00:00:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Hello and welcome to value driven data science, brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting.
00:00:06 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'm your host, doctor Genevieve Hayes, and today I'm joined by guest Stuart Black to talk about the role of boards in maximizing the value of data.
00:00:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Stewart Black is an enterprise fellow in data analytics, disruption and innovation at the University of Melbourne and is just finalizing his PhD right now.
00:00:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
By the time this goes to air, he will.
00:00:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Be doctor Stewart.
00:00:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Black Prior to joining Academia, Stewart spent 30 years in professional services and industry at employers including Deloitte, where he was senior partner National Australia Bank, and 80 Carney.
00:00:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
He is also a co-author of the recently released book Business Model Transformation, the AI and Cloud Technology Revolution.
00:00:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Stu, welcome to the show.
00:00:54 Dr Stuart Black
Thank you for having me.
00:00:55 Dr Stuart Black
I should say Long time podcast listener, First Time podcast participants.
00:00:59 Dr Stuart Black
So thank you.
00:01:01 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Very happy to have you.
00:01:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Now, Stew is a man who understands what boards think when it comes to data. As a former BIG4 partner, he gained professional experience working with board directors, and that clearly wasn't enough for him. So now that he's moved into academia, one of his main research focuses is on the.
00:01:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Attitudes that board directors have to secondary data use.
00:01:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So if you work for an organization with the board and have ever wondered what your organisations directors are thinking with regard to data use, this is the episode for you.
00:01:38 Dr Genevieve Hayes
To get the ball rolling, Stu, how about we start with your book?
00:01:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So can you tell us a bit about your new book and how that ties in with your research focus of board attitudes to secondary data use?
00:01:52 Dr Stuart Black
Absolutely 'cause in.
00:01:53 Dr Stuart Black
In a funny way, they come from a similar place the book in my in my PhD research.
00:01:58 Dr Stuart Black
Let's focus on the book.
00:02:00 Dr Stuart Black
A colleague of mine, so Alan Ellis, is a partner with Deloitte Monitor.
00:02:06 Dr Stuart Black
He and I.
00:02:07 Dr Stuart Black
Work at chuckling about Australia seems to have lots of little pilots and proof points for AI and cloud.
00:02:17 Dr Stuart Black
But when you really kind of ask the question upon show us an Australian organization.
00:02:21 Dr Stuart Black
That or actually just say.
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Show us a global organizations.
00:02:26 Dr Stuart Black
That is competing through AI and cloud.
00:02:28 Dr Stuart Black
There are not that many Australian names.
00:02:31 Dr Stuart Black
And why is that?
00:02:33 Dr Stuart Black
And importantly for us it was a case of saying if Australian organizations are not really thinking through their business model and not think positioning for the future.
00:02:41 Speaker 3
What will happen?
00:02:42 Dr Stuart Black
To Australian businesses in the next 5-10, twenty years time.
00:02:47 Dr Stuart Black
So, so that kind of.
00:02:48 Dr Stuart Black
Got us going on, thinking about what to do.
00:02:50 Dr Stuart Black
In that area.
00:02:52 Dr Stuart Black
At the same time, yeah, we're both consultants. Well, 11 retired, one active, and you know, there's a whole literature associated with consultants telling people what they think at the top three things, top six things to do, etc, etc. What we decided to do was something different.
00:03:07
I want.
00:03:10 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, we thought it's going to be much more compelling for business leaders to read stories about other business leaders in this context.
00:03:20 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, it's one thing for an Australian company that to hereupon what?
00:03:24 Dr Stuart Black
You know, pick whichever disruptor overseas that you want.
00:03:27 Dr Stuart Black
What the you're the China ecosystem DUS ecosystem.
00:03:30 Dr Stuart Black
The European you can always get lots of those stories, but sometimes people say, yeah, but we're not like that, So what we wanted.
00:03:37 Dr Stuart Black
Do was to go find a number of Australian stories that are associated with organizations that are actually doing more than just a little Proofpoint or appointing a chief data officer and assuming it's.
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All all.
00:03:51 Dr Stuart Black
You have people that are actually thinking upon.
00:03:54 Dr Stuart Black
Ah, what is going to be our our basis of advantage in the medium and long term?
00:04:00 Dr Stuart Black
And to what extent could AI and cloud help us there?
00:04:04 Dr Stuart Black
Not that AI and cloud is what's driving it, but AI and cloud technologies are the catalyst by which we can understand our next generation of our business.
00:04:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I've had a look at that book already and I'm halfway through it and I find that the case studies are the best part of it.
00:04:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I've I started reading it on Sunday and already I've found with my own work.
00:04:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'll be thinking, OK, this is the way I look at it, but how do other businesses look at this particular problem?
00:04:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I'll find a business in this book that's similar to the one that I'm considering and read the case study for it and use that as a benchmark for my own work.
00:04:48 Dr Stuart Black
Excellent that and that's exactly what we're trying to get people to do.
00:04:51 Dr Stuart Black
So it's no longer you know how many times did say what would Uber due to this business and it's like, well Uber wouldn't be in this business, so you.
00:04:57 Dr Stuart Black
Know sometimes those types of comparisons are.
00:05:00 Dr Stuart Black
Easy to generate, but hard to actually make real what you do tomorrow.
00:05:06 Dr Stuart Black
So what we've tried to do is we try to find organizations, public sector, private sector, large, small, listed, unlisted all over the all sorts of different industries just to give that kind of variety.
00:05:19 Dr Stuart Black
Of different experiences, so people.
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And say.
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Yeah, I look more like this.
00:05:24 Dr Stuart Black
And hopefully by seeing these things people can say, you know, what if they can do it.
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Can't I?
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Can't my organization do this?
00:05:33 Dr Stuart Black
And what we're really hoping to do is that this is addition one.
00:05:38 Dr Stuart Black
And in 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, we have addition 2 where other organizations have been able to say, yeah, we've done it too, and these are the lessons that we have learned, and so it's less about the three coauthors.
00:05:53 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, getting the credit, it's much more.
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About the fact that.
00:06:00 Dr Stuart Black
Our contribution is getting this book out there to hopefully kick off all these waves of innovation and make Australia a better place.
00:06:08 Dr Stuart Black
That was really why.
00:06:08 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We did it.
00:06:09 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And one thing that really struck me with it some of the case studies you've chosen, the ones that I would never have expected to find in a.
00:06:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Book like that.
00:06:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Uhm, I mean you've got a SX listed companies there, but you've also got, I think there's a local government area there.
00:06:27 Dr Stuart Black
And every time I look at that local government area, Yari Yam back I think it is.
00:06:31 Dr Stuart Black
I always have to look just reconfirm it.
00:06:33 Dr Stuart Black
It's not one of my cases, it's one of my coauthors cases, but you're absolutely right, this is a relatively small uh council up in right along the Murray border in NSW.
00:06:47 Dr Stuart Black
Victorian border.
00:06:48 Dr Stuart Black
And and they had a very very different reason for why they went down AI and cloud as opposed to one of our other case studies is a seek and and of course even in CQ sit back and say seeks a disruptor but if you talk to the Sikh people they really weren't a disruptor from an AI and cloud.
00:07:06 Dr Stuart Black
Yes they did disrupt in a particular area.
00:07:09 Dr Stuart Black
But they themselves were under disruption from other technology people, so we're trying to get this really.
00:07:13 Dr Stuart Black
Broad range of, of, of.
00:07:16 Dr Stuart Black
Triggers and organization so, so that people can say, yeah, we can see how that's.
00:07:23 Dr Stuart Black
Now you say you've gotten, you've gotten halfway through the book.
00:07:26 Dr Stuart Black
There's one more chapter that you're going to love, which is specifically looking at.
00:07:29 Dr Stuart Black
The board's role.
00:07:31 Dr Stuart Black
The board's role in in catalyzing change and controlling change, which is clearly a lot of overlap between what's in that particular chapter and and the basis of my more formal.
00:07:43 Dr Stuart Black
A PhD research.
00:07:45 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So I haven't gotten to that chapter yet, but I have read some of the papers that have come out of your PhD research.
00:07:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So how about you introduce the audience to some of the concepts that you raise in those papers?
00:07:58 Dr Stuart Black
Ah, sure.
