Seth Godin on data dependency →
Seth Godin on data and faith:
In my experience, data crowds out faith. […]
The skeptic will always find a reason, even if it’s one the rest of us don’t think is a good one. Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission — which is emotional connection.I’ve noticed a pattern.
At the start of a project, you arrive at the first meeting with all the documentation that’s ever transpired between you and person X. Every binder, document, SOW, business plan, and paper clip — you have it and carry it faithfully to each meeting.
As projects unfold, you become less dependent on artifacts, the stack of paper gets smaller. You arrive at meetings with less. The more meetings you have, the fewer meeting paraphernalia you bring. And by the last meeting — once you’ve really connected with a project — you can show up with nothing but a pencil.
Less dependency on data, as he says, can yield an emotional connection.
It is an interesting argument, but it’s not data or no data is what matters. It’s attitude and communication in the first place. The “pattern of less” is more about experience than about emotional connection.
When I first come to meeting to talk about a project, I’ve got to establish a position, make sure that the team speaks the same language and has agreed to follow the same set of goals, or that I understand them well. To have that I need some trust from the team who doesn’t know anything about me or project. Or they might know me but be oblivious about the project. In any case they need some neutral foundation for their belief — it doesn’t just get all big and strong out of nowhere.
Data is this foundation — and a way for me to prove that I know what I’m talking about. And if the meeting is with customer, this helps to show and prove that actually, you know, that I care. If I don’t have the data and reference stuff at hand then I am taking a huge risk of actually losing ground, and we might easily end up wasting time on argument over opinions and authority.
But over time stuff gets memorized and “dissolved” in a sort of collective unconscious of the team. Beliefs and trust get built with each passing week and with every meeting, with failures and successes. The team itself becomes the keeper of the knowledge — and when someone expresses an opinion, it can be validated by the overall experience of the group. It’s quite the same when coming to existing team — artifacts become a sign of “I’m catching up and I’m eager to learn”, as well as a fallback reference, in the form of hard data. Stacks of paper are a sign of newcomer, be it team or a person.
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But Seth’s words, while true in some cases, are more dangerous than useful — precisely because there’s no definitive agreement on what “too much data” means. You don’t build belief at once. And data, hard evidence, facts, numbers and documents are one of the best ways to build common grounds. When you’re skipping it for “emotional connection” in the first place — it’s more preaching, asking for a leap of faith, often without a reason or purpose other than your profit or advantage.
But if you’re using the data for smart tricks, with a bit of smoke here and a couple of mirrors there, with some creative accounting in the books — it doesn’t help either. Data is a tool, but it’s not absolution. So instead of “avoid too much data, nurture faith” the whole post could’ve gone with “care about people, prove yourself with facts and achievements, ignore skeptics”.
