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Well, good morning or good afternoon wherever you’re located.

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Wanted to welcome you into this Digital Analytics Association Webinar Care and Feeding of Digital Analysts.

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Thank you for joining us.

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My name is Deanna Morrison.

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I’ll be your moderator for the presentation today.

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Before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items.

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In your Zoom control panel you will see AQ and A area and you are welcome to submit questions at any time during the presentation and they will be addressed at the end of the presentation and the order they were received.

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A link to today’s recording and an evaluation will be sent post webinar.

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So please take a moment to complete this evaluation as it helps DAA and planning future online events.

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Today we’re joined by our speaker, Jim Sterne.

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Jim focuses on creating and strengthening customer relationships through digital communications.

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He founded the Marketing Analytics Summit in 2002 and Co founded the Digital Analytics Association in 2004.

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His 12th online marketing book is Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence for Marketing Practical Applications.

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And he is now helping companies get more value from data and helping small and medium sized agencies achieve scale at speedwith2y3x.com.

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At this time, I’ll turn the presentation over to Jim.

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Thanks so much, Deanna.

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Thank you everybody for joining us.

1:30
And I’m, I’m delighted to be focusing a little bit more on the people side of things.

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I will start with a quick round of 10 quick hits and then open things up for discussion.

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The we know the three pillars are people processing technology.

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Now technology is changing so fast and right now what everybody’s worried about is we’re going to GA four, no wait, we’re losing our cookies.

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No, wait, we’re there’s always something new and a new API, a new data stream.

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It’s incredibly tough to keep up with.

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Process is going to be different for everybody.

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We try to come up with best practices.

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This is the best way to go about doing these sorts of things and that’s helpful.

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But every good analyst knows that a best practice is just a hypothesis for how it might work here.

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Here is different from there, so you’ve got to come up with your own.

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Today I want to focus on the people side of it.

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The first thing you think about with people is how well did they know their technology and how good are they at following process.

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So yeah, that’s that’s something that you get to worry about when you are recruiting and when you’re trying to see if there’s a a fit for culture, a fit for values.

2:49
But then there is the OK you are managing people, how do you care and feed them properly?

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So I’ve got 10 quick hits, top tips, suggestions, observations, call them what you might and they start with managing up.

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Now you’ve got people who are reporting to you, depending on you, looking to you for all of the answers.

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One of your most important jobs.

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This is why it’s up here as #1 is to protect them from management. And this is a balancing act.

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You’ve got a lot of stuff on your plates that you really don’t want to bother them with.

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They shouldn’t worry about it.

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As a manager, you know your job is is facilitating.

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Making sure that that the meetings happen on time, making sure that the paychecks go out properly, making sure that your people have what they need to do their job while protecting them from the annoying stuff. You’re there to run interference.

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A little while ago, DAA posted, “What was the most unexpected challenge you faced when you first moved from high performing individual contributor to people leaders?” And Val Kroll said,

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“I expected things like not being in all the details, which means I wasn’t going to be the go-to anymore for things like campaign management.

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But what I didn’t anticipate was how hard but important it is to protect my team from the craziness above me. And this is a pretty important message,” she says.

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Pretty important experience.

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I had such an excellent manager, I didn’t realize how much he protected me.

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But now I was participating in budget planning and the horse trade of Open FTE roll allocation, and it was so politically charged.

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At first I was sharing these new experiences with my direct reports, but quickly realized that that was unnecessary stress for them.

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Instead of dragging the team along on my daily roller coasters, I gave them the same protection my manager gave me so they could focus on their work.

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This is hard ’cause I’m an open book, but there’s a notable difference in the vibe of our team meetings and that felt really good.

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So yes, it’s important to be transparent, but it’s also important to protect them from stuff that they just don’t need to know.

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And then Rusty Raymer said Selling the team I think is a high performing individual contributor on teams.

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I took for granted that someone was constantly selling the value, impact, and vision of the team.

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When I took my first leadership assignment, I quickly learned that those who put a concise story together about services, value, and impact.

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Their team were getting the resources, they were getting the money.

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They were getting the support for the things they needed to unlock even greater value and impact.

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So learning the art behind selling your team and the work they do was a big, unexpected, but critically important Learning.

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This is your job to explain to everybody what analytics is, what the value is, and why they should.

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Why those people, those decision makers, should listen to your team.

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And there’s a lot of reasons that they won’t.

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So you got to continue to sell.

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They might just think they’re bad at math, because we all learn math badly from bad teachers in a bad way.

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We were told that math is a formula that you have to memorize and get right.

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And it’s not.

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It’s an art.

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It’s it’s beautiful.

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But we didn’t have good teachers, so we didn’t know that.