00:08:01 Dr Stuart Black
Well, Genevieve, your your PhD, uh, you've gone through the process and you know how much of the time PhD research is based upon.
00:08:11 Dr Stuart Black
There's kind of this gap in the literature.
00:08:13 Dr Stuart Black
The literature says X is why, but doesn't actually say much about this and so therefore.
00:08:17 Dr Stuart Black
Let's go explore it.
00:08:18 Dr Stuart Black
My research was actually driven completely the other way around, which is I am seeing an observation in practice that does not make any sense.
00:08:30 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, and luckily I had some very good supervisors that were able to help me as I went through this particular journey.
00:08:37 Dr Stuart Black
As you know, not all pH.
00:08:38 Dr Stuart Black
Not all academics like the the practice side, but essentially as a practitioner.
00:08:46 Dr Stuart Black
I dealt with a lot of.
00:08:48 Dr Stuart Black
Organizations, many of which very large, very complex.
00:08:53 Dr Stuart Black
You know, extensive data histories and if you thought of a, if you think about, you know these old phrases about the data is the world the 21st century, and it's all about the data-driven future.
00:09:04 Dr Stuart Black
And these types of things.
00:09:05 Dr Stuart Black
Then you sit back and say.
00:09:07 Dr Stuart Black
Shouldn't the organizations that have deep, long, broad data history, shouldn't they be the ones that are really going out there and saying what insights can I mine out of this information?
00:09:19 Dr Stuart Black
How might I use some of these patterns in these behaviors and these insights from the data to really change the basis of how we compete?
00:09:28 Dr Stuart Black
In the market?
00:09:28 Dr Stuart Black
Or price points or these types of things.
00:09:32 Dr Stuart Black
And yeah, we can find all.
00:09:33 Dr Stuart Black
Sorts of, again, going back to that that that phrase, proof points or use cases.
00:09:40 Dr Stuart Black
But you haven't seen a lot.
00:09:42 Dr Stuart Black
Of organization.
00:09:43 Dr Stuart Black
Really take that big leap.
00:09:45 Dr Stuart Black
The ones that you actually if you kind of go back and say which, which of the organizations in Australia are really data-driven as as they're kind of core about how they do things.
00:09:54 Dr Stuart Black
They tend to be organizations that don't have a data history, their news starting organizations.
00:10:00 Dr Stuart Black
And so there's this really interesting disconnect about, you know, why are the ones that theoretically.
00:10:05 Dr Stuart Black
But the greatest advantage?
00:10:07 Dr Stuart Black
Not making much of that advantage, and the ones that don't have much of that natural advantage are making the most.
00:10:13 Dr Stuart Black
Of, of, of.
00:10:14 Dr Stuart Black
What little advantage they possibly have.
00:10:15 Dr Stuart Black
So there's this kind of interesting competitive disconnect that I was interested in and.
00:10:21 Speaker 3
And and kind of why and?
00:10:24 Dr Stuart Black
Part of the issue, as I was thinking this one through is this concept of of I I was looking in particular around the secondary use of data and so.
00:10:34 Dr Stuart Black
Many of your.
00:10:36 Dr Stuart Black
So it's a term that's not necessarily specifically defined or well understood, but a secondary use of data is in a situation where you know, for example, Genevieve, perhaps I sell you a product and I need some bits of information about you to be able to deliver that good or service that would be the primary.
00:10:57 Dr Stuart Black
You've given me that data.
00:10:58 Dr Stuart Black
With the express purpose of allowing me to fulfill my service obligation to you.
00:11:03 Dr Stuart Black
Now, if I since I have that data, if I look at it from a slightly different lens in a different type of way, that's the secondary use of that data.
00:11:16 Dr Stuart Black
And there are lots of examples out there about harms that have been caused by inappropriate secondary use of data and of course in the Australian context.
00:11:27 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, organizational risk and other types of things are a board level issue.
00:11:33 Dr Stuart Black
So one of the questions I had to ask myself is to what extent is the is the board kind of conscious of this opportunity risk tradeoff as it relates?
00:11:43 Dr Stuart Black
To both the.
00:11:44 Dr Stuart Black
Opportunity or the secondary user data.
00:11:46 Dr Stuart Black
And the risks associated the secondary user data and how does that move?
00:11:51 Dr Stuart Black
So that was really the trigger for this.
00:11:55 Dr Stuart Black
To this this work, what I would say is that much of the academic literature when they think about.
00:12:03 Dr Stuart Black
Thing is kind.
00:12:04 Dr Stuart Black
Of closest to data governance, which is it governance? They really don't think about the board's role in IT governance.
00:12:10 Dr Stuart Black
For some reason, they kind of stop at the CIO level, so it's been a little bit of a challenge to get people to say.
00:12:18 Dr Stuart Black
At the end of the day, the board sets the organizational risk appetite and they monitor the adherence to that risk appetite.
00:12:25 Dr Stuart Black
So to the extent that data and data governance, especially the secondary use of data, actually influences that, that risk appetite, then the board absolutely has a role.
00:12:36 Dr Stuart Black
One of the really neat.
00:12:38 Dr Stuart Black
Parts of my work is that a lot of people say the boards not engaged as an operational issue, et cetera.
00:12:44 Dr Stuart Black
Et cetera, et cetera.
00:12:45 Dr Stuart Black
But I was actually able to determine that that there are very specific attributes of a boy.
00:12:52 Dr Stuart Black
The the the organizations in which they are leading either to make.
00:12:58 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, data as a as a key competitive advantage or data is interesting, but not really a source of advantage.
00:13:05 Dr Stuart Black
There are very clear links between the attributes of a board and and and whether not organization goes to one into that spectrum or the other.
00:13:14 Dr Stuart Black
So it kind of verifies the fact.
00:13:16 Dr Stuart Black
My initial hypothesis is.
00:13:18 Dr Stuart Black
The board matters.
00:13:20 Dr Stuart Black
The board absolutely matters.
00:13:22 Dr Stuart Black
Not in every situation, but you know, there will be somewhere kind of like the boards, kind of engaged, not engaged, whatever it happens to be.
00:13:28 Dr Stuart Black
But there are absolutely certain situations where it actually the board kind of takes him down to an area where data is not relatively all that relevant, another one where data absolutely is key to advantage.
00:13:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What I thought was fascinating about your research was your choice to focus on boards rather than senior leadership.
00:13:49 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But one of the things that I was wondering was, do you think he would have gotten very different results had you chose to focus on the executive attitudes instead of the board attitudes?
00:14:01 Dr Stuart Black
That's a good question.
00:14:02 Dr Stuart Black
I'm not entirely sure.
00:14:05 Dr Stuart Black
Not entirely sure, uh?
00:14:09 Dr Stuart Black
I went after the boards.
00:14:12 Dr Stuart Black
Really because?
00:14:16 Dr Stuart Black
It's very easy for and I've seen this in practice.
00:14:19 Dr Stuart Black
It's very easy for a executive.
00:14:24 Dr Stuart Black
Who is reluctant to engage in the topic, kind of diminish the durability of the initiative because the board won't accept it.
00:14:33 Dr Stuart Black
So I thought, let me go after that alibi first.
00:14:36 Dr Stuart Black
Let me go after that one first.
00:14:38 Dr Stuart Black
Now, having said that, I am about to kick off another wave of research to understand.
00:14:43 Dr Stuart Black
Back to what you're talking about is the.
00:14:44 Dr Stuart Black
Executive views.
00:14:47 Dr Stuart Black
And then now that I have the board views, I can.
00:14:49 Dr Stuart Black
Kind of understand how.
00:14:50 Dr Stuart Black
How a natural executive view could be potentially influenced by the board view in a particular initiative, but I haven't done it yet.
00:14:58 Dr Stuart Black
So it'll be interesting to see how that works and and how that whole thing cascades down the organizational hierarchy.
00:15:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I'd also be interested to find out what happens if you have the executive who have a very different attitude to data used from the board.
00:15:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know, if you have that conflict, what happens?
00:15:18 Dr Stuart Black
We had lots of examples of this.
00:15:20 Dr Stuart Black
So the the way I went through this research.
00:15:23 Dr Stuart Black
Oh, I should say it's.
00:15:26 Dr Stuart Black
It's kind of a.
