Transcript
[00:00:01] Show ID
The power of data is undeniable and unharnessed, it's nothing but chaos.
[00:00:06] Show ID
The amount of data, it was crazy. Can I trust it? You will waste money. Held together with duct tape. Doomed to failure.
[00:00:13] Jess Carter
This season we're solving problems in real-time to reveal the art of the possible, making data your ally, using it to lead with confidence and clarity, helping communities and people thrive. This is Data-Driven Leadership, a show by Resultant.
Hey, guys, welcome back. It's Jess. And on this episode, we invited Christopher Chin back. We had such an outpouring of support and enjoyment of the episode that he was on last year that we wanted to see if there was more he'd be willing to share with us, and he said yes. This episode is so enjoyable to me. There are ones that are more on the tech and data side and ones that emphasize more of the leadership side. This is definitely an episode that emphasizes more of the leadership components of being a data-driven leader.
[00:00:57] Jess Carter
And I just can't say enough. Listening to Chris, it's a lesson in and of itself. As he talks through examples of coaching exercises he's done, you will become a better data storyteller just by hearing the stories that he already tells and also how he tells them. He's just like a master class in this, and it's fun to listen to. A few things that really stood out to me in this episode. He does a great job emphasizing something that I've not heard someone else emphasize. I don't know if, like when you hear something and you're like, that's right. But I've never heard someone say it like that.
[00:01:29] Jess Carter
One of the things he talks about is when you're presenting data, making sure that you add that human element back in, that you talk about what is. So what does this probably mean for you? Or, hey, this is my data. Here's what I might be thinking about. That vulnerability and human element, adding it back in, not just making a presentation, all data-oriented, is what differentiates us from AI, is what he says. And I think he's absolutely right. I think that's extremely important and something I've watched people do well, but I've never actually heard someone articulate the, the exercise of doing that so well. The other thing that I really enjoyed is we had this conversation near the end of the episode about how do you measure if you're a good storyteller, if you told a good story or had a good presentation? And he took on the challenge of saying, I think you can, and here's what I think you can do. Here are the metrics.
[00:02:16] Jess Carter
Here's how you can get a sense for that. There can be a KPI for did I do a good job presenting? And I think it's so interesting to hear him talk through that. Chris is an incredible human and I hope you enjoy this episode. If you listen, you are going to hear why I would call Chris a superhero. Enjoy.
[00:00:02] Jess Carter: Welcome back to Data-Driven Leadership. I'm your host, Jess Carter. Today we have Christopher Chin, leadership communication coach for data and tech for his own company, The Hidden Speaker, coming in as a second-time guest. I'm so excited to have Chris back with us. Welcome, Chris.
[00:00:18] Christopher Chin: Thank you so much, Jess.
[00:00:19] Jess Carter: Yeah, absolutely. So, last time we chatted, one of the reasons I wanted to ask you to come back is people loved our episode. They really connected with the kind of content that you shared and what we mostly started to talk about, data storytelling. I think I remember one of my favorite quotes that you shared was people pay to come to a concert when they get the music for free. And it's because there's this concept about how to present data that is an art. And so I'm just so glad that people seem to enjoy that and want to come back for more.
[00:00:49] Christopher Chin: That makes me so happy. So, thank you for sharing that.
[00:00:51] Jess Carter: When we talked last, had you just started creating your own company, is that right?
[00:00:55] Christopher Chin: I think when we connected, I was about six, half a year in.
[00:00:59] Jess Carter: Okay. And so, where has it gone since then? It's been about maybe ten months or so.
[00:01:03] Christopher Chin: I've been really grateful for the community that's built around what I talk about, which is data communication, presentation, and storytelling. I've launched an online course, I believe, since. I've had four cohorts since I'm currently running the fourth one, I do private coaching for data tech professionals who want to really get confident at speaking. And I do a lot more corporate training now, so it's a dream come true for me.
[00:01:26] Jess Carter: That's a lot. So people can sign up for like a cohort and be part of a program with you. And then there's also full corporate training where you'll come in with a company and do that.
[00:01:34] Christopher Chin: Right.
[00:01:35] Jess Carter: That's awesome. What surprised you about how people have clung to the things that you're putting out there? Is there anything that shocked you about it?
