showed the business reality, so appropriate actions could be taken. “The data sets you free,” Alan told them.1
In his 2012 book American Icon, Bryce Hoffman captured (very accurately, I might add) the reason that Ford needed to rely on honest facts and data:
“We are the decision makers,” Mulally said. “We need to make decisions and not pass the buck.”
One of the founding principles of the WTLMS is that decisions will be driven by facts and data, because you can’t manage a secret.
Think about it: if you misconstrue numbers, whether they’re sales figures, error rates in quality control, or the number of hires, the truth will eventually come out — the revenue won’t be there, products will fail in consumers’ hands, and productivity and costs will be skewed.
Trying to keep secrets by hiding data is a short-term game that results in longer-term accountability in the public’s perception.
Honest Numbers
“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”
— Abraham Lincoln, 1858
Simply put, if you don’t have accurate data, it becomes increasingly difficult to make informed decisions.
By creating expectations through a deliberate culture and a repeatable process, tied to accountability, we hold ourselves and those in power to higher standards that will result in better performance.
If you want to lead well, you need to be honest with your people.
And it starts with being honest with yourself.
I work with executives and their teams at small to mid-size companies to help identify and alleviate where their teams are stuck, whether it’s a lack of vision and plan, not being transparent with data, teams operating in silos, no cohesive culture, a lack of a scalable leadership system, and other blockades to growth and success.
Let’s identify your #1 leadership bottleneck with a 30-minute Executive Clarity call where I can help you chart a course for a better performing team.
“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.” — Hannah Arendt, 1973
Hannah Arendt spoke out against authoritarians and recognized the power of propaganda. Its ironic then, that false quotes are being attributed to her online. (The Hannah Arendt Center for Policies and Humanities, Bard College)
Why should truth matter to leaders? Again and again, we see examples of the market rewarding those who play fast and loose with the facts. Until it doesn’t. Honesty will give you the results you desire, through one simple formula. (Timeless & Timely)
“Americans so dearly love to be fooled.” —Charles Baudelaire
During those early days of social media, it was a smaller, tightly-knit community that prized transparency. The way we embraced it at Ford flowed from the BPR process, right down to our social media strategy. Ron Ploof wrote up a case study about how we handled a crisis within a Ford enthusiast forum, with transparency making a huge difference: The Ranger Station Fire: How Ford Motor Company Used Social Media to Extinguish a PR Fire in Less Than 24 Hours.
The firing of the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics director isn’t just political—it’s economically catastrophic. Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz lays out, in clear terms, how undermining data integrity erodes market trust, inflates borrowing costs, and ultimately weakens the U.S. dollar: “it’s like driving a car with no odometer” (MSNBC)
We have an entire section on Truth you can browse through. While you’re at it, you can also look at the dozens of other topics we cover as well. They include things like Empathy, Artificial Intelligence, Trust, Integrity, Growth, Self-Awareness and much more.
American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce Hoffman is the most in-depth and accurate account of the extraordinary leadership and teamwork that helped Ford recover through the financial and auto meltdown. Having served there as an executive during most of that time, I can personally attest to the veracity of it and the genius behind the plan.
There’s so much to learn,
Yes, I’m aware that “data” is plural. This is the direct quote. But if you’re a word nerd like me, you might enjoy subscribing to Off the Clock, where I look at the idiosyncracies of the language. Check your Account Settings to verify that you’re signed up.
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