When someone on your team says, “There’s too much data. I don’t know where to start,” they’re not being difficult. They’re telling you something important.
Your program director has run successful programs for ten years on instinct and relationships. Now you’re handing her a dashboard. She’s terrified she’ll ask the wrong question, or worse, misinterpret it in front of her team. So, she avoids it entirely. This is the Overwhelm Response. And it’s a common resistance pattern I see in data culture work.
The leadership move isn’t more training. It’s fewer choices. Start with one decision. One metric. One meeting. Don’t ask her to master a dashboard, ask her: “Are more people completing your program this year than last?” That’s it. One number.
Build confidence before you build complexity. Data culture doesn't start with the right system. It starts with the right question.
This is the first pattern in our miniseries on 5 Resistance Patterns that Kill Data Culture by Candra Reeves. (See this introduction to the series.) Follow along each week for the remaining patterns:
Pattern 1: The Overwhelm Response
Pattern 2: Analysis Paralysis
Pattern 3: The ‘Doesn’t Apply to Me’ Response
Pattern 4: Silent Sabotage
Pattern 5: Champion Dependency
Let’s talk about YOUR data!
Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.