00:15:28 Dr Stuart Black
A four stage approach the 1st.
00:15:31 Dr Stuart Black
First stage of work was actually to understand what the academic literature actually said, and that kind of allowed us to say, well, these types of factors could possibly be involved.
00:15:42 Dr Stuart Black
Then I went out and I conducted some focus groups with some peers of mine.
00:15:48 Dr Stuart Black
These are.
00:15:49 Dr Stuart Black
Consulting partners across a number of different firms that were actually active in dealing with boards and executive management on topics of the strategic use of data.
00:16:00 Dr Stuart Black
That then enabled us to go out to the board directors themselves, about 41 board directors representing at 83 organizations by memory.
00:16:10 Speaker 3
And what we?
00:16:12 Dr Stuart Black
What I did is I had interviews with each one of them to be able to identify kind of the themes and then I kind of went through a particular analytical approach.
00:16:19 Dr Stuart Black
To to come up with my.
00:16:21 Dr Stuart Black
But what was interesting is that there were numerous.
00:16:24 Dr Stuart Black
Examples where a board member had said, I won't have the quote exactly with me, but something to the effect of, Oh yeah, we, we and the board wanted to do something, management didn't want to do it and used essentially this generic compliance issue as their get out of jail.
00:16:44 Dr Stuart Black
Free card as far as not having to go off and go disciplines.
00:16:47 Dr Stuart Black
So lots of clear situations where essentially the board wants to go faster than management.
00:16:54 Dr Stuart Black
In some situations management wants to go faster than the board.
00:16:57 Dr Stuart Black
I had another another case example where a board member had said that the executives had had a thought that data analytics could actually make a a very significant difference to their business.
00:17:11 Dr Stuart Black
So they're almost.
00:17:12 Dr Stuart Black
Looking for an?
00:17:13 Dr Stuart Black
Excuse to go off and go play on some of these capabilities.
00:17:17 Dr Stuart Black
And working with the board, they found a particular platform.
00:17:20 Dr Stuart Black
By which they can engage.
00:17:22
So it's kind of.
00:17:23 Dr Stuart Black
Interesting how how the recalcitrance is not the boards or recalcitrant and executives are are gung ho.
00:17:31 Dr Stuart Black
Occasionally it's the other way around.
00:17:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
My own personal experience was dealing with boards has been any time that I've gone to a board with the data or analytics initiative, they're usually very positive about it.
00:17:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Boards want their organisations to be doing things in the data space.
00:17:48 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, that's right.
00:17:50 Dr Stuart Black
Now, now, some will, some will be very positive that way.
00:17:53 Dr Stuart Black
Other ones will be sitting back saying, I get it, but let's also look at the risks.
00:18:01 Speaker 3
One of the.
00:18:03 Dr Stuart Black
One of the other interesting findings about this.
00:18:06 Dr Stuart Black
Is that if you?
00:18:08 Dr Stuart Black
If you kind of read the AFR on a daily basis, you have this kind of concept of the the digital Ned, yeah, the the person on the board that has lived experience in data and analytics, etc, because we don't have enough board members that actually have that lived digital.
00:18:24 Dr Stuart Black
Data experience.
00:18:25 Dr Stuart Black
That's why we're not that progressive.
00:18:26 Dr Stuart Black
So therefore the answer is to go hire more than people.
00:18:30 Dr Stuart Black
What I found was that.
00:18:34 Dr Stuart Black
Whilst having digital and data Ned's is important.
00:18:40 Dr Stuart Black
The boards that are the most progressive towards using data as a as a competitive advantage are actually kind of the intellectually curious.
00:18:52 Dr Stuart Black
So so just is actually more important to be kind of thinking upon what is the future of the organization, being intellectually curious about the possibilities, etc.
00:19:01 Dr Stuart Black
So exactly what you're talking about, there are people who are, when they hear the idea, they're open to the idea, and there they absolutely want to get there because of the intellectual curiosity.
00:19:11 Dr Stuart Black
As opposed to I've spent my life doing this and I have a belief that we just need to do this, which is the implication of the you know, you need digital, digital goods on your board and.
00:19:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What you say about how intellectual curiosity is the way to go.
00:19:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Oh, one thing I've found throughout life is the most successful people and the most intelligent people are the ones who have that intellectual curiosity.
00:19:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So it doesn't really surprise me that those are also the ones who are interested in exploring the whole data and analytics space.
00:19:45 Dr Stuart Black
And I had the opportunity to go back.
00:19:48 Dr Stuart Black
I haven't gotten to all of them, but I'm working my way through them, all of my informants, and just say.
00:19:55 Dr Stuart Black
Informants sounds bad, doesn't it?
00:19:57 Dr Stuart Black
Although the market participants in my in my PhD research, the board directors and I showed them my conclusions and they'll kind of like.
00:20:04 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, that absolutely resonates with me.
00:20:06 Dr Stuart Black
You know, now that you've shown it, Jimmy, it makes a lot of sense that the one that that the ones that are the most active are actually this kind, this kind of concept of the, the exploration mindset is actually what I talk about.
00:20:20 Dr Stuart Black
And was also.
00:20:21 Dr Stuart Black
Kind of interesting about this is the next conversation that gets into saying.
00:20:25 Dr Stuart Black
Exploration mindset is not necessarily restricted just to data.
00:20:30 Dr Stuart Black
It's about all sorts of different things.
00:20:32 Dr Stuart Black
How might we revitalize our customer proposition?
00:20:35 Dr Stuart Black
What is going to be our employee value proposition in the future?
00:20:39 Dr Stuart Black
What might what do we have to do about resilience of our supply chains?
00:20:42 Dr Stuart Black
It's this, this is a a non data or technical specific attribute of the individual that really leads to some interesting outcomes and that's what the board directors really were interested in.
00:20:55 Dr Stuart Black
Saying yeah, I I get why it's so important to the data, but it's.
00:20:58 Dr Stuart Black
Also applicable to all these other things we have to deal with.
00:21:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
It sort of reminds me of what you hear about Steve Jobs.
00:21:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I mean, the man was not a tech person to begin with, but he was curious and he had all these ideas and he was interested in exploring so much, and he ended up being one of the most successful tech CEOs of all time.
00:21:19 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, there you go.
00:21:20 Dr Stuart Black
There you go.
00:21:21 Dr Stuart Black
I, I.
00:21:22 Dr Stuart Black
Had one of my interview bees and.
00:21:23 Dr Stuart Black
Said who I've known for a while is it you know me?
00:21:27 Dr Stuart Black
I'm a hack a.
00:21:30 Dr Stuart Black
But I I think that surely we must.
00:21:32 Dr Stuart Black
This is the.
00:21:32 Dr Stuart Black
Question that I have need to specify the question.
00:21:35 Dr Stuart Black
That's it.
00:21:36 Dr Stuart Black
I'm pretty sure we can answer that question through data, and I'm surprised nobody has.
00:21:41 Dr Stuart Black
Why haven't people kind of ask the question up on how we can get a better outcome this by looking at we've?
00:21:46 Dr Stuart Black
Done in the past.
00:21:47 Dr Stuart Black
I may not be able to do it.
00:21:50 Dr Stuart Black
But I do.
00:21:51 Dr Stuart Black
Do you have a sense that it can be done and I you?
00:21:53 Dr Stuart Black
Know I want to understand.
00:21:55 Dr Stuart Black
Let's do it and see if we can find that insight.
00:21:57 Dr Stuart Black
And if we don't find any insight?
00:21:59 Dr Stuart Black
Not that big of a loss.
00:22:00 Dr Stuart Black
Let's go out and find out.
00:22:02 Dr Stuart Black
Is that that that?
00:22:04 Dr Stuart Black
That exploration what might be kind of attribute?
00:22:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, and the acceptance of the fact that if you go out and explore, you might end up failing.
00:22:13 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Was that saying, goes, if I fail more times than you, I win?
00:22:21 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, well, that makes the assumption that you.
00:22:23 Dr Stuart Black
You fail and learn failing large.
00:22:24
Ha ha ha.
00:22:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I was thinking if you're on a sports team and you kept on shooting for goals and losing, you'd probably be off that team.
00:22:32 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But let's not go down that path.
00:22:34 Speaker 3
No, no, no, no, no.
