Introduction
In the season finale of Resultant’s Data Driven Leadership, host Jess Carter reflects on the valuable insights gleaned from a lineup of stellar guests. She also shares lessons learned from her personal experience in the field over the past decade that can help everyone effectively tell data-driven stories that captivate their audiences.
Know Your Audience
Christopher Chin’s imperative that we need to understand every audience we speak to about three times better than we think we need to is one of Season Two’s biggest takeaways. Jess shares how early in her career, she didn’t understand the challenges of her team members who had kids until she became a parent herself and the positive responses she got when she changed her approach. Taking the time to understand your audience’s context and needs lets you zero in on how to tell your data-driven story to resonate with them.
Identify Your Story
Author Quiller-Couch’s directive to writers, “Murder your darlings,” is super relevant to telling data stories. Choosing a main character and not getting distracted by subplots keeps you from cramming too many minor points into one narrative, which only distracts and confuses your audience. Eliminate irrelevant information and focus on the core message you want to deliver, supporting the message with the most relevant, impactful data points.
Practice Empathy
Storytelling goes beyond numbers and graphs–it should connect with your audience on a very human level. Data represents real people and their experiences, and every organization has its unique challenges, goals, and values. Guest Hannah Anderson said of medical data, “Remember, the patient is human first.” By taking the time to get into the mindset of your audience and finding out what drives them and the outcomes they seek, you’ll know what matters to them. You’ll create a more profound impact and foster meaningful connections with your audience.
Jess shares more gold from Season Two and her own experience in this finale episode of the Data Driven Leadership podcast.
Check out the full episode here