[00:01:42] Christopher Chin: I think what shocked me was when I started this journey about a year ago, I was concerned that people wouldn't take to this topic because it's a lot of technically-minded folks who like coding in SQL, remaining out of the focus of a presentation or at work. And I thought that a lot of people wouldn't be interested in learning about communication. But I found in at least the past year or two that there's been more and more of a push to learn these skills, especially since AI came out. Now, all these tasks we normally did by hand can be automated. So communication, human–to–human communication, becomes even more important in the face of that.
[00:02:19] Jess Carter: Yeah, absolutely. And I think to your point, there's also this history of how tech works like methodologies, and I think there was all this pressure on a PM and waterfall to translate the technical to the business leaders and back and forth, and then you had this eruption in the early two thousands of like product owner, and they did it, too. But the concept that a technical person who is good at communicating effectively with leaders is always going to be seen as an unbelievable asset, in my opinion, because even if they're not the person doing the communication, they're the first person giving someone the right story. And so if they're better at that, it's going to go better, Right?
[00:02:58] Christopher Chin: Exactly. I was speaking with a hiring manager recently, and they told me they're not necessarily looking for people who check off all the boxes for technical skills. They're really now looking more for people who have the soft skill foundation, because technical skills, generally speaking, are more easily learnable and coachable. With soft skills, the personality you come in with, how eager you are to learn new things, how well you communicate, it's a little harder to train those things.
[00:03:22] Jess Carter: Yeah. When you're coaching someone. One of the things I am curious about is, you are technical, right? You've built a bunch of things, dashboards, and you're very detail oriented in your mind, even though you have this super cool background. We talked about the first episode, right? Do you ever see technical skills as a barrier? Like, hey, you have to have those first, and then we can talk about how to present. Do you see that ever? Or is it not so much an issue?
[00:03:47] Christopher Chin: I think technical skills are essential because I have a case of the opposite happening. I worked with a client who came in with just a good soft skills foundation, no real technical skills, and that was an obstacle to their career because they were not sure how to do data storytelling well, how to present numbers. And what happened in early versions of their presentations when I was working with them, they would say, okay, I got to insert numbers somewhere, so let me just cluster them all in this part in the middle and list a bunch of statistics and then talk about the overarching story. And I talked to her how numbers can be an integral part of the storytelling instead of just one clump here just for the sake of doing it. And there is an art and science to it. So technical skills and soft skills can complement each other if we know how to make them play nice with each other.
[00:04:35] Jess Carter: I love that, you know, even just the context of how technology works. For ten years I've hired some people into our technology consulting firm, and it is true, we've kind of joked that we can always train more technical skills into somebody. It is harder to do what you do all day, which is, how do you teach people how to actually communicate with those soft skills, emotional intelligence, read the room, et cetera, right? I had somebody the other day who was working on a presentation, and they kind of said, hey, there's not much data in here. And then they went and they grabbed a Pew research article and found some data and dropped it in. And there was this conversation that was really interesting. That was like, is that good? And I just enjoyed the conversation because I said, there's data that's there and researched for a reason.
[00:05:18] Jess Carter: But you can go find data that tells the story you want it to tell most of the time these days. So the important thing there ethically, to me, is that it's the right data to share that's true and accurate and contextually appropriate. Does that make sense?
[00:05:33] Christopher Chin: That does. And I have a similar story when I was working in the Department of Transportation, and my role was as a data journalist to find stories to tell people about related to transportation data. And what I found in data storytelling is you don't often have all the data you need on hand to create a good story to begin with. You need to go find it to pull the pieces together, find the root cause. Why are things a certain way? What action should we take based on it? And I was trying to tell a story around modes of transportation, how people use cars, buses, etcetera. And I wasn't finding something compelling about it. And my boss said, find the human element in all of that. Try and tie it back to people at the end of the day.