00:22:36 Dr Stuart Black
The the the.
00:22:37 Dr Stuart Black
Other thing that's kind of interesting is that if you think back to conventional wisdom actually going going back to the book for a second, you you remember in the introduction how we kind of said this is the conventional wisdom this is.
00:22:48 Dr Stuart Black
What people think.
00:22:49 Dr Stuart Black
And this is.
00:22:50 Dr Stuart Black
Our experience and and hopefully you'll probably say actually that kind of jolted my framer.
00:22:56 Dr Stuart Black
Reference 'cause.
00:22:56 Dr Stuart Black
Yes, I have read a lot of this conventional wisdom, and it's kind of interesting to see a different perspective on this.
00:23:02 Dr Stuart Black
But UM.
00:23:03 Dr Stuart Black
But just within the PhD research there, there is a the conventional wisdom is really around 2 attributes.
00:23:09 Dr Stuart Black
One is the individual data and digital skills of an individual board director, which we've just discussed is.
00:23:18 Dr Stuart Black
Is supportive.
00:23:20 Dr Stuart Black
But it's not nearly as important as these other.
00:23:24 Dr Stuart Black
Less technically specific skills and attributes are such as an exploration mindset.
00:23:30 Dr Stuart Black
The second thing is.
00:23:33 Dr Stuart Black
And whether or not this is driven by vendors or not, I'll I'll leave this to your listeners, but a number of people will say I love to do data initiatives.
00:23:42 Dr Stuart Black
But our date is just not good enough quality.
00:23:45 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, we need to invest a lot of data quality.
00:23:47 Dr Stuart Black
We need to invest in a kind of a data backbone.
00:23:51 Dr Stuart Black
There's all this infrastructure and foundation we need to put in place before we can embark upon a real data strategy.
00:24:03 Dr Stuart Black
I found.
00:24:05 Dr Stuart Black
Was that most board directors will accept the fact that data is not good, but data doesn't have to be perfect to actually make some traction.
00:24:15 Dr Stuart Black
So this.
00:24:15 Dr Stuart Black
Kind of whole.
00:24:16 Dr Stuart Black
Concept is saying foundation stuff, those are issues.
00:24:19 Dr Stuart Black
To work through.
00:24:21 Dr Stuart Black
But you still can get going and again, it gets back into this.
00:24:25 Dr Stuart Black
We may not have the perfect answer, but the answer that we have.
00:24:29 Dr Stuart Black
With the data quality that we have is better than not doing this.
00:24:32 Dr Stuart Black
So let's proceed and move forward.
00:24:35 Dr Stuart Black
You can fly the plane as you're building it.
00:24:37 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, my.
00:24:38 Dr Genevieve Hayes
My experience has been I've seen organizations that are not starting on any data analytics initiatives until they get their whole data warehouse setup.
00:24:47 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And then I saw one organization that they set up an entire on Prem data warehouse and spent years doing that.
00:24:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And then they decided, no, actually they wanted the cloud data warehouse.
00:24:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
They went back to square one to do that, but it's putting, delaying, actually getting to the data analytics that can really add value.
00:25:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And like, yeah, and by comparison, as in one organization I was working in, we needed a solution to a particular problem last week.
00:25:07 Dr Stuart Black
Exactly, exactly.
00:25:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And even though we didn't have all the cloud infrastructure we needed in order to do it, we managed to get something up and running in a month because.
00:25:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
There was a problem that needed to be solved and we just worked out what was the minimum viable product in order to get that problem solved.
00:25:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And we would have gotten much better results from that then had we.
00:25:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Tried to set up a cloud platform from scratch and waited. I don't know, 2-3 years.
00:25:49 Dr Stuart Black
Perfection is the enemy of the done, isn't it?
00:25:52 Dr Stuart Black
That's a old colleague of mine would, would would chuckle and and you know what's what's interesting is both of us have these types of stories and if we really sat back.
00:26:03 Dr Stuart Black
I would argue, well, I would guess I actually write down what your guess is.
00:26:07 Dr Stuart Black
What percentage of organizations do you know are delaying by doing something until the infrastructure is perfect?
00:26:15 Dr Stuart Black
Got your number?
00:26:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I've got a number in my head, yes.
00:26:20 Dr Stuart Black
I'm saying at least 40% of the organizations I've had dealings with fall into that bucket of let's let's not move forward on the use case side or the use of it or the value generation until we have the the the platform and the technical stuff. Perfect would be my throwaway line is your your number.
00:26:39 Dr Stuart Black
Not the same.
00:26:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Mine was actually hot.
00:26:42
There you.
00:26:42
Go, yeah.
00:26:44 Dr Stuart Black
So I think that's hopefully.
00:26:46 Dr Stuart Black
The listeners will actually be able to say, you know.
00:26:50 Dr Stuart Black
There is something in there.
00:26:52 Dr Stuart Black
Let us getting data, improving data quality and all that stuff is good.
00:26:56 Dr Stuart Black
Let's not, let's not undersell that, but what can we do with what we have now and how can that contribute?
00:27:05 Dr Stuart Black
In the very short term.
00:27:07 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, tomorrow?
00:27:09 Dr Stuart Black
That's supposed to happen to wait for four years until something perfect?
00:27:14 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One thing I thought was very interesting in your book was I I think it was in those conventional points of wisdom that you challenged was you're saying that organisations rather than just focusing on the proof of concepts and doing these little short term projects should look at the medium term you know and and I thought that was.
00:27:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
A really good point because I've ended up working in organisations where we've just been focusing on proofs of concept and because we don't have that infrastructure in place, we can demonstrate little toys but we can't get anything really major up and running.
00:27:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But I like that approach of focusing on the medium term because it's OK we want to get something up and running.
00:27:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We need to have some sort of investment in this, so we need to have some level of commitment, but.
00:28:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We don't want to just, but we don't want to just get trapped in.
00:28:08 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The weights for example.
00:28:10 Dr Stuart Black
Well, there's also that conversation about the pig or chicken at breakfast.
00:28:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Oh yeah.
00:28:16 Dr Stuart Black
You know, the the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.
00:28:18 Dr Stuart Black
And I think organizations that say, hey, we'll spend a little bit of money and a bit of a proof point, they're still holding onto the old legacy business model and the old way of doing things, aren't they?
00:28:31 Dr Stuart Black
It's only when people are saying.
00:28:34 Dr Stuart Black
Something effective this existing way that we do business, it has been very successful for us over the period of time.
00:28:41 Dr Stuart Black
And does have.
00:28:42 Dr Stuart Black
Some way to go.
00:28:43 Dr Stuart Black
So it's but we know that we have to change, we know that we have to be moving towards something.
00:28:49 Dr Stuart Black
I think it's those organizations that's a very happy to have.
00:28:54 Dr Stuart Black
But maybe not proof.
00:28:55 Dr Stuart Black
Points, confidence, building steps.
00:28:57 Dr Stuart Black
Maybe that's the phrase, but we're basically heading.
00:29:00 Dr Stuart Black
Words a new future as opposed to a.
00:29:05 Dr Stuart Black
A low cost if we throw it away even after a success type of Proofpoint.
00:29:10 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, I don't.
00:29:12 Dr Stuart Black
Know something?
00:29:12 Dr Stuart Black
I see way too much in Australian businesses.
00:29:14 Dr Stuart Black
This kind of concept of of will throw a little bit of money, but we're really not committed to it, so even if it's wildly successful.
00:29:22 Dr Stuart Black
We may not continue.
00:29:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The idea of a.
00:29:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Data analytics proof of concept now seems quite absurd because the implication is that if if this proof of concept experiment doesn't work out, the organization will just decide to scrap data analytics and go back to the old way of doing things.
00:29:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I don't think that that's a competitive strategy.
00:29:45 Dr Genevieve Hayes
To have in the 21st century.
00:29:47 Dr Stuart Black
But it's a very understandable one, right.
00:29:50 Dr Stuart Black
So imagine you are a person that's coming and not with the analytics background, yeah you're in operations or sales and marketing whatever else, you know how much hype is out there about miscellaneous things and and you've probably.
00:30:04 Dr Stuart Black
You know people.
00:30:05 Dr Stuart Black
Probably believe that that data analytics by itself.
