There is no “I” In “CDO” and, given the expansive mandate given to newly appointed Chief Data Officers by organisations hoping to capitalise on their data assets, it is clear that building an effective team is critical. But what are the formulaic principles that can foster innovation, creativity and extract tangible results from your team?
Let’s use the analogy of sport. Rarely are sports teams composed of a group of homogenous skills, but rather, built from individuals who are highly-proficient in diverse facets of the game. In football for instance we have; the Midfielder, Goalkeeper, Striker, Winger, Defender and various other specialised positions. Combining these varying attributes in a cohesive manner can have incredibly positive results. This one example demonstrates the great importance of diversity as one of the key considerations for success.
Diversity is a term which has become rather inescapable in today’s society, especially as of late given the recent media coverage of the Oscars. However, within varying contexts, its true meaning can become rather ambiguous. So what does diversity really mean and what is its relevance for today’s CDOs? More importantly, does it truly it matter?
What Does Diversity Really Mean?
A study by McKinsey & Company on diversity within the workplace found that gender and ethnic diverse companies are more likely to outperform their counterparts by 15% and 35% respectively. However, diversity goes a lot further than merely subjects of gender, colour, religion, sexual orientation or age – typical connotations usually associated when discussing diversity. It is also based on experiences, education and skills. This is especially crucial given the need for CDOs to succinctly marry business knowledge and technical acumen, as IBM, have suggested, “The best preparation for a CDO team member may be a varied set of experiences, including technical, business and analytical roles. If individuals with this combined skill set cannot be found, build a team with balanced expertise across these areas, and encourage on-going communication among the team members.”
However, one of the great inhibitors in combining heterogeneous individuals possessing varied skills can come with large, multidisciplinary corporations which often operate on an international scale. I recently spoke with a Director of Analytics from a large e-commerce company who emphasised this issue stating that, “one of the great challenges in data and analytics organisations is that we tend to build pockets of expertise in one location or we optimise resources by time zones. For example, we might have data teams in China, analytics teams in India, insight analysts in Europe, and infrastructure teams in the US. This leads to organisational silos and insular ways of working”.
Diversity, which is disparate in nature, can essentially undermine and potentially harm operational effectiveness.
Hence, diversity, which is disparate in nature can essentially undermine and potentially harm operational effectiveness. They then went on to state that, “new CDOs need to think about blending talented people together in every geography covering every skill set. This is a tough nut to crack as many organisations are already over matrixed and moving headcount around is often a political battle rather than a philosophical one.”
The Challenges in Achieving Diversity
This highlights the challenges in advocating and implementing a diversity strategy when building a team. Some undesired by-products of diversification could come in the form of: communication barriers including perceptual, cultural, language and information asymmetry; management politics and internal inertia - all of which need to be overcome.
The challenges in achieving diversity are also emphasised in recent studies suggesting that women account for an average of just 16% of the members of executive teams in the United States, 12% in the United Kingdom, and 6% in Brazil. More specifically, studies by Francine Berman, Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have found that only 25% of the computer and mathematical sciences workforce are women although more than 40% of degrees in statistics go to women. Perhaps what is needed is a cultural change? Organisations such as Airbnb have set an example to their peers by increasing the ratio of female members of their data science team from 15% to 30% in 2015, with 47% of its new hires being women. This effort was in response to an acknowledgement of a severe lack of female representation in the hiring of new data science talent.
‘Diversity’ Must Be Spearheaded by a CDO
Although diversity does produce a number of benefits, it provides only a partial solution to the equation. To impart real tangible benefits to productivity and innovation, diversity must be harmonious and spearheaded by a CDO with a strong understanding of people and the business model, pioneering a vision as well as the roadmap to accomplish the task at hand.
Personally, I could not think of a better candidate to assemble the right components to build the best team possible because in some ways, building a team is not too far removed from the everyday workings of a CDO, only now you are extracting maximum value from individuals rather than data sets. Perhaps people are indeed more complex than data…
Although diversity does produce a number of benefits, it provides only a partial solution to the equation.
Learn more about ingraining diversity within your data teams at the Chief Data Officer Forum, Europe 2016 convening from the 9-11th May in London. This premier event will include a Masterclass on Building Data Teams and Women in Data Networking Breakfast, discussing the significant contribution of women to the wider data sphere as well as the empowerment of women in data, helping to promote future engagement in the next generation of data leaders.
For more information, visit www.coriniumintelligence.com. Join the Chief Data Officer Forum on LinkedIn here.
By Andrew Odong:
Andrew Odong is the Content Director US/Europe for the CDO Forum. Andrew is currently producing the CDO Forum, Europe 2016, researching with the industry about the opportunities and key challenges for enterprise data leadership and innovating an interactive discussion-led platform to bring people together to address those issues – the CDO Forum has become a global series having been launched in five continents. For enquiries email: andrew.odong@coriniumintelligence.com