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Or they don’t trust the data.

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I mean your data says that I’m not doing a good job, so your data must be wrong or my data is better or we’re not calling it the same thing or you’re using terminology I don’t understand.

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And of course there’s the age-old I’m I’m higher in the ranking than you are and I got here because I’m smart.

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So trust me when I have an opinion rather than your data and we get to deal with all of these.

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But as a manager, your job is to do that work first.

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Get out in front of that so that it’s not your team members who are presenting results, who are faced with these horrible opinions and reactions and and emotions.

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Instead, you’ve plowed the field in advance.

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OK, so managing up is is about explaining to the consumers of the analysis that your team creates that it is not that the results of the the analysis are not a report card.

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They’re not a an opinion.

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They’re not a a a judgement. You’re there to help them.

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It’s not criticism and that’s really hard to understand.

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Walk into my office with a spreadsheet and a chart and like this is oh you you are expressing to me that my I’m not doing a good job, and it really puts me off.

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So the manager has to explain this in advance.

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The manager has to to get the team and the consumers of the analysis to work together.

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We often tell our analysts to ask the why questions, You know, the the five whys.

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I need this number.

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Why do you need that number?

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And it turns out that’s also accusatory.

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So we want to turn that around.

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And instead, well, what is it about this number that’s important to you?

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What do you think the range of numbers should be?

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What do you think would be a bad result?

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What what does success look like?

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And that will be helpful to them.

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So manage up so you protect your team. #2, I’m not sure who it was that said

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(and then you know you do the search and it’s credited to many people):

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“If you’re the smartest one in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

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You want your whole team to be wicked smarter than you.

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You’re managing.

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They’re focusing on pulling data, analyzing the data, creating the data, visualizations, and and get the smartest people you can to do those things.

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You should not be the smartest person in the room for all that.

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You should be worrying about the meetings and staff assignments and clips and making sure that that all of the administrative via is working according to plan.

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That’s your job.

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And if you hate that stuff, maybe you should go back and to be the analyst again instead of the manager, ’cause that is the job.

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And it takes people with different skill sets, It takes a village.

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I mean, it’s the the tech capability of understanding where the data is wrong, being able to build the pipeline, being able to do the analysis to use all the tools and they should be doing what they’re best at.

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While you’re doing the management, don’t, don’t be the one you’re you’re not being put in a management position because you’re so good at the technology.

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You’re in a management position ’cause you’re good at people. #3 Get out of their way.

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This is, yeah, tell them what you want and not how.

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Present them with problems to solve, not tasks to do.

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Get them aligned with what upper management is trying to accomplish and then give them the freedom to execute.

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And so I’ve interviewed a lot of people for my Marketing Analytics Live online show and one question I love to ask is is do you have any advice for all of your former managers and micromanagement was #1 get away from my desk, tell me what you need and then let me do it.

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Don’t lean over my shoulder and push the buttons and and let them do their own research.

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Encourage them to figure out how to get it done because then they’ll go find new ways that you might have not thought of and they will impress you with the results if you get out of their way.

11:07
Rusty Raymer again for that question.

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What surprised you?

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He said letting go of the work.

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As a high performing individual, I remember being so insane about the quality of my work and being a reflection of my ability.

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But now I have the opportunity to scale my skills and have so much more influence and impact on the organization.

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But I had to let go of the work.

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I had to let the people who report to me do their work instead of me micromanaging number 40.

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You’ve got introverts and extroverts.

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You’ve got the lone wolf coder or modeler or person that says yeah, give me 3 days and don’t call me and I’ll have the answer for you.

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You’ve got the teacher who wants to explain everything to everybody.

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You’ve got leaders who get people to coalesce around them.

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And and these are all different types and it’s not always the oh, the data visualization person is good at presentation.

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That’s not necessarily true.

12:08
The coder is always the the one who wants to be left alone.

12:13
Not always true.

12:14
So you’ve got different personality types and they have different skill sets.

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You get to juggle all of that together.

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Your job is to bring together the diversity along with the talent.

12:27
Now, diversity, Yes, we think in terms of gender and race.

12:32
We think in terms of, well, what we’re trying to do is get diversity of thought.

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How do you approach problems differently from each other?

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And this is based on hiring people who are different from you.

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You know, your your your approach to the world, your worldview, your perspective is based on what you watched on TV when you’re a kid, what games you played, what music you listen to, what food you ate, what your aunt and uncle taught you.

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And that is so unique, but it makes up you.

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And if you find people who are just like you, you’re all going to make the same decisions, that’s not helpful.

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You find people with completely different backgrounds, completely different situations.

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Growing up.

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They approach problems differently.

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Now you want to have people with the same values.