[00:06:13] Christopher Chin: And I said, okay, that's a good thought. So maybe instead of modes of transportation, which is a very technical thing, maybe I can talk about how kids get to school, which everybody can relate to an extent. And I found this interesting story where for pre-high school students, so let's say kids from nine to 14, there are people who take the bus to go to school, some people who get driven by their parents, school bus, private cars. For lower income families, not everybody has private vehicles. So a lot of kids take the bus. I think I found for 99% of more high-income families, all of them got driven to school. And the question that became really interesting to me, that really formed the story was, well, what happens to the low-income families who do have a private vehicle? Do their kids get driven to school, or do they take the bus? And I found they actually take the bus more often.
[00:07:00] Christopher Chin: Vehicle ownership does not necessarily mean vehicle availability. So perhaps the parents had to use the car to do other things. They couldn't drive their kid to school. So in that sense, the school bus in that story became, this is a really core part of how kids get to school.
[00:07:12] Jess Carter: I just think that's the coolest story. I heard something else aligned to this sort of human-centric point that you're making, which is if we're ever giving a presentation about anything, my goal is to tie it back to the mission of the organization. There's a reason we're talking about it, and if it's not tied to the mission, I would question why we're talking about it, right? And it's just so much easier if you actually have your end user in mind, whether it's a customer, a client, somebody receiving services, somebody who needs to take a bus. To me, what's really important is that we aren't just lost in the data, talking about percentages of people who take which kind of transportation or data around the profiles of those people, but first and foremost, is everybody getting to school? And how are they doing that effectively or not? And what are the problems associated with that? Does one way or the other limit learning abilities or access to education? And so it's just so interesting to me that you can do that presentation with all of this great data and it won't land because you didn't tie it to the human-centric point or the mission of the enterprise you're around versus, I've worked in public sector most of my consulting career, and we watch somebody just do a unbelievable job talking through receiving benefits in like, the Medicaid community. Instead of focusing on eligibility and access to a brick–and–mortar building, we can go ask questions and get your application filled out.
[00:08:31] Jess Carter: They started with this story about how that person had to go find a bus stop and get on a bus and get to the facility and figure out where that was in the first place, when they didn't have Internet access. So the first day to go to the library and they just kind of walked through you realizing all the hurdles someone had to overcome just to hopefully get an application to get some of the aid that they need in our society. And that presentation would have been completely different if they would have just started with a bunch of data and assumed that everybody already knew that. Because often the people in the room making these decisions don't understand what their end user is going through or really how impactful some of these decisions are. It was one of those beautiful stories that yours reminded me of how to connect people back to the main point anyway, right?
[00:09:16] Christopher Chin: I love that. And that was a very compelling story, because I feel what happens for us as technical professionals, we get often lost in the abstractions of it all, the numbers and everything. But it's so important to remember those numbers, at the end of the day do impact people in some way, and it's just about finding it. I was working with another client, a product manager, and she was trying to put together a presentation around a new app she wanted to build, similar to Gmail. And her initial version of the presentation had all these technical features. Oh, it does this and this. And I said, what if we restructured this? So at the very beginning, in a similar way to what you expressed, we had a story about someone who was using the previous version of this app, was really frustrated. Maybe they're a single dad, they're trying to take care of all their kids.
[00:09:58] Christopher Chin: The app is not loading. They're not getting what they need from it. It's a lot of waste of time and frustration. Now we have this new product that can check off all those boxes and solve that so he lives a happier life. So it's about connecting it to the humanity of it at the end of the day.
[00:10:11] Jess Carter: Do you ever watch the show Shark Tank?
[00:10:13] Christopher Chin: I have, yes.
[00:10:14] Jess Carter: I feel like that actually is a good show to watch, to understand how to do. Like, that's very pitch-oriented, but the concept of how to be concise, clear, but make a statement that really resonates with people. I feel like I watched that a few years ago, and it was like, actually a little mini-lesson for me.
[00:10:30] Christopher Chin: Yeah, I love that show. I used to binge watch it a lot as a kid, even. And I was actually working with a founder recently who wanted to pitch their product. And they initially, similar to the story I shared before, they listed a lot of features that they did because they were very technically minded. And I said, what if we focused more on the benefits? What if we focused more on the change you could create for someone's life? So before, this is what happened after because of your product, this is how they can benefit from it. And they said, ever since they used that kind of framework, they got so much higher response from their audiences because now it felt like a story.