00:30:08 Dr Stuart Black
Was going to cure malaria, right, as opposed to having more realistic expectations upon what can be done and importantly what has to change in the in the business process model of the future to make the most of it?
00:30:22 Dr Stuart Black
So so I I do actually understand the the the reluctance of some organizations or those or cynicism is probably.
00:30:32 Dr Stuart Black
The better phrase.
00:30:32 Dr Stuart Black
Saying yeah, how many times I've been sold this thing and then we tried it never really quite works.
00:30:38 Dr Stuart Black
And so, you know, whatever.
00:30:40 Speaker 3
So I get.
00:30:40 Speaker 3
I get that.
00:30:41 Dr Stuart Black
But I think the better answer has got to be a case of.
00:30:45 Dr Stuart Black
Let's not think about.
00:30:46 Dr Stuart Black
The data analytics, Proofpoint as an evaluation upon whether or not we can make the data analytics work, let us think really upon where are we heading as an organization?
00:30:57 Dr Stuart Black
What are the capabilities we need to have?
00:30:59 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, they may not be human, they might be technology, they might be dead or whatever.
00:31:03 Dr Stuart Black
It doesn't really matter, but we have had a considered POV upon.
00:31:07 Dr Stuart Black
What that happens to be?
00:31:11 Dr Stuart Black
But one of the the other drivers in my in my research was.
00:31:15 Dr Stuart Black
Those organizations that had a sense of discomfort with their current sources of competitive advantage or those organizations that very consciously said, where are we going to be in five 1020 years time when none of us are?
00:31:30 Dr Stuart Black
On the board.
00:31:31 Dr Stuart Black
But we know we have to make the decisions today to enable that future.
00:31:35 Dr Stuart Black
It's those organizations are able to say, I'm really happy to have little proof points and little experiments and all sorts of stuff because they're building towards something.
00:31:46 Dr Stuart Black
It's not necessary and optionality in there.
00:31:48 Dr Stuart Black
It's just a.
00:31:49 Dr Stuart Black
Question of path that's.
00:31:51 Dr Stuart Black
To me, that's what's interesting.
00:31:53 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, and I've seen from talking to people in other organisations and the ones in which I've worked, the ones that I've seen the transformation to data, a data-driven workplace working best or where the.
00:32:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Board or the executive makes an announcement that this organization will be a data-driven organization and everything else has to contribute to achieving that goal.
00:32:20 Dr Stuart Black
And interestingly enough also the attributes of who and what they are and how they manage in everything else. So it's very easy for an executive leadership team to to pronounce we are going to be data-driven.
00:32:33 Dr Stuart Black
And then all few people go and bring us back the answer.
00:32:36 Dr Stuart Black
Well, yeah, it's much harder for us to say.
00:32:39 Dr Stuart Black
We're going to be.
00:32:41 Dr Stuart Black
And even the concept.
00:32:44 Dr Stuart Black
I even push back a little bit up on the concept of saying we're going to be a data-driven organization.
00:32:50 Dr Stuart Black
I'm much more interested in an organization that says this is.
00:32:54 Dr Stuart Black
Who and what we are.
00:32:57 Dr Stuart Black
And what we're going to be in.
00:32:58 Dr Stuart Black
The future and we very.
00:33:00 Dr Stuart Black
Consciously understand how data will help us get there.
00:33:04 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, where data is the enabler.
00:33:07 Dr Stuart Black
Of that future business model, not an outcome in itself.
00:33:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So what you're saying is it's not enough for an organization to just appoint a chief Data officer or a Chief Analytics officer and let them loose?
00:33:21 Dr Stuart Black
Correct, because what changes in the business?
00:33:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Well, they've got an extra see.
00:33:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Sweet person.
00:33:27 Dr Stuart Black
Extra CC person as we put out a press release and we've announced this particular person, but you know, at the end of the day, has the line changed what they do?
00:33:37 Dr Stuart Black
Well, I actually what the what the note says, well that's all did the soft socialization skills that the Chief data Officer or Chief Analytics officer and they don't have those socialization and selling skills that won't change the business model, man.
00:33:49 Dr Stuart Black
You're gonna go back to that stuff saying it's all the chief data officers fault because they can't communicate, as opposed to the organization doesn't want to change because after all, how many people really love changing?
00:33:59 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, uh, not that many.
00:34:01 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, if you want to see how how hard change is, look at how many people buy gym memberships at the end of the year and look at how many people are still using them.
00:34:10 Dr Genevieve Hayes
On the 15th of January.
00:34:12 Speaker 3
There you go, there you go.
00:34:14 Dr Stuart Black
Or, in my case, we're living chocolate from the house.
00:34:18 Dr Stuart Black
Oh well, so.
00:34:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
In your paper, you mentioned four different configurations of boardroom factors which can determine an organization.
00:34:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Attitudes to data as an enabler of strategy, and could you explain those to the listeners?
00:34:33 Dr Stuart Black
Sure, well, maybe what I can do is I can talk a little bit upon what we're what we mean by configurations in the whole configurational approach.
00:34:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
OK.
00:34:44 Dr Stuart Black
So if you think about most very classic, uh, academic research, it's kind of like there's a whole bunch of different factors out there that could.
00:34:51 Dr Stuart Black
Lead to an outcome.
00:34:53 Dr Stuart Black
Here is the the positive regression between factor X and outcome Y and so therefore we proved that statistically important and everybody knows this.
00:35:04 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, yeah, very simple things.
00:35:06 Dr Stuart Black
You know the the the more that you live.
00:35:10 Dr Stuart Black
I'm from Nebraska in the US.
00:35:12 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, the more that you live in the central parts of the US outside.
00:35:15 Dr Stuart Black
Of a major city, you're probably going to vote Republican.
00:35:18 Dr Stuart Black
Right, we all know this.
00:35:19 Dr Stuart Black
Right, but.
00:35:22 Dr Stuart Black
Just the fact that you live in the central part of the United States doesn't mean that.
00:35:26 Dr Stuart Black
You absolutely will vote Republican.
00:35:28 Dr Stuart Black
There are a whole bunch of other factors, and how do these factors interrelate is actually what the issue is, and so quotes configurational theory.
00:35:35 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, basically presupposes that you can have different paths to the same outcome.
00:35:43 Dr Stuart Black
So in, you know, there might be very different reasons why you vote Republican versus Democratic.
00:35:48 Dr Stuart Black
Even though the outcome I voted Republican, I voted Democratic.
00:35:51 Dr Stuart Black
Is the same and so.
00:35:54 Dr Stuart Black
What the what we try?
00:35:56 Dr Stuart Black
To do is we try to understand.
00:35:59 Dr Stuart Black
What are the outcomes?
00:36:02 Dr Stuart Black
Then what are the specific combination of factors?
00:36:07 Dr Stuart Black
And the interaction of those factors that lead you to 1 outcome versus the other.
00:36:12 Dr Stuart Black
So the exact same, uh, factor might be relevant in a particular configuration or not at all in a in a different one.
00:36:21 Dr Stuart Black
So that's the the basis of the theory and.
00:36:24 Dr Stuart Black
I think we can.
00:36:24 Dr Stuart Black
All kind of intuitively say yeah, that makes.
00:36:26 Dr Stuart Black
Sense you know the the world is not about individual factors.
00:36:30 Dr Stuart Black
The world is about how the group of factors interact to produce the outcome.
00:36:36 Dr Stuart Black
So what?
00:36:37 Dr Stuart Black
What what I did in my research was to look at.
00:36:42 Dr Stuart Black
Oh, identified 9 different factors, and then I try to do some analysis about how these factors interacted with each other to lead to either.
00:36:52 Dr Stuart Black
A outcome of data is a critical enabler strategy.
00:36:58 Dr Stuart Black
Or that data is a minimal source of advantage?
00:37:02 Speaker 3
And on the.
00:37:03 Dr Stuart Black
The first one, which is the data, is a critical enabler strategy.
00:37:07 Dr Stuart Black
What I happen to find is that there are four.
00:37:11 Dr Stuart Black
A major factors off a board and our organization in the context.
00:37:18 Dr Stuart Black
And two kind of peripheral factors and they're spread across two different configurations.
00:37:26 Dr Stuart Black
And configuration is basically saying, do you does the?
00:37:31 Dr Stuart Black
Are there sufficient number of?