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You want to have the people who are there to help the organization in the same way, achieve the same goals.

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But you want the different perspectives.

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This, this diversity is critical and you’ll even want some who are neuro diverse people who you know somewhere on whichever spectrum you want to talk about.

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They might not have good social skills and you have to allow for that and in fact encourage that because they have different strengths.

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So bring in as diverse a group as you can.

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Yes, bring in talent, but bring in different people so you you can collaborate in a in a really powerful way with these different personalities.

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You’re going to work with each one to design a different career path.

14:13
It it starts with recruitment.

14:15
So you want to explain to people.

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First of all recruitment is something that you need to do continuously.

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There are so few analysts and and it’s so hard to find them these days and COVID did not make that easier.

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So constantly be open to and listening to and and constantly viewing people even though you don’t have an open position right now because somebody’s going to come along that’s just a magic fit with exactly the right experience you need and you have to have the flexibility.

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Yes, we’re we’re going to bring you on board and we’re going to call you this thing because you fit in this slot.

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But actually we’re going to do the things that you’re really good at and then you will grow a powerful team that way you’re going to recruit for interview for curiosity, personality, personal goals and and this is where the individual career paths comes into it.

15:18
It’s a it’s a big draw when you say we want you to join the company but first tell us where is it that you want to be in two, 5-7 years because if you join this company, I’m going to help you achieve that.

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My goal is to help you achieve your goals and you’re going to do that by helping the company achieve our goals and that’s a big draw.

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I want to join that company.

15:45
We’re going to provide continuous learning.

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We’re going to provide, you know, if do you want to go into management, do you want to go into technology?

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Do you just have an overwhelming amount of curiosity?

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We want you on board.

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And we’re going to make sure that you stay engaged and you will continue to learn.

16:05
You know what?

16:06
What is it that you love?

16:07
What do you hate?

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What do you want to accomplish?

16:09
And that’s not a ask them.

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And then you’re done.

16:11
That’s like every three to six months, ask them again.

16:15
Well, I said I wanted to learn sequel, but now I want to learn R Oh, OK Let’s make sure that we give you tasks that will help you do that.

16:24
And we want to rotate people between tasks.

16:28
This is, this is a lesson from David Ree, who when he was at Adidas, he would move his people once a year.

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This one was in charge of social media metrics, put them over an e-mail analysis, take the e-mail person and put them over in search.

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And after a while your team becomes a lot more cohesive because they understand each other’s jobs.

16:51
They’re fascinating because they continue to learn and they become better collaborators.

16:58
And then somebody comes to you and says, well, I’ve learned what I can here.

17:02
I’m leaving the company and David Reed’s response was, hey, that’s great, keep in touch.

17:08
I want, you know, quarterly check insurance to see what how you’re doing out there, what you’re learning, because in two or three years I’m going to hire you back because you will have learned everything there and we’ll be a different company by then.

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And this is the Longview.

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You know, it’s the long game and it’s brilliant.

17:24
And it’s a way to keep everybody engaged and get them to understand that you are trying to help them achieve their goals.

17:30
Really on the rotation statement, a side note, rotate in consultants.

17:41
Consultants bring a completely outside perspective.

17:44
They have lots of experience gained from working with lots of different clients and they can help a lot.

17:50
But don’t hire a consultant and then keep them around as if they’re an employee.

17:55
Keep them around for as long as they continue to contribute.

17:58
One, maybe two years, two years, tops.

18:01
And then rotate out a different consultant to to bring in somebody with fresh, new ideas.

18:09
Continuous learning matters.

18:11
Make sure that you’re giving people access to conferences and education and measure Slack and the Digital Analytics Association so that they can constantly learn and give them time for Deep Work.

18:29
Deep Work is a book that describes the idea of getting out of the daily grind, the hamster wheel, and having time separate to work on a project that they really want to work on or finish a big job that they really need focus time instead of, well, you know, we’ve got three meetings a day.

18:49
Surely there’s enough time during the rest of the day to do your work.

18:52
That’s not the issue.

18:53
The issue is I need 5 hours of uninterrupted time.

18:57
So give time for it, for that deep work.

19:02
Let’s see.

19:03
Oh yeah, promote your leaders.

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So the people who attract other people, the people who are the ones that others listen to in the meetings and agree with, those are your natural leaders.

19:17
Groom them, promote them, Teach them how to take your place.

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Give them, give them tasks that are your tasks, that to see how well they do and how well they like it and if they really like it, you are grooming them to take over your job.

19:38
And that’s another way to keep people engaged and to promote leaders.

19:42
Now there’s also people who are not leaders, but they achieve.

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They’re really good at what they do.

19:49
So we want to reward them not with change in position or or tasks, but in other ways.