[00:11:07] Jess Carter: That's amazing. Okay, so I want to ask you, I don't know that there's ever going to be a real clear answer to this question, but I'm curious what you think about this. So, so much of what we just talked about in three or four examples is about helping people get out of the weeds and remember the big picture, the real need for their product, the ultimate goal of something, how it impacts end users. Like the big picture, we're trying to help people get back to the big picture. Why do you think that's so hard?
[00:11:34] Christopher Chin: I think we're trained to think in a very certain way, especially as data science-minded people, to be very detail oriented, to make sure we do every step correctly, to be very objective in that process as well. So to say, okay, I'm going to show all this data, let it speak for itself. I'm not going to say anything about it. Let people decide. And it's that kind of scientific method way of working where we don't want to add any subjectivity at all, that can sometimes affect the way we communicate. I believe we should absolutely use that scientific method to find our results, because in that process, we're just dealing with numbers and computers and one-dimensional things. But when we're communicating about it, we're communicating to people, these three-dimensional people that need not just the facts, but why those facts matter, what they should do about it. You need to add in, what do you think about it? And then give people that perspective.
[00:12:26] Christopher Chin: You don't have to force them to do it, but you're giving your thoughts and then saying, hey, these are some disclaimers to also keep in mind, but this is what I recommend to you. So I think we're often trained to remove that subjectivity entirely, but it's important in communication to add that back in a little, ethically.
[00:12:42] Jess Carter: I love that, because I would also tell you, I think a lot of times when you've presented findings or data science outcomes to a client, there is a struggle sometimes when it comes to data literacy, of we don't want to lead all the way to the outcomes and tell you what to do with all this information. But we've also seen clients’ eyes glaze over and not quite know what to do. And so the perfect little bridge of, hey, knowing what I know about your organization, when I see this data, here are some of the things it makes me wonder about. And it demonstrates how we engage with some of the data that we're seeing and how one might, without also being careful to prescribe that when we don't know everything that we should to make those. That's why they're in charge and we're giving them the data. I've noticed that that is very helpful to empower C-level leaders when we're giving them the results of our work, to say, hey, here's some things we would wonder about, and then we can start this conversation with them about, well, is that right or wrong? And what do you know about these areas? And they jump back in and you watch them go from leaning out to really leaning in to understand how to engage with data and how to think about making decisions. And I've watched that go the other way, too, where if we don't do that, the room gets quiet and it's like, well, we just maybe paid a lot of money for this big thing and we're not quite sure what to do with it now. And that is a miss for us.
[00:13:59] Jess Carter: We want meaningful outcomes with our work. We don't just want to write you a report and get a check, right? And so I love that concept of how do you add the subjective back in appropriately? How do you invite the human element of the conversation? Because I think that is often so easily missed and it's painful to watch when it is missed.
[00:14:19] Christopher Chin: Absolutely. I think this is where we differentiate ourselves from AI, because AI can do all that analysis, give everything and let it speak for itself. But people hire us for our human expertise and for our human conversations, especially in executive meetings. It's not just us telling them what we think, but they're going to ask a lot of questions. There's going to be a dialogue there, so we shouldn't be afraid of, okay, if I say this, then they're going to think a certain way and doubt and feel forced to take it. But they're going to ask questions, push back, and we will have a conversation to explain our point of view.
[00:14:51] Jess Carter: Yeah, I wonder, when I look back at points in history, in human history and in Greece, when all the philosophers were hanging around, I wonder if they needed help the opposite way. Instead of being lofty and connecting to the main point, did they need help breaking things down and actually doing something with their day? Sometimes I do think the noise in our society is loud. And that is, to me, that might be one of the reasons why this is so hard, is there's so many things to do all day, every day. There's all of this data. It's very rare to talk to someone who doesn't have enough data anymore. It's more like we're talking to people who don't know what to do with all the data they have. Is that your experience, like when you're coaching people? Is that true?
[00:15:28] Christopher Chin: Yeah, it has absolutely been. And I think, to your point that this is such a noisy world we live in, I think our role is not so much to gather the data and analyze it, but to make it simpler for people. To really call out, what is the most important thing to pay attention to here? Because when I work with a lot of technical professionals, they want to talk about everything because they found everything. They want to show their work and say, hey, I did this. But the best thing we can do for our audience is to make it simpler for them so they don't have to wonder what the point was. We just make that clear.
