When I was growing up, I loved baseball. I loved playing it. I loved watching it. But most of all, I loved checking out baseball statistics.
Even though I was no math whiz, my young mind recognized that those numbers I saw in the newspaper box scores were actually a barometer. A player who batted to a .330 average with 30 Home Runs and 100 Runs Batted In would be someone I’d want to see starting for my favorite team. One who batted .210 with 5 homers and 25 RBI would not.
Whenever I saw those guys with poor statistics in a box score, I responded with bemusement. Why would a team run a player out there who hadn’t proven he could hit?
Of course, I failed to consider the ancillary reasons for those low numbers. Maybe the player was known for his outstanding defense. Maybe he was anxious because his wife was due any day with their first child. Maybe he was suffering from colitis but trying to tough it out anyway.
These scenarios wouldn’t erase goose eggs in a box score. But they would put them into context.
In particular, they had the power to integrate the human element into an industry based on numerical benchmarks. And given baseball’s legacy of pageantry and tradition, this element was sorely needed.
***
Sadly, that human element is harder to find these days.
It’s long gone from baseball. Statisticians are now an integral part of the sport’s brain trust, and players are judged on obscure metrics like WAR, Exit Velocity, Launch Angle and Spin Rate. (Sometimes, when I tune in to a baseball broadcast, I feel like I’m watching cyborgs.)
But it’s disappeared from many other industries as well. Big data is in vogue and seemingly every decision out there comes from cold, hard numbers. A whole new class of employees spend their days looking at analytics and reporting to their bosses solely on those very same numbers. They might not know it, but these analysts are now the key cogs that define their employers’ strategies.
This all seems well and good on the surface. More young adults can now have access to corporate jobs that actually impact their employers’ strategies. And companies don’t have to gamble with profitability each time they change things up; the cold, hard data is within arm’s reach.
But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find the quandary.
***
We were never meant to take the human element out of the equation. Anyone who’s watched Star Trek knows that instinct and emotion are just as critical as logic in completing our mission.
On a high level, our love affair with data-based decision making excludes us from any growth opportunities that require breaking from the norm, or bending the rules. It sacrifices our independence of thought in favor of hard numbers, thereby compromising our integrity.
But on a more basic level, our all-in data approach has created a new class of professionals. A class that is as stuck in the mud as Joe Pesci was in My Cousin Vinny.
You see, it’s relatively easy to analyze data that’s already there. Assuming one has a certain level of specialization, it’s even a secure area to work in.
But this type of occupation doesn’t provide a great opportunity for growth. There’s no need to go beyond the numbers. After all, no one’s looking for us to do that.
***
We were meant for something greater. We weren’t meant to be analysts. We were meant to be innovators.
And while the world at large seems to be pulling in the other direction, we don’t have to follow suit.
We have more to contribute than the digits on our spreadsheets and the colored arrows on our charts. There are untold stories behind those trends and totals. Stories that tie the often-unpredictable course of human psychology to the concrete data we cultivate like corn on a Nebraska field.
We must tell those stories to tie everything together. We must tell these stories to forge a new way forward for a society that has doubled down on a solitary variable. We must tell these stories to lead.
This process might seem uncomfortable. Unsafe even.
That’s OK. Innovators never take the well-worn path.