19:55
Give them some sort of perks, give them a more money, but above all, give them recognition.

20:01
That’s that’s what we all want.

20:02
We want to be recognized for our contribution and then replace the cheaters.

20:09
These are people who don’t quite fit in the organization.

20:12
They might be smart.

20:13
They might be capable.

20:14
But somehow their values aren’t the same.

20:17
They they don’t do what everybody else in the company does.

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They don’t participate.

20:24
They could be do, they could do really well at some other company.

20:28
But here they’re just kind of not helping as much as they could.

20:32
They’re they cause friction.

20:34
They are people don’t want to hang out with them because they just they don’t they don’t fit.

20:38
So let’s replace those right away.

20:40
There.

20:40
They are cheating themselves.

20:44
They are cheating you.

20:45
They are cheating the company, and they could do very well somewhere else.

20:49
So.

20:49
So let’s go ahead and identify who the A players are and make sure that they get recognized and rewarded.

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And the B players, let’s teach them everything we can to C players.

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Let’s encourage them to move on.

21:07
Culture.

21:08
Yeah.

21:14
Culture in a company is how we do things, and that’s not the process manual.

21:21
It’s how we treat each other.

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It’s how we express respect.

21:25
It is showing up on time for meetings.

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It is delivering projects when they’re when they’re asked for.

21:33
It is being transparent about not being able to accomplish things.

21:37
It’s about saying I didn’t scope this out properly and I need another two weeks or I’m gonna need another two people.

21:45
And make sure that the communication stays abundant without being, without oversharing, right?

21:52
Without being too transparent, when people consistently miss deadlines, make snide remarks about others, engage in e-mail fights and flame wars, that’s not the culture.

22:11
And in the well, the problem is, if those things are tolerated, then it is the culture That is how people act.

22:21
And it’s, you know, usually said that that an organization reflects top management if the senior person in the building or in the company or on the team is happy to stiff the waiter at lunch with a tip or is happy parking in a no park zone because hey, I’m yeah, I do this all the time.

22:45
And if I pay a $25 ticket once a year, who cares if that is tolerated, then it’s normalized if if it becomes a toxic workplace.

22:58
So culture is what is tolerated.

23:01
You understand what values you care about being honest delivering on time not tolerating people who are not fitting in the culture.

23:12
So make sure that you know the the people like us do things like this that’s the the Seth Godin people like us at this company we treat each other with respect.

23:25
We watch our deadlines, we deliver.

23:32
And and transparency, yeah, that’s it’s tricky.

23:34
You don’t want to over share as we said before.

23:37
But if you’re not transparent, the rumor mill abhors a vacuum.

23:43
So if you’re not transparent, people will make stuff up.

23:46
This is how conspiracy theories happen.

23:49
If I don’t understand why it’s happening, I will make something up and I’ll tell my friend who then thinks that it’s actually what happened and then suddenly it spins out of control.

23:58
So transparency is important for you to control the narrative rather than letting the rumor mill take it over.

24:08
Yeah, you did a great job on that, on that project.

24:13
And I’d like to talk to you more about that offline.

24:15
When we’re done with this meeting, now that we’re offline, here’s a couple of things that you really should improve.

24:22
You know, we, we can’t do it this way and this way.

24:24
This has to happen better.

24:25
OK.

24:26
Thank you.

24:27
And if you really, really want to praise somebody, you find a way for them to overhear you saying nice things about them to somebody else.

24:37
You wouldn’t believe what a great job that guy did on that last task.

24:40
It was terrific.

24:41
That’s just that’ll that’ll make a heart sing.

24:45
But criticizing people in front of the rest of the group is only useful and valuable when it’s about values.

24:54
It’s like you know, this is the 4th time that you’ve been laid on a project.

25:02
So please go do some research and figure out why you’re having trouble scoping your projects and coming up with with delivery dates that you’re unable to meet.

25:13
And come back to the rest of the group and tell us what you learned so that we can take advantage of your education.

25:19
So sometimes you do have to criticize in public, but be very careful about it.

25:24
But mostly we want to get the team to understand that when they do something great, that’s their success.

25:31
And when the team misses a deadline or fails at something, that’s the manager’s fault.

25:38
So the the successes are yours.

25:40
The faults are mine.

25:41
And that will give people confidence and it’ll give them permission to experiment and and be a little more risk tolerant in finding new ways to solve problems.

25:54
Because if it doesn’t work, well, you know, I I I’m not gonna get slapped silly in front of everybody and when the big boss comes down my manager will protect me.

26:04
So it’s a it’s a important to make sure that people understand that you’re there, that you’re their manager, not your boss.

26:15
Right.

26:16
You’re you’re not there to tell them what to do.