[00:15:59] Jess Carter: I'm imagining that there are probably so many times you've coached people where you're helping them understand they don't have one presentation or one pitch they're talking about. They've got, like, four. And it's like, hang on, hang on. This is the one thing you're trying to get across. Okay. I've been a victim of that, too. Where it's like, when your early career, or even just wherever you are in your career, when you finally have access to leadership and decision making, a lot of people can take that opportunity and try and just overwhelm them with everything they think or feel. Well, I finally have a audience.
[00:16:29] Jess Carter: Let me go nuts on everything. I'll leave everything on the table, and it's like, well, hang on. That's actually the worst thing you can do. The founder of our company, I remember he watched me present to our clients my first year of working here. And these are clients we've had for three years. They're high trust. We've got a great relationship with them. So he came with me, and I presented, and I was so nervous.
[00:16:50] Jess Carter: Right? I've never done this before. And, like, Christopher, it was a status meeting. Like, this was not some big pitch. This wasn't like features or like a new sal that we wanted to release. It was a. Here's how things are this week. And I went through the whole thing. What I loved about him is he's just this incredible coach.
[00:17:06] Jess Carter: And as we walked back, it was like this huge government building. So we had about eight minute walk back, and so we started walking. He said, hey, how do you think you did? And I was like, I don't know. How did I do? Right? I just wanted some affirmation. He said, you did good. He said, there's some things. Can I give you some feedback? I said, sure. And he said, you behaved like you didn't have a rapport with the audience.
[00:17:28] Jess Carter: Like, you kind of walked in as if you had to go build and earn that. He's like, Jess, we've had a relationship. You've been in this building for a year. You can show up and be less nervous and know that we've earned the right to be in that room. And so he was like, there's almost this wall or shield that came up because you showed up and it was all business and it was percent complete and all these. And he's like, you weren't human first. It was like I was trying to be AI, Chris, and he was like, that's not going to be a great rapport. Like, you want to ask them how their weekend was and what are their plans for Memorial Day and go build a real relationship with them and understand what that looks like.
[00:18:04] Jess Carter: And then we can talk through some of the things that are hard and easy. I remember him saying, keep in mind that the relationship we've built is the foundation of the conversation, and then we can talk about, of course, the mission. Like, here are how these features tie to what's really important to you all. But I got lost in all those weeds. And then again, he said, you never walk in a room with executives with more than three points, ever. And he said, you always get out of their office earlier than you told them you would. If you do that, you will always guarantee an audience with a leader. But if you take more of their time than you said and you make them late to another meeting or you have a fourth thing or a 6th thing or a 17th thing, it's just like an emotional dump. That's not the place or the right time or the best use of that time.
[00:18:46] Jess Carter: I thought that was so valuable in my career.
[00:18:50] Christopher Chin: I love that story because I resonate a lot with it. I think the last time I was on the podcast, I shared that I haven't always been confident in my own voice. Used to be very shy and introverted, and it took me a lifetime to figure out how to feel comfortable speaking to people. And what you said resonated with me in that the way that we think of ourselves and the way we act in the world is how other people will treat us. So if we act, oh, my voice doesn't deserve to be heard, then people won't listen to it. But if we start to think, I am a leader, I can speak like one, I can act like one, then people will say, oh, okay, that is a person worth listening to. And that was a key mental reframe for me, realizing how much was in my control, in how people treated me. That if I learned how to present myself better, then people would be more likely to respect what I had to say.
[00:19:43] Jess Carter: If somebody is hearing this and sort of feels that way, maybe imposter syndrome or just doesn't know where to start. Are there any tangible things you would share that helped you, like how you present yourself? Were there any key tips? Is it posture? Is it mindset?
