Grow Kind: Data Dive

In this week’s episode of The LeaderLab, we continue our discussion about how leaders can play an active role in helping their teams and people through periods of growth in the kindest way possible. We invite Rachel Glick, Director of Consulting & Team Enablement at LifeLabs Learning, to explain how leaders can take a look beneath the surface of their team’s data to uncover the inputs contributing to performance outcomes using a Data Diiiive (and no, that’s not a typo — find out what the four I’s stand for by listening to the full episode).

Want to help your organization grow kind? Get in touch with us to find out which learning experiences are right for your team.

[Music by Blue Dot Sessions]

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

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SPEAKER_01: 0:03

Welcome to the Leader Lab, the podcast powered by LifeLabs Learning. I'm your host, LifeLabs Leadership Trainer and Director of Product Strategy and Operations, Vanessa Tenisian. Join me and my lab mates as we distill our findings into powerful leadership tipping point skills, the smallest changes that make the biggest impact in the shortest time. We'll also welcome members from our learning community who share how they experiment with these skills in their world of work and beyond. Hello, Leader Lab listeners, and welcome to another episode about growing kind. How can your company not only survive a scaling environment, but thrive? Today, I have one of my favorite lab mates on the show. And I guess I keep saying favorite for everyone because everyone's amazing. But Rachel Glick is an especially incredible human. She's been at LifeLabs for five years and is now the director of consulting and team enablement. And honestly, she's a ray of sunshine. It's kind of a nickname we have for around these parts. Welcome to the show, Rachel. Thank you, Vanessa. I'm very excited

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

to be here. Ah,

SPEAKER_01: 1:10

I'm so excited to see you here. Considering that you support all of our program consultants and, you know, enriching their skills, I'd love for you to enrich us with a new growing kind tool. So what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Yes, I am very excited to talk about an enablement tool called doing a data dive. The data dive. So do I got to put on some goggles here? Are we going swimming? We are definitely going scuba diving, swimming, you name it. We're really looking beneath the surface of our data to understand what it's telling us.

SPEAKER_01: 1:41

Oh my gosh. If you didn't know, Rachel Glick is one of the queens of metaphor. So let's keep swimming, y'all. What is the importance of a data dive and what is it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:49

So a data dive is a coaching tool a performance enablement tool it's what I want leaders and managers to have in their toolkit when they're seeing that perhaps a direct report is doing something really well or perhaps they're underperforming what are those inputs that are contributing to those outcomes that's what the data dive helps us do

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

oh my gosh and I think that's so interesting because honestly in the world of work we work so hard that we don't necessarily look up and figure out like what are the things that we're doing that are resulting in those outcomes so So what are the

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

components of a data dive? Maybe you use OKRs, which is objectives and key results. But all of these are just fancy acronyms for metrics.

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

So I know that the data dive with four eyes is a Rachel Glick original. What prompted you to create this tool?

SPEAKER_00: 3:07

It's a great question, Vanessa. I actually want people to feel ownership and autonomy around their performance. And if they understand it through, you know, feeling inspired, feeling informed, knowing those levers that they can pull, that will actually help them. actually help them feel more meaning, feel more progress, feel more autonomy, feel more certainty about their role. So it was really catalyzed by wanting people to feel great about what they're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

And I love that because it really mirrors and you use the exact words of our camps model, which is all about effective conversations that leaders can have with their direct reports.

SPEAKER_00: 3:43

I'd say so. I think it is a tool that unlocks all of the things the brain craves, especially when it relates to our performance. So we're asking people to feel a level of ownership. Exactly. It shows your direct report that you're in their corner to say, let's get curious. Let's investigate. Let's go underneath the surface to think about those things that you can do that you have control over. I

SPEAKER_01: 4:06

see what you did there underneath the surface. Love them diving metaphors. Yeah. And one thing we do know from research about locus of control is that it bolsters confidence and it actually like lessens stress. So to be able to offer that to your team, it keeps coming up again and again and that idea of psychological safety. Like this doesn't have to be a scary conversation, it seems like.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

Exactly. It's like there is a lot going on in the world and there is a lot that is outside of our control. And when you focus on that, that increase of worry, that amygdala hijack can happen, that stress response comes into play. And that won't be helpful when it comes to the morale of our team. If anything, the data dive enables us to make this conversation be one of curiosities and exploration and like what might we uncover? How can we swim towards this goal together? Oh my gosh, I'm super excited to try this out. Okay, so let's dive in. So the first I is inspire. First and foremost, we want to make a statement to ground us in meaning that inspires our direct reports because we aren't feeling inspired or motivated. Why are we even here? Next is inform. I like to often say that clear is kind. If we're doing a deep dive, into their data, we want to make sure that we're aligned on what is it that we're talking about? Where is this thing coming from? What is it telling us? The next thing is influence. Now that we know what it is that we're talking about, what that data point or metric is, this is where we can get excited about what inputs contribute to the outcomes. So what are all of the tools, resources, or behaviors in our toolkit? And then lastly, we don't want to just know these We want to do these things. So then we have implement, which is all about taking what we've learned today and committing to action. Oh