26:19
You’re there to help them do it in all the ways that there are, Yeah, Find out how they feel.

26:30
Find out what they think.

26:32
Find out if they feel you’re doing a good job.

26:36
And sometimes this might mean doing it anonymously.

26:42
You might need to go to a third party and say, would you please have 15 minute conversations with each of my team members?

26:52
Let them know it’s absolutely anonymous, take notes and then let me see.

26:58
So if I’m in a room or a zoom meeting with a bunch of people and the boss is there and says, OK, feedback, how am I doing?

27:09
You’re doing great, boss.

27:10
Yeah, everything’s fine.

27:14
And if a anonymous survey goes out, I know that I’m managing a bunch of analysts, They’re going to be able to tell.

27:22
I mean, if you’ve got 7 people on your team, their writing styles are different, I’m going to be able to tell.

27:28
Even if it’s, you know, with not handwriting, I just mean the words that they use, I’ll be able to tell who it is.

27:33
So get a third party to do the interviews and get them to write up the notes and get them to make them bullet points rather than direct quotes.

27:43
And then critically important turn around in the next team meeting and say here are the results of the anonymous survey that we did.

27:55
You have all said that my behavior is need some help in these areas.

28:03
Thank you for that feedback and here’s what I intend to do about it.

28:08
I’m going to change my behavior this way.

28:10
I’m going to change this process.

28:12
I want to implement some new rules here, and I would like you to go back to the person who did the survey and tell them how you think that response is and if you have any other ideas for me.

28:27
So they know it’s a closed loop, they know you heard them, they know you’re going to take action, but they also can go back to that third party and say that third thing he said.

28:38
That’s just a joke.

28:39
That’s a waste of time.

28:40
He should be doing this, this and this.

28:42
And then the next meeting it’s like I got that feedback and here’s what I’m going to do instead and and thank you all so much.

28:50
Solicit feedback, make sure it’s anonymous and make absolutely sure that they know they were heard and that you do change your behavior.

29:00
#10 This was from a podcast I heard at the beginning of of COVID Lockdowns.

29:11
The podcast is staying alive in technology.

29:14
It’s Melinda Byerly interviewing a wide variety of people, including Peter Drucker, who said the most important thing to do right now, in this critical time where people are really struggling, is to work on your eulogy rather than on your resume.

29:31
And what he meant was that at a funeral, nobody stands up and says, well, he was on time and on budget.

29:41
He he built his company.

29:43
He doubled the size of his company in 16 months.

29:47
He won the most important player of the company award and, you know, got the parking spot.

29:56
People don’t say that.

29:58
What they talk about is how well that person treated others.

30:04
So big management tip is to work on how you treat people rather than the goals that you’re trying to achieve.

30:15
Focus on output is going to get you nowhere.

30:20
That’s going to just turn the crank.

30:22
You want to focus on outcomes.

30:23
You want to help your people understand the impact that they’ve had.

30:27
You want them to understand that they’re important part of the team.

30:30
You want them to understand that you value the work that they’re doing.

30:34
So the the working on your eulogy is about getting people to see you working as hard as you can to help them.

30:47
OK, some some quick resources and yes, the the we’ll figure out a way.

30:55
Deanna, I’m hope you’re going to figure out a way for this PowerPoint to be made available so that you’re not trying to shake screenshots or whatever.

31:03
Competency framework, Job description, self-assessment, salary survey from the DAA are all going to help you be a better manager.

31:12
Competency framework is what tasks do we do as analysts and what skills and knowledge do we need to do them?

31:19
Job descriptions will help you recruit.

31:21
And remember those job descriptions are a best practice.

31:25
That means they’re a hypothesis.

31:26
They’re not necessarily cut and dried.

31:29
It’s just a starting point for you.

31:32
self-assessment will help you and your team understand where they are and what they might like to learn next.

31:38
And then the salary survey, now that stands for itself over on the left there, building analytics teams.

31:44
It’s not about digital analytics, but it is a terrific book about how unique we are as a team, as a group.

31:54
You know we we’re we’re not we’re not producers we’re not pushing the the products forward.

32:02
We’re not pushing sales forward.

32:04
We’re recommenders and so we’re a unique group and that and this is a terrific book to help with that.

32:13
Just a couple of of tweets that I just loved.

32:17
One is I’ve been managing people for 18, 1/2 plus years and tweeting about it for 10.

32:23
Here’s 100 tweets on what I’ve learned and try to implement in my work and it’s and it’s a thread of 100 tweets and it’s terrific.

32:31
It’s great stuff.

32:33
Excuse me.

32:33
And then there’s the better with data at sub stack on deep work for data teams.

32:38
What is deep work and how does that how does that help?