00:37:32 Dr Stuart Black
People on the.
00:37:32 Dr Stuart Black
Board with a configuration with this right with a exploration mindset.
00:37:37 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, and that's both.
00:37:39 Dr Stuart Black
Both of the configurations have this specific act.
00:37:43 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, sorry, both have both of.
00:37:45 Dr Stuart Black
The configurations have this factor.
00:37:47 Dr Stuart Black
The second factor that both of these configurations have.
00:37:51 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, in common.
00:37:53 Dr Stuart Black
Is this future focused, you know, is the organization thinking upon or is the board looking upon?
00:37:59 Dr Stuart Black
Where does this organization have to be in five, ten, 1520 years time and therefore working back? What decisions?
00:38:05 Dr Stuart Black
Do we have to make?
00:38:07 Dr Stuart Black
To a lesser extent, as in it's helpful, but not really all that important is the individual data experience, again across both of these configurations.
00:38:18 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, and helpful, but not necessarily critical, is this concept of of.
00:38:25 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, Keydata proximity and biking data proximity I'm talking about.
00:38:31 Dr Stuart Black
Are we close enough to the data that we need?
00:38:36 Dr Stuart Black
Be able to run the right.
00:38:38 Dr Stuart Black
Elements of analysis, so I'll give you an example of what I mean by this.
00:38:43 Speaker 3
One of our.
00:38:45 Dr Stuart Black
Informants was an organization that was selling medical devices.
00:38:50 Dr Stuart Black
And they're Australian company, they sell some medical devices and they use a whole series of distributors around the world to sell their products.
00:38:57 Dr Stuart Black
And what they're really trying to understand is.
00:38:59 Dr Stuart Black
How? When? When?
00:39:00 Dr Stuart Black
Our distributors are making pitches for our products on our behalf.
00:39:04 Dr Stuart Black
How well are those pitches resonating?
00:39:07 Dr Stuart Black
Well, the the distributors or their own organization and they're not sharing that information back with the core manufacturer.
00:39:15 Dr Stuart Black
So they have this kind of data proximity.
00:39:16 Dr Stuart Black
We love to know that data, but we don't have it.
00:39:19 Dr Stuart Black
And there's some other examples like this where you may not necessarily have the data that you really want within your.
00:39:26 Dr Stuart Black
4 walls of the organization.
00:39:27 Dr Stuart Black
Or at least within your extended enterprise that you can get.
00:39:31 Dr Stuart Black
So again, this kind of concept, key data proximity, you know, it's, it's, it's it's a supporting idea, but it's not necessarily core.
00:39:39 Dr Stuart Black
So those two major and two minor factors are common across the two different configurations.
00:39:45 Dr Stuart Black
One configuration however basically says although you know we have those four things and we have an active board, by an active board we're talking about a board that is quite active in.
00:39:59 Dr Stuart Black
In identification, development, stress testing, etc.
00:40:03 Dr Stuart Black
Of strategy, corporate strategy.
00:40:06 Dr Stuart Black
Because you know there's a spectrum upon.
00:40:08 Dr Stuart Black
To what extent is the board or running the organization versus management running the organization and the board is just monitoring enhancing so many of our the configuration of the has a very active board with these other attributes.
00:40:23 Speaker 3
The other one.
00:40:25 Dr Stuart Black
Other configuration essentially has in those.
00:40:28 Dr Stuart Black
Same for you.
00:40:29 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, exploration mindset.
00:40:31 Dr Stuart Black
Future focused.
00:40:34 Dr Stuart Black
And to a lesser extent, individual data experience and Keydata proximity.
00:40:39 Dr Stuart Black
But the other major one it has is this concept of discomfort with competitive current sources.
00:40:45 Dr Stuart Black
Bandage or again, so it's kind of the flip side of future focused.
00:40:49 Dr Stuart Black
Isn't it it?
00:40:51 Dr Stuart Black
Right, 'cause, you people are saying, yeah.
00:40:53 Speaker 3
You know, I, I know we're we are are doing well now, but how long will that last?
00:41:00 Dr Stuart Black
We would need to consciously think through that next generation.
00:41:04 Dr Stuart Black
So those are.
00:41:05 Dr Stuart Black
The two configurations that are kind of driving organizations to think of data as a critical enabler.
00:41:11 Dr Stuart Black
On the flip side, uh?
00:41:15 Dr Stuart Black
Organizations that really kind of see data.
00:41:18 Dr Stuart Black
It's a minimal source of advantage.
00:41:20 Dr Stuart Black
Again, 2 configurations.
00:41:23 Dr Stuart Black
One of those has just one single factor and that is a non active board.
00:41:30 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, the board sees itself purely as governance.
00:41:34 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, yeah, it's kind.
00:41:36 Dr Stuart Black
Of on the extreme end of that, where?
00:41:39
Yeah, we have.
00:41:40 Dr Stuart Black
A we have a very solid relationship between what's the board do, what does management do and as a board we try not to cross that and all questions of strategy or essentially handled by management.
00:41:51 Dr Stuart Black
The second configuration that kind of leads to data as a minimal source is a organization where you really don't have on the board much of an exploration mindset.
00:42:04 Dr Stuart Black
They really aren't very future focused, and to a lesser extent, they're they're.
00:42:09 Dr Stuart Black
You know they're.
00:42:09 Dr Stuart Black
Pretty comfortable with our current source of.
00:42:12 Dr Stuart Black
So it's kind of a case of saying.
00:42:15 Dr Stuart Black
I don't really have a cause to.
00:42:16 Dr Stuart Black
Think through why would.
00:42:17 Dr Stuart Black
We do anything.
00:42:18 Dr Stuart Black
Else you know.
00:42:19 Dr Stuart Black
I'm not really thinking.
00:42:20 Dr Stuart Black
Too far in.
00:42:20 Dr Stuart Black
The future.
00:42:21 Dr Stuart Black
I'm pretty comfortable.
00:42:22 Dr Stuart Black
With what I've got right now.
00:42:24 Speaker 3
And I don't really want.
00:42:25 Dr Stuart Black
To ask the what might be kind of question.
00:42:29 Dr Stuart Black
And so so those.
00:42:29 Dr Stuart Black
Are the kind of the four.
00:42:32 Dr Stuart Black
Configurations that we.
00:42:33 Dr Stuart Black
Now this particular technique has certain.
00:42:36 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, they refer to it as as parameters of fit, essentially like quality thresholds to be able.
00:42:41 Dr Stuart Black
To say how.
00:42:42 Dr Stuart Black
How accurate are these things, and certainly in the information systems literature, which is where this field is?
00:42:50 Dr Stuart Black
The the solution parameters of fit for these solutions are actually reasonably high, so one of my external reviewers was kind of chuckling saying these are pretty.
00:43:04 Dr Stuart Black
Solid results, he if he was just thinking about this out loud before actually doing the analysis, he would not have expected such strong predictive power in these configurations.
00:43:16 Dr Stuart Black
So it's quite it's quite pleasing to hear.
00:43:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So So what I'm hearing is basic.
00:43:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Really, it doesn't matter whether aboard is looking at data as something they're excited about, as a way of, you know, sending rockets to the moon or whatever, or is something they're terrified of destroying their company.
00:43:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
As long as they're actively involved and things will go well, whereas.
00:43:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
If you've got a board that's essentially just rubber stamping decisions, and is.
00:43:47 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Happy just attending board meetings and.
00:43:51 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Just going with the status quo, then you're not going to have a good result with regard to data.
00:43:58 Dr Stuart Black
Oh well, I guess the phrase good result with data can be considered a pejorative term, but one would say yeah, I you and I would consider that bad.
00:44:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
OK.
00:44:07 Dr Stuart Black
Others may not.
00:44:08 Dr Stuart Black
But what I would say is that if you do have a board that has very tight definitions of and very, very clear guardrails.
00:44:18 Dr Stuart Black
Upon what they get involved in, what they don't get involved in.
00:44:22 Speaker 3
As a general.
00:44:23 Dr Stuart Black
Rule organizations with that tend to be pushing back today to as minimal source of.
00:44:29 Dr Stuart Black
It because in that world, the only place that these ideas are coming from is management proposing them.
00:44:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
At the results, are your results dependent on industry?