[00:19:56] Christopher Chin: I think mindset is really the key one here, and I've seen this through coaching. If a lot of techniques are taught, like, do this, do this, do this. That's superficial level. But if people can understand why they should do that, then it sticks, and then they do it on their own, in their own unique way. For me, it was developing the mindset of, there are all these things in my control that I can improve on. And I decided, okay, I want to become good at communication. So every day I'm going to try to increase it 1%. So I'd record a video of myself and hate it and say, okay, what can I do to improve on that 1% tomorrow? And I kept doing that, and I was my own worst critic, of course.
[00:20:36] Christopher Chin: So that made the growth I had much more exponential. But that's what I recommend to anyone in the audience. If you have a goal, like working on communication, you can take small steps every day. Get feedback from your peers and managers to help realize that.
[00:20:51] Jess Carter: Yeah. Do you think that there are people who record themselves and actually enjoy watching it? Do you think they exist?
[00:20:58] Christopher Chin: I'm sure they do exist somewhere. It's a very, very small percent of the population.
[00:21:03] Jess Carter: It is like the hardest thing in doing a podcast is overcoming even listening to my own voice. Because you do want to hear it, but it is to your point to see it, and even that mindset, to see it as this is practice and it's to improve. It's not to be perfect, or we would be re-recording forever. I'd still be recording my first episode two years later. Right?
[00:21:24] Christopher Chin: I've been thinking a long time about what is the metric of success for communication? Because I have that data-driven brain, I've reached a conclusion. I figured it's not the amount of information shared, because if you share more information, as we talked about before, all that noise, there's more of a likelihood people will be confused. And then I said, okay, well, if that's not the metric information quantity, then is it the perfection of the delivery? So no filler words. And you say it flawlessly without rambling and stuttering. And I said, no, I don't think that's the metric either, because if a presenter on a stage makes a small mistake and then they move past it gracefully, no one's going to notice it and it's not going to be a problem. So everybody will still have a good experience and learn. So I said, okay, so it's not perfection of delivery. What is the metric of success then? And I concluded it's clarity.
[00:22:13] Christopher Chin: If you're clear in your message, then you're successful in your message. So everything that we do from voice, body language, storytelling is all about trying to be as clear as possible for the other person. They might not take action if we're recommending it. So maybe action isn't the metric of success, because maybe this is a huge ask, but if we're clear, then maybe when it's more relevant, then they'll take it.
[00:22:34] Jess Carter: Is there a real way that we can measure clarity?
[00:22:38] Christopher Chin: I would say so, and in varying degrees. So during a presentation, if we open up for questions, we can see what kind of questions are people asking? Are they asking us to clarify? Then we weren't as clear as we could have been. But if they're saying, oh, how can I use what you said to do XYZ? Then we were clear. Alternatively, we could have surveys if we wanted to be super quantitative and say, what do you understand about the topic beforehand? After the presentation, what do you understand? See if there was an improvement. And, something we can also do, and what I like doing after I give a talk at a conference to say to attendees, what was the thing that you remembered most from the presentation? If they say what I wanted it to be, then I was clear.
[00:23:16] Jess Carter: That's so interesting because you're making me think, I love the concept and I love that you are taking on the challenge of making it measurable, because I think that's so hard. I think the industry that is most mature in that way then to me is like L and D. I mean, if you're doing training like the concept is, if you're training a server at a restaurant, you have outcomes and you have to train them on pragmatic things that they have to go get somebody water, they have to go greet the table. So there's some ways to say L and D teaches, or even like organizational change management entities. Like, the goal is, hey, this change is coming. Here's what it's going to look like and feel like. Here's how we need you to behave. Not just did you go to training, do you understand what is required of you now? There's that second piece of comprehension that I think is so interesting that I think that those areas of industries have done the best at trying to capture.
[00:24:08] Jess Carter: I don't know if you have any thoughts on other areas that would be good at that. To me, that seems like a great place to start when it comes to best practices around some of these things.
[00:24:17] Christopher Chin: I think another area could be, I've been also doing a lot of research on quantifying and assessing communication itself. And there are a lot of studies out there, self assessments and also assessments you can give other people on communication. And all of them boil down to the idea that leadership is communication, because if we are clear in what we say, concise in what we say, people understand what to do. Also, if we're good at building relationships with people in the way that we communicate with them, then that's also the mark of great leadership. And there are a lot of studies out there that go over how to quantify. Are you good at listening? Are you good at communicating clearly? Are you good at presenting and measuring that over time to see improvement?