32:41
OK, those are the resources.

32:44
These are the 10 things and I thank you for sticking with me and wanna now open it up for questions.

32:52
Deanna, what?

32:53
What’s what’s in the chat for me?

32:55
Well, first let me say that was awesome.

32:59
Thank you a lot of really, really good information, everybody.

33:03
If you have questions, go ahead and put those in the Q&A box and we’ll start answering those.

33:09
I will make those resources available when I upload this presentation.

33:14
I’ll, I’ll go ahead and do a link for each of those resources that that you’ve given us as well.

33:20
Terrific.

33:21
The first question we have is could you repeat the five WS?

33:27
The the so five YS is a something that’s incredibly googleable.

33:35
It is a the concept of ask somebody why five times to get to the root cause.

33:41
But in fact that’s it’s counter because it it is aggressive.

33:49
Like why do you want to know that?

33:50
Why do you want to know that?

33:51
What are you going to do with that?

33:53
Instead, ask them why it’s important.

33:56
So what is important to you about this, whether it’s the trend or the the specific number or an analysis?

34:05
It is asking why, but it’s not aggressive, it’s it’s what’s, oh, tell me about how that’s important to you.

34:14
What other challenges are you facing, ’cause I can, I’ve got a lot of data and I could help in a lot of different ways.

34:20
What is it you’re trying to accomplish and how can I help you?

34:24
What do you think the range of answers should be?

34:28
If you know we’re below this, it’s a problem.

34:30
If we’re above that, it’s a problem.

34:32
What do you think the range should be?

34:35
And and what?

34:35
What does good look like?

34:37
What are you trying to accomplish?

34:38
How will you know you’ve been successful?

34:40
I always quote Tim Wilson on that one and you know when and when it finally boils down to.

34:48
And in fact, this is a great one for when you’re meeting new clients, internal or external, for the first time.

34:55
Tell me about your goals, and now tell me about your bonus structure.

35:01
Not how much you earn, but what numbers are going to help you earn your bonus.

35:07
And you’ll get their attention on that one.

35:09
If you can show me a report that tells me how to earn my bonus, you’re my best friend.

35:17
OK?

35:18
Another question is you recommend avoiding micromanagement.

35:22
How do you handle somebody who asks you to make all the decisions?

35:26
Oh, so, so first of all, recognize that those people are in training mode.

35:34
There’s there’s two reasons that they’re asking you to to do their think work for them.

35:39
Number one, they might just not know.

35:42
And so get them some training rather than jumping in and grabbing it and doing it yourself and say do this, do this, do this.

35:50
That’s not training.

35:51
Training is getting them to go find some education somewhere so they can learn how to do it.

35:56
But the other reason that somebody might do that is out of the insecurity of they don’t know how you want it done.

36:02
You weren’t they.

36:04
They’re trying to figure out your management style.

36:07
So the very best way to respond to somebody who comes to you 2-3 times a day with how do I do this and how do I do that is I don’t know.

36:16
What do you think?

36:19
I don’t know.

36:20
What do you think communicates?

36:22
This is your responsibility.

36:24
You have autonomy.

36:25
You know the territory better than I do.

36:27
You do it all day long.

36:29
I’m, you know, scheduling meetings with my boss’s boss.

36:34
Come back to me with with a couple of alternatives.

36:37
Now some people respond to oh great, you you just asked me to, you know, describe the universe and give 3 examples.

36:45
It’s like just come up with some alternatives and let me know which ones you think are better and why.

36:50
And after the third or fourth time you do that, they’re not going to come to you anymore.

36:55
They know that.

36:56
The answer is I don’t know what do you think?

36:58
And they will start to figure it out for themselves and they will suddenly be find themselves empowered.

37:06
That’s so true.

37:07
The best boss I ever had when I was early in my career said don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.

37:15
Exactly.

37:16
Yeah, my, my.

37:17
The way to get it that I got a hold of my boss was, Oh my God, we’ve got this horrible problem and I’ve got a couple of solutions.

37:24
Can you help me choose the best one?

37:25
And I I the door was immediately opened.

37:29
That’s great.

37:30
Somebody’s asking for employees who are looking to grow internally.

37:34
How should they vocalize this with their managers often?

37:41
So.

37:41
So two things about talking to managers.

37:44
I fell into this really early.

37:48
I’m here to do the job, and then they give me another task.

37:52
Oh, OK, I’ll do that.

37:53
And then they give me another task.

37:54
Oh, they trust me.

37:55
Oh, another task.

37:57
Oh, this is great.

37:57
I don’t want to disappoint them.

37:58
And another task.

37:59
Well, this is getting a little bit hot and heavy.

