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Benny's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennybenford/
Benny's Substack: https://www.datent.com/p/elevating-data-to-a-profession-why
In this episode, Scott interviewed Benny Benford, the former CDO at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and who is currently building out a community around data transformation. To be clear, he was only representing his own views on the episode.
Some key takeaways/thoughts from Benny's point of view:
Benny started off talking about data culture and organizational culture. He doesn't believe you can separate the two but it is a common desire among data leaders to do so. Data culture is something you build and create as an aspect of your organizational culture. Otherwise, you will always be fighting against the tide of your organizational culture. It all needs to be integrated change/transformation. Otherwise the organizational changes will be in conflict with your data culture changes. And people are employees of the organization, not only the data team, at the end of the day.
"If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." For Benny, that emphasizes the long-term transformation efforts you need to drive to a better data culture. You can go somewhere quick but if everyone is going somewhere quick, there is no cohesion, no real concerted change to the organization and thus the culture. If you have a general transformation team, align with them. Align on the overall corporate goals and leverage them to drive your data culture transformation. Yes, slightly harder than just creating your own but far more effective and long-lasting :) Yes, you want to get your data transformation initiatives as part of the org strategy but it doesn't have to be the main focus. And it might take a bit of time to make it a core pillar of the strategy but that's how you do effective change management: building to better over time.
Benny made the excellent point that while it can be tempting to leverage the attention data is getting in many orgs to try to drive major organizational culture change, it's almost certainly not what the org is asking a data leader to do. Just because there is some 'juice' there, it's not where a data leader should focus. Ask if your job is really leading the organizational change or is it about delivering on data related objectives?
While pressing for an open data sharing culture is great in spirit, Benny has seen it can stoke a lot of fears - what happens if someone looks deeply into my line of business/domain to try to find mismanagement or incorrect decisions? And that could happen in a very competitive organization. That is why the cultural guidance needs to come from senior management and the board of directors around what would be considered unethical internal use. Assuring people there will be consequences for trying to undermine instead of help other lines of business can reduce a lot of fears. When JLR opened up their data sharing, it felt like a risky proposition but really, because the guidelines were clear and it was about opening up much more information access, it went very smoothly and significantly improved collaboration.
Benny pressed on the idea that we can solve every eventuality, every challenge in a data transformation ahead of time. Of course, we all know that's not possible. People will be afraid of change, that's normal. But having a good transformation strategy incorporates that fear and addresses it by having good ways to uncover and address emerging challenges. Assure people that while you don't have every answer, you have their back.
It's also very common for data leaders to really lack experience in transformation initiatives according to Benny. While data leaders are really good at data, that lack of transformation experience can be hard. Lean into this isn't about going it alone, we're in this together :)
Benny is a big proponent - a champion you might say - of champion's forums. Essentially having a place where champions of your data initiatives can exchange information with each other and your data leadership team are crucial because you can find your existing challenge points much easier. If you take in their feedback, they feel seen and heard and lean in even more. You also have great points of leverage to inspire others based on the success of your champions.
When moving from a centralized to a decentralized structure for the data team, Benny saw a lot of fear from those in the centralized team. Would they even have a role in the changed organization? What was their career path? You don't want to lose your data talent - it's so expensive and hard to replace - so be clear about the path forward for them. There is always uncertainty but try to show them they are and will continue to be valued.
Another experience from JLR that worked well for Benny and team was that when he was hired as a data leader, he realized he probably couldn't lead all of the transformation of focusing on both the day-to-day execution on data projects and the overall change program. So he got in a second leader to lead the projects while he focused on the program aspect. Transformation doesn't happen in a vacuum, people need to be focused on that specifically. That's the program aspect. Just executing well won't transform your team and culture.
Similarly, Benny shared how they built a transformation flywheel around data - at first, it was training a few people as part of the central data team's time, training them to act on their own in their lines of business. They didn't even have budget for this training specifically in year one, two, or even three as it continued to grow to 100s of people. They started seeding the organization with data capable champions that pushed others to take the data training. And after a few years, the training was so much in demand, it was too big for the data team to own so they brought in external trainers. But you can start small and have a big impact.
Benny recommends when getting started with - or really any point along the way of - a data transformation initiative, a big benefit is to get people used to and comfortable with the idea of imperfection in data. You can capture great value even around something that isn't perfect. And it will never be perfect. That's okay. Nothing in this world that is complicated ever gets to perfect!
Deep partnering with other parts of the organization might seem obvious but in Benny's experience, it isn't all that commonly done by data leaders. The data team should have partnerships with HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing, etc. And if you have a transformation office, that should be your number one best friend internally. You need partners to move the organization forward. And that also means data leaders need skills that aren't just data skills.
Benny wrapped on that point - what is a data leader's role in a large organization? Their role is rarely to focus on the data work itself anymore and that can be a bit of gut punch for those who love data. But it's about building the bridges to the rest of the organization and helping them do their work better. That means you're still doing the data work, just with the lens of bringing it into your business partners' context. Still, it can be frustrating and hard to give that data work up. That's not unusual or unexpected, it's just part of what it means to take on that data leadership role.
Quick tidbit:
Data culture and Agile culture, Agile transformation end up being pretty similar in many respects. Look to how organizations are successfully implementing Agile transformations to inform your data transformation strategies.
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