[00:25:00] Jess Carter: Yeah. Okay. So I think what I love about hanging out with you is there's so many episodes where we're trying to explain these really technical concepts to people, or we're trying to explain maybe a technology story. What I love is how much I think our conversations resonate with the data-driven leadership component. It's how you show up and the clarity in which you are able to present data for the right outcomes and for the right audience tied to your mission. I mean, you're a leadership coach that is focused on data. Does that resonate with you?
[00:25:31] Christopher Chin: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I mentioned this to you as well in our last podcast episode. But initially, I thought my mission was helping people communicate data better. But then I realized it's really about helping leaders communicate well, using data as just one ingredient of many that they need. So that definitely is the mission, I think, that I have.
[00:25:52] Jess Carter: How does it feel to share vulnerably about how you were really, really shy to now I would call you an excellent leadership coach. Does that just feel like just a really neat arc in your story?
[00:26:05] Christopher Chin: It does. And when I was a kid, the story that I loved most was Spider-Man as a story, because I was also a nerdy kid from Queens, New York. I wanted to have superpowers one day. I remember there was one time I was with my dad, he took me out into the backyard, and I looked up at the sky, and he said, you know, what people usually do is they make a wish on the star, and maybe it'll come true later on in your life. And I remember what I wished for was I wanted to have superpowers like Spider-Man. I wanted to be special, different in some way. And what I realized now, at this point in my life, I always did have that superpower. I didn't know yet how to use it well, and that was the power of my own voice, to use it authentically, to train myself, to know how to speak clearly and concisely and confidently and convincingly.
[00:26:51] Christopher Chin: And just as the lesson from Spider-Man is, with great power comes great responsibility, I believe now that I found this power within myself, it's my responsibility to share it with other people, share it with other leaders within this field.
[00:27:04] Jess Carter: Chris, I just really enjoy, I so enjoy your presence, and I'm sure that's how all of your clients feel. I think part of what's really, I'm going to call it beautiful, is your ability to acknowledge your strengths. And in zero ways does that come off cocky or arrogant. It seems like a responsibility. You have to say, hey, I understand my strengths. I know how to leverage them, and my job now is to share them with others. And it's really beautiful.
[00:27:27] Christopher Chin: Thank you. I've been thinking a long time as well about what makes for great leadership, and I don't think it's 100% confidence. I think we should be confident in everything we do, but also acknowledge there are always more things we can learn. So it's the combination of confidence, but also humility and curiosity.
[00:27:44] Jess Carter: I just want to stop there. That is the most beautiful way to talk about leadership. I completely agree with you. I think if you don't have learning, you are at risk of so many problems and pitfalls in your life. I think committing to being a lifelong learner as a leader is a requirement. It's absolutely a must. It's essential to be a good leader. I love the way that you put that.
[00:28:05] Jess Carter: Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about today that we haven't had a chance to talk through?
[00:28:09] Christopher Chin: No. I love the topics that we talked about and nothing else I can think of.
[00:28:14] Jess Carter: Well, Chris, thank you for coming back to our Data-Driven Leadership podcast and thank you for sharing your superpower with us.
[00:28:20] Christopher Chin: Thank you so much for the opportunity. Always a pleasure.
[00:28:24] Jess Carter: If people want to follow you, where can they do so?
[00:28:28] Christopher Chin: So there's my LinkedIn, and that's my profile where I post during the weekdays about tips for data, visualization, storytelling, presentation. There's also my YouTube channel, which my handle is the hidden speaker. And there's also my website, thehiddenspeaker.com, where I have more blogs and free resources when it comes to these subjects.
[00:28:47] Jess Carter: Awesome. Thank you so much.
[00:28:48] Christopher Chin: Thank you so much, Jess.
[00:28:49] Jess Carter: Thank you guys for listening. I'm your host, Jess Carter. Don't forget to follow the Data-Driven Leadership. Wherever you get your podcasts and rate and review, let us know how these data topics are transforming your business and give us some ideas of what you want to hear about next. We can't wait for you to join us on the next episode.
Insights delivered to your inbox