38:01
And another task, Well, I can do it over the weekend.

38:03
Another task.

38:03
Well, I can stay up late.

38:04
Another task, Well, I’ll cancel the date.

38:06
Without my girlfriend is not the way to live.

38:10
And why did they keep piling the stuff on?

38:12
Because I said sure, give me more.

38:16
They don’t know how hard it is for me.

38:18
They don’t know how much I’m giving up in my home life.

38:21
I have to stand up and say, well, we have to prioritize things ’cause I can’t get all this done.

38:27
Oh really?

38:28
Well, let’s look at it.

38:29
What are you able to do and what’s the cut off line?

38:32
And well, we’ll give these tasks to somebody else.

38:34
But if you never stand up for yourself and say, I have too much work, they’re just going to give you more work.

38:39
Because why wouldn’t they?

38:41
You can do it.

38:42
Do more.

38:43
Great, Thank you.

38:45
And oh, and you do have to ask for more money because no manager in the world is just going to pop up one day and say, oh hey, here’s some extra money that that that doesn’t happen.

38:53
So stand up for yourself.

38:55
But the biggie is identify to everybody who will listen what your goals are.

39:02
I want to be Chief Analytics Officer.

39:06
Well, we don’t have one of those here.

39:08
Well, not yet, but we will.

39:10
And and I think it it I I want to accomplish that in three years time.

39:16
He wants to do that in three years time.

39:18
Well, I probably won’t be working here by then.

39:20
So, OK, how do we go about creating a Chief Analytics Officer position that you can grow into?

39:27
Suddenly you’ve got them working for you.

39:29
So express what it is you would like to do, even if it’s I want to be CEO.

39:35
It’s like you can’t be CEO.

39:36
You have to do this and this and this and this and this if for if you’re going to be CEO.

39:40
So great.

39:40
Let’s start on the first one.

39:42
Oh, you’re serious.

39:44
OK, let’s go ahead and start on the first one.

39:48
Well, that’s a great segue into the next question.

39:52
So does it really make sense to groom somebody to take over my job?

39:56
I mean, what am I going to do when they get my job?

40:01
Hopefully you’ll have moved into your boss’s job or the the equivalent at some other company or you’ve created a new position for yourself, just like I’m I’m suggesting that people talk to you about what they want to become when they grow up.

40:16
You should be talking to your senior, your your, the senior people around you about what your goals are.

40:22
And it’s not a constant drum beat, it’s but it is.

40:26
You make known.

40:28
That you want to do more, not more work, but you want to have more responsibility or you want to have different responsibility.

40:36
And if you keep that in front of people, they will think of you when the time comes.

40:43
It’s it’s a matter of putting it out into the world.

40:46
If you don’t tell anybody what you want to become when you grow up, nobody has any reason or ability to help you.

40:54
But you identify what you want to accomplish.

40:58
And one of the pushbacks is, well, we need you to do the job you’re doing now.

41:03
It’s like, you know what?

41:04
Susan is ready.

41:05
She’s, she can do my job already today, So you can move me over.

41:10
And if they say no, it’s like, oh, you know what?

41:13
People are hiring on LinkedIn.

41:15
See ya, Susan.

41:17
You got my job.

41:21
Great.

41:22
What do you recommend when multiple senior executive executives give conflicting instructions or pile on too many demands?

41:32
Yeah, oh, that never happens.

41:36
So too many demands is the prioritization factor.

41:41
This is this I learned from being in the software industry for for 15 years.

41:47
Here are all the features all of our customers want and we’ve got a limited number of programmers.

41:52
So it was the whiteboard that had the priorities and they got moved around and there was the weekly meeting of we know what are the things that have to happen this week, What are the things we want to get done this month?

42:07
What are the things that are really important that if we get all that done, we’ll do next And what are the things that we just have to tell our customers they’re not going to happen.

42:14
We’re sorry, we don’t, we don’t have the resources and that is going to work in all areas of the company.

42:23
Here are the things that I have been given to do and and here you know, halfway down this list is my cut off point.

42:30
And if you guys all want to get together and take something from down here and put it up here, that’s fine.

42:36
I can tell you what it’ll take and you tell me what’s the most important to do, that’s your job upstairs.

42:43
You guys have to prioritize conflicting instructions.

42:49
That’s that’s a serious culture issue that requires you to go to the multiple people and and explain to them that they need to work out their differences.

43:02
Somebody says I need you to do this and you say, oh, but somebody else said to do that.

43:07
Now you’re in an argument with them.

43:09
Instead it is OK.

43:11
I’ll show my age the memo.

43:13
It’s the e-mail that goes to both of them and says here are two conflicting instructions.

43:18
Please respond back to me with the solution not my job.

43:25
To solve your problems you have to solve that together.

43:28
Now when I have an executive team that is aligned on company goals, that’s not going to happen.

43:35
So it that’s why I say it’s a cultural issue.

43:38
But yeah, you’re you’re the one that has to buck up and say, sorry, I have a conflict.

43:44
You need to work that out for me.

43:46
Not easy not comfortable, but necessary.

43:51
Great.

43:52
We’ve got a question.

43:53
In your opinion, how has the pandemic shifted employee leverage in the analytics field and if there’s a window open for employees to get more now, how long do you think that will last?

44:08
I I think the the window was always open.

44:15
I think we’ve had a shortage of analysts since the beginning of the industry, 20 years and the pandemic opened the window a little wider.

44:27
I don’t think it’s closing, you know, to figure out the kind of work that you would like to do and identify the title that you think is appropriate.

44:39
Don’t just say, oh, I’m a data scientist, because no, And in fact, if you want to know a lot more about what is a data scientist, but Ian Thomas and I did a webinar about this.

44:50
It’s in the DAA archives, The Road to Data Science.

44:55
But also, by all means, check out YouTube videos and tweets by Cassie Kozyrkov, who is oh I’m good chief decision scientist at Google.

45:09
She explains the difference between data science and statistics and analysis and data management very clearly.

45:18
And she’s funny, so recommend her.

45:21
Highly great.

45:25
That is all the questions that we currently have.

45:29
So on behalf of DAA, I’d like to thank everyone for their time and participation in today’s event.

45:35
Thank you so much, Jim.

45:36
Oh wait, I got one more on my call, got it in under the wire.

45:41
Excellent.

45:41
I know.

45:42
Are there any must have skills that you recommend digital analyst, analyst professionals start to learn that will set them up for success in three to five years?

45:56
Yes, that would be public speaking.

46:01
And by that I mean excellent presentation skills ’cause it doesn’t matter what technology you know, it’ll change over time.

46:13
If you learned everything there was to learn about Adobe Analytics 2 years ago, guess what?

46:19
It’s different today.

46:20
And so you have to relearn it.

46:21
Anyway the you know that’s technology.

46:27
There’s people process technology.

46:29
The the process side, keep your eyes open.

46:33
Keep keep reading those business books, keep understanding how to how to work with teams.

46:38
But being able to present ideas to a group is crucial.

46:43
Being able to present data insights to a group through presentation, style, storytelling, etcetera.

46:50
I mean we’ve we’ve, we’ve hopefully you have heard of Leah Pica and the training that she does, it’s central, it’s fundamental and it doesn’t matter if you stay in analytics or you move up into the executive suite.

47:07
Being able to present ideas to a group of people with visuals and understanding how to modulate your voice is really important for success.

47:22
Also, I wanted to give a couple little shameless plugs on what you mentioned.

47:28
DAA has access to Lea Pica’s storytelling boot camp and it’s on our under our education tab.

47:36
And also we about a year ago, some of some upper level executives came to us and said we have a gap and soft skills that analysts need to learn.

47:49
So we went through and filmed a series of 10 different there.

47:54
There are many webinars, they’re like 15 to 30 minutes and they’re on 10 different soft skills and that’s in our in our website so that you can go out and those are completely free to members and they’re fantastic.

48:09
So I highly recommend those as long as we’re as long as we’re plugging things.

48:15
I do want to make a mention of the analytics cohorts program that I’m running, which is a small group of people who meet twice a month for six months firing up a new one having successfully done three of them so far.

48:29
And I’m actually trying to fire up two different ones because I’ve got people around the world and we’re trying to meet time zone, trying to accommodate time zones.

48:38
So analyticscohorts.com, end of commercial.

48:43
That’s great.

48:44
Somebody’s asking me to provide the link to that storytelling boot camp.

48:48
I don’t have it right in front of me and it would take me a second to go grab it.

48:52
But if you go to DAAs website, under the education tab, there is a little button that says storytelling boot camp.

49:01
It’s super easy to find in there, just education tab, Storytelling boot camp.

49:05
If you click on it, it gives you all the information on that.

49:08
I apologize for not having that link available.

49:12
That is at this point now all the questions that we have.

49:16
So thank you everybody for attending.

49:19
Thank you so much, Jim.

49:20
This was really good content.

49:21
It’s nice to hear content that’s not just related to programs and stuff, but this is actually related to how we function together as teams and work together as people.

49:33
So this was refreshing and and very well needed look out in your web in your e-mail for the post webinar e-mail that I’ll send you that has a copy, a link to this presentation and the survey.

49:47
And this concludes today’s program.

49:49
So thank you everybody and have a great day.

49:52
Thanks everybody.