00:44:40 Dr Stuart Black
No, no.
00:44:41 Dr Stuart Black
So we did come.
00:44:43 Dr Stuart Black
We did do some kind of rough comparatives up, sorry, for each one of the 83 organizations actually I should say that.
00:44:51 Dr Stuart Black
So we we looked about 83 organizations. We probably had sufficient data on 57 of those 83 organizations to to actually do this type.
00:45:03 Dr Stuart Black
Of level of.
00:45:05 Dr Stuart Black
And we have representatives across all eleven of the kicks global industry classification scheme.
00:45:13 Dr Stuart Black
It's a Morgan Stanley thing that says your automotive versus your consumer product or whatever.
00:45:18 Dr Stuart Black
So we had across the 57, we had representatives across all of those and I did do a little bit of sensitivity.
00:45:26 Dr Stuart Black
I mean the numbers are.
00:45:26 Dr Stuart Black
Small, so you can't really get a huge.
00:45:29 Dr Stuart Black
Statistical accuracy on this but.
00:45:31 Dr Stuart Black
By and large, the industry does not play.
00:45:34 Dr Stuart Black
Much of a driver on this.
00:45:36 Dr Stuart Black
At all, which is interesting considering you think upon this whole question of compliance being so much more top of mind in certain industries relative to others.
00:45:47 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I've spent a lot of time working in the financial services industry, which tends to be very compliance focused.
00:45:53 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So I'm surprised that this.
00:45:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Isn't industry dependent.
00:45:58 Dr Stuart Black
So we did actually have a compliance as a priority as one of the nine factors that were included in the analysis by compliance priority, I'm talking about compliance is, import is.
00:46:11 Dr Stuart Black
The number one thing.
00:46:12 Dr Stuart Black
On one extreme versus compliance is good, but still is executing strategy, right, so.
00:46:17 Dr Stuart Black
That kind of.
00:46:18 Dr Stuart Black
Trade off.
00:46:19 Dr Stuart Black
And anyhow, as we worked through the analysis it it turns out that compliance priority really wasn't a significant contributor to whether or not an organization.
00:46:30 Dr Stuart Black
Was active in using data or saw data as a as a minimal source of advantage.
00:46:39 Dr Stuart Black
Which, again, is a little bit counterintuitive, right?
00:46:41 Dr Stuart Black
'cause people would say.
00:46:44 Dr Stuart Black
Highly compliance driven organizations would tend to take uh, a risk or a threat view of the secondary use of data as opposed to an opportunity.
00:46:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I would imagine that having a board with a more passive view of the use of data and with the use of any sorts of technology could be particularly dangerous to the longevity of an organization.
00:47:09 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Would that be right?
00:47:12 Dr Stuart Black
Oh my, my.
00:47:14 Dr Stuart Black
I have not got any data or analysis this to support or to provide you a real answer to that.
00:47:21 Dr Stuart Black
In my gut I say yes because it goes back into this question upon being future focused.
00:47:30 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, if you're only thinking about what happens the next three.
00:47:33 Dr Stuart Black
Nine months or, you know, next recording period they're quoting.
00:47:36 Dr Stuart Black
After that, fine, you'll you'll deliver your numbers against that.
00:47:40 Dr Stuart Black
What happens after that?
00:47:42 Dr Stuart Black
It's unknown and you certainly as a shareholder, I would love to know that my, my, the board of the organizations I'm visiting in our thinking about not just the short term but also the medium in the long term.
00:47:55 Dr Stuart Black
Umm would be my my preference.
00:47:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And if I was an executive or a staff member of one of these organisations, I would also want to have a more active board.
00:48:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Uhm, governing my organization?
00:48:10 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, but there is a well, actually it's interesting.
00:48:15
I would.
00:48:16 Dr Stuart Black
Think that as well, but sometimes you have other.
00:48:20 Dr Stuart Black
There's a whole discussion.
00:48:21 Dr Stuart Black
Upon the degree to which a board should be.
00:48:25 Dr Stuart Black
Active or not?
00:48:26 Dr Stuart Black
Uh and the Aicd Australian student Co.
00:48:30 Dr Stuart Black
Directors will have a particular point of view, the legal scholars that particular point of view.
00:48:34 Dr Stuart Black
I tend to air the other side.
00:48:39 Dr Stuart Black
But I so it won't necessarily.
00:48:40 Dr Stuart Black
Show my bias is on that particular attributes but.
00:48:43 Dr Stuart Black
What I will show is that those boards that tend to be more active.
00:48:48 Dr Stuart Black
Tend to be thinking about this issue more than those boards that are not active.
00:48:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So suppose I'm an executive or a leader in one of these organisations where the board is more passive, but I want to get up and running a data initiative and I'd like to transform the mindset of the board to a more active mindset.
00:49:14 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Is there any strategies that you could?
00:49:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Recommend for doing so.
00:49:20 Dr Stuart Black
Well, I think the first strategy is to highlight the gap.
00:49:26 Dr Stuart Black
Because a lot of people were saying, of course I got an exploration.
00:49:29 Dr Stuart Black
Mindset, you know.
00:49:31 Dr Stuart Black
It's a little hard saying, you know, I don't have an exploration mindset.
00:49:33 Dr Stuart Black
People, people tend to naturally react against that.
00:49:37 Speaker 3
So in.
00:49:39 Dr Stuart Black
In the the research itself, there are some uh.
00:49:44 Dr Stuart Black
Rating scales, some rubrics as it were and I think these are actually can be quite useful. That's kind of self self-assessment type of tools and techniques and we and you saw we had something similar in in the book rate yourself, we're not going to tell you what the answers are but going through that process of of self exploration we say, you know.
00:50:04 Dr Stuart Black
Are we really lined up as a as an organization to support these in issues?
00:50:09 Dr Stuart Black
So I think that's the very first thing I would.
00:50:11 Dr Stuart Black
Do is kind.
00:50:12 Dr Stuart Black
Of up to to deal with your senior stakeholders and try to say typically organizations that succeed.
00:50:20 Dr Stuart Black
Have these attributes.
00:50:22 Dr Stuart Black
Let's see where we are, let's see if there's significant gaps.
00:50:26 Dr Stuart Black
And then we ask the question on what is this?
00:50:28 Dr Stuart Black
What are we going to do?
00:50:29 Dr Stuart Black
About this particular gap.
00:50:31 Dr Stuart Black
And if the gap happens to be something about Keydata proximity, well, maybe you can go off and.
00:50:37 Dr Stuart Black
Talk to legal.
00:50:37 Dr Stuart Black
And procurement if I'm getting access to that data?
00:50:40 Dr Stuart Black
The next time around, or whatever happens to be.
00:50:42 Dr Stuart Black
If it's, uh, I doubt it's going to be individual data experience 'cause we just said it's not that big of a deal, right?
00:50:48 Dr Stuart Black
If it is in exploration mindset or that could.
00:50:52 Dr Stuart Black
Be a slightly.
00:50:53 Dr Stuart Black
More challenging thing for the organization to deal with, yeah, can't really just tell you board of directors saying he has got to be more explorative, but.
00:51:03 Dr Stuart Black
The chairman or chairman off the firm might actually say as we refresh our board, we're starting to think upon this is a specific attribute that we're looking to encourage.
00:51:16 Dr Stuart Black
But that would be a courageous decision by the individual executive to kind of go up to the board and say in order for me to succeed, you guys going to change some things.
00:51:25 Dr Stuart Black
But maybe that's what we have to do.
00:51:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Maybe that's the solution.
00:51:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I mean, if you want to get any of these things up and running, you need to have courageous executives.
00:51:35 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:37 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And courageous individuals in general, I'd say.
00:51:40 Dr Stuart Black
There you go.
00:51:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So we're getting very close to time, but I'm a few final questions, sure.
00:51:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Is there anything on your radar in the AI, data and analytics space that you think is going to become important in the next three to five years?
00:51:58 Dr Stuart Black
Ah yeah, I think that.
00:52:02 Dr Stuart Black
The degree the increasing ability of self-service, analytics and self-service AI is going to be brilliant.
00:52:14 Dr Stuart Black
You know, I I've been out of practice for.
00:52:16 Dr Stuart Black
A little while.