SPEAKER_01: 5:59

my goodness. Okay. So four I's that I can use as a leader to make checking metrics not such a scary thing. I'm loving it. So let's talk about the flip side. I get pretty nervous myself when I have to do a stats check, when I have to look at my KPIs, when I have to deal with the numbers. Can you tell us a little bit about what causes some of that anxiety from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00: 6:21

Yeah. I would say in traditional performance management styles, like I said, there's just an emphasis on the outcomes. You have to be hitting these numbers. It's all about the output. It's all about hitting the success marks. And while it is true that we are held accountable to metrics, just having someone feel like that's all there is to it can create that anxiety that you're talking about. What we want to shift from is like that amygdala hijack, you either have it or you don't, to instead empowering and lifting people up to say, how might we get there? Let's get curious. Definitely. What else does the research say about autonomy, engagement? I would say another big thing that the data dive unlocks is what we call the PIDE score. So it's perceived investment in employee development. So the Journal of Managerial Psychology actually conducted a study on social exchange theory. Really, this is the idea that the more an organization invests in their people, the more the employees will reinvest in the organizations. There's actually a correlation between someone feeling a high PIDE score and their ability to take charge in an organization.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

It feels like a win-win-win all over the place, which is especially important as we're growing. We need leadership in so many different realms. So that's super exciting to hear. I'm so, I guess, thirsty. We'll keep going with the water analogies now. For taste of a data dive, can we do a practice round?

SPEAKER_00: 7:49

Let's dive into it. No pun intended

SPEAKER_01: 7:52

or all the puns

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

true let's say timeliness with response and client communication is the focus so you have a direct report who has had a lag in their response time and our expectation is 48 hours got you so the first step is inspire so first we're gonna make a statement that inspires them and reconnects them to their work

SPEAKER_01: 8:18

okay inspire i would say you know it's incredible important that we get folks the answers that they need in order to get the learners into the room. The faster that we can do this, the more impact that we can have

SPEAKER_00: 8:30

in the long run. I love that. I am now feeling inspired. The next step is inform. So we want to be clear about what the expectation is and where people can find that expectation. So inform. So, hey,

SPEAKER_01: 8:46

I noticed that about 30% of your emails going out are behind the our service level agreement, you know, the amount of time we say we're going to take. And you can see this in your development tracker as well as the team metrics. So I want you to know that that is what's expected.

SPEAKER_00: 9:01

Exactly. You're highlighting what's expected, where they can find it. Perfect. So now we want to talk about influence. Given that we're seeing they aren't being timely at this moment, what inputs could increase their outputs?

SPEAKER_01: 9:14

Yeah. So when I think about this, we would probably have a conversation about what's within their locus of control. So do they need to count Is there some other accountability measure that would help them out? Or is it the fact that they need some more support or we're behind on headcount? There's so many things that we can influence to impact that metric. So I think we could explore it in a number of different ways.

SPEAKER_00: 9:37

I love that. These are all options for how we could influence and increase that timeliness. From there, we want to implement. So what might you do to help them take action?

SPEAKER_01: 9:48

Well, considering I would probably have this conversation in a one-on-one I would ask them by the next one-on-one, what is the next small step that they can put into place, figuring out what it is that they want to implement and then checking in by their next one-on-one. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

You officially just did your first data

SPEAKER_01: 10:05

dive. How did that feel? Man, I am feeling... Good. I was trying to find a dive reference, but I think I'm plum out. But that brings us to our Leader Lab listener experiment. So Rachel, what are you asking our listeners to experiment with in their laboratories

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

of life? This week, whenever you're talking about performance, I recommend that you experiment with a data dive to understand what inputs are leading to their outcomes.

SPEAKER_01: 10:34

Oh, fantastic. I can feel people swimming under those waves already. Thank you so much for being on the show, Rach. Thank you for having me, Vanessa. And that's a wrap of another episode of The Leader Lab Podcast, powered by LifeLabs Learning. If you're loving The Leader Lab, subscribe so you never miss an episode. The Leader Lab is executive produced and hosted by me, Vanessa Tenisian. Alana Berman is our creative director and senior editor. Juliana Jack is our assistant editor. Lauren Feller is our associate producer. And Yadier James is our senior producer. You can find all our episodes, transcripts, and more at lifelabslearning.com slash podcast. While you're there, you can learn more about our learning program to help you build an engaged high impact team faster. See you in the lab.