00:52:18 Dr Stuart Black
But one of the modes that I happen to see a lot was I do this, you do that, and as long as that happened, the the people that do this are not thinking about, you know, AI or cloud or anything else like this at potential mechanisms.
00:52:34 Dr Stuart Black
By which they can 6.
00:52:35 Dr Stuart Black
The more that we can actually get kind of these self-service tools and and and and lower the barriers of adoption at an individual level, the more people will play around. It's just their natural.
00:52:48 Dr Stuart Black
Way of thinking.
00:52:49 Dr Stuart Black
And I think that will be really important.
00:52:51 Dr Stuart Black
The second thing I think is.
00:52:55 Dr Stuart Black
The legal regulatory framework is going to really evolve over the next however many years.
00:53:04 Dr Stuart Black
It's behind.
00:53:07 Dr Stuart Black
I mean, we can all kind of chuckled at a instance in the paper. The last 24 hours last 48 hours.
00:53:14 Speaker 3
And how that?
00:53:15 Dr Stuart Black
Relates to data retention issues and all that type of stuff.
00:53:18 Dr Stuart Black
So you know that will all come through.
00:53:21 Speaker 3
Uh, it's a third thing.
00:53:24 Dr Stuart Black
Third thing I think perhaps is that.
00:53:27 Dr Stuart Black
There will be.
00:53:29 Dr Stuart Black
There will continue to be the the evolution of firms and how this moves.
00:53:34 Dr Stuart Black
Forward so if you were.
00:53:35 Dr Stuart Black
Still kind of a little bit on the reluctant side.
00:53:38 Dr Stuart Black
To what extent will you be the absolute minority?
00:53:41 Dr Stuart Black
Now there there are some situations with the last last firm standing can still make a pretty good.
00:53:47 Dr Stuart Black
Market, I actually.
00:53:48 Dr Stuart Black
Read an article about the last individual that's still distributing 3 1/2 inch and five and 1/2 inch floppy disks, and the individual said I'm a lawyer, but somehow I got in this business is actually.
00:53:59 Dr Stuart Black
Reasonably profitable 'cause, I'm the last one around.
00:54:02 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, But I'm thinking that you know for other.
00:54:05 Dr Stuart Black
Types of things.
00:54:05 Dr Stuart Black
You know, all your competitors are moving forward in this particular area.
00:54:09 Dr Stuart Black
How do you start thinking upon where you?
00:54:11 Dr Stuart Black
Want to be in something other than?
00:54:13 Dr Stuart Black
I'll do that too.
00:54:15 Dr Stuart Black
How do you really, how do you deal with?
00:54:16
Right.
00:54:17 Dr Stuart Black
So those would be the three things.
00:54:19 Dr Stuart Black
I'm talking about.
00:54:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What you were saying about the market for 3 1/2 inch floppy disks?
00:54:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That reminds me of apparently, if you can program in COBOL, there's quite a big market because there are so many legacy systems that require COBOL programming.
00:54:36 Dr Stuart Black
That's right.
00:54:36 Dr Stuart Black
So we can chuckle about it, but chuckling about it and laughing about it doesn't doesn't deny the fact it is there.
00:54:44 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Oh yeah.
00:54:47 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And what final advice would you give to organizations looking to maximize the value of their data?
00:54:53 Dr Stuart Black
Ah, that's a, that's a.
00:54:56 Dr Stuart Black
Easy one.
00:54:58 Dr Stuart Black
Don't ask the question.
00:55:00 Dr Stuart Black
Are we maximizing our data?
00:55:01 Dr Stuart Black
Don't ask that question.
00:55:02 Dr Stuart Black
Don't start there.
00:55:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
OK.
00:55:04 Dr Stuart Black
Ask yourself.
00:55:06 Dr Stuart Black
Where are we?
00:55:07 Dr Stuart Black
Where are we going?
00:55:09 Dr Stuart Black
And then to what extent this data help us get there, right.
00:55:12 Dr Stuart Black
'cause if you.
00:55:14 Dr Stuart Black
'cause if you keep thinking about it, we maximize and use the data.
00:55:16 Dr Stuart Black
Data, you know, let me, my wife is.
00:55:21 Dr Stuart Black
Brought home something.
00:55:23 Dr Stuart Black
It's, you know, somebody looking employee survey.
00:55:25 Speaker 3
And they're really.
00:55:26 Dr Stuart Black
Focusing upon their employee survey completion rates.
00:55:31 Dr Stuart Black
And really focus, we want to get 70% of people completing this survey. I'm like.
00:55:36 Dr Stuart Black
Isn't that the kind of the wrong number?
00:55:38 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, I get the fact that if you don't have at least a certain percentage of people, that's a sign.
00:55:43 Dr Stuart Black
That they aren't engaged.
00:55:45 Dr Stuart Black
Just the fact you got a.
00:55:45 Dr Stuart Black
90% employee.
00:55:47 Dr Stuart Black
Completion rate of employee survey data doesn't mean you have happened.
00:55:51 Dr Stuart Black
Happy employees do and I think it with data it's a similar type of thing.
00:55:56 Dr Stuart Black
The question is not, sorry, the explicit question shouldn't be are we maximizing data that should be the the the enabler for the broader question of how are we generating them.
00:56:08 Dr Stuart Black
Most value and you and I would say one of the most natural ways of doing that is through data.
00:56:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So don't let daughter become a hammer in search of a nail, so to speak.
00:56:20 Dr Stuart Black
Exactly, exactly.
00:56:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
This has been fantastic and I could quite happily talk for another hour but.
00:56:28
Ha ha ha.
00:56:30 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'm sure our listeners have other things that they need to do.
00:56:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
For listeners who want to learn more about you or get in contact, what can they do?
00:56:40 Dr Stuart Black
Sure, I'm in LinkedIn, so.
00:56:42 Dr Stuart Black
Stuart black.
00:56:44 Dr Stuart Black
The one that's in Melbourne?
00:56:46 Dr Stuart Black
Uh, my parents should have made my name a little bit.
00:56:48 Dr Stuart Black
More unique it.
00:56:50 Dr Stuart Black
Was in Nebraska, but not down here.
00:56:52 Dr Stuart Black
Let me tell you, I'm also accessible at the University of Melbourne area. It's stuart.black@unimelb.edu dot AU at some point in time.
00:57:04 Dr Stuart Black
One of my coauthors is going to prove our our our little micro site for our book up, and I I had the, ER, Ellen tip of my tongue outside URL to put my tongue, but I.
00:57:15 Dr Stuart Black
Forgot what? That.
00:57:15 Dr Stuart Black
Happens to be, but certainly get in touch with me through my e-mail.
00:57:21 Dr Stuart Black
Or actually my mobile telephone number, which is no big deal, 0408774330. Let's have a chat. Good.
00:57:28 Dr Stuart Black
To keep going.
00:57:29 Dr Stuart Black
And more importantly, what I'm really hoping.
00:57:33 Dr Stuart Black
Is that?
00:57:34 Dr Stuart Black
This type of work.
00:57:37 Dr Stuart Black
Kicks off success across Australia.
00:57:40 Dr Stuart Black
I've got a lot of kids and they're all kind of coming up in working age population, so my goal is to to make this a really vibrant and prosperous country.
00:57:49 Dr Stuart Black
And hopefully through data.
00:57:50 Dr Stuart Black
So anything I can do to accelerate that?
00:57:52 Dr Stuart Black
Just give me a.
00:57:54 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Great mission.
00:57:56 Dr Stuart Black
Yeah, well, you gotta have a mission to do something, right?
00:57:58 Dr Stuart Black
Why not make it big and bold?
00:58:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And for anyone who's interested in reading stews book, I got my copy on Amazon Australia, so you can definitely get it there and I'm sure there are other retailers that are also selling it.
00:58:13 Dr Stuart Black
And and hopefully that's just version one.
00:58:15 Dr Stuart Black
Soon we'll have version 2.
00:58:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I look forward to.
00:58:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So thank you for joining me today, Stew.
00:58:23 Dr Stuart Black
My pleasure. It was fun.
00:58:25 Dr Stuart Black
We should do this more often.
00:58:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'll hold you to that.
00:58:31 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And for those in the audience, thank you for listening.
00:58:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'm doctor Genevieve Hayes and this has been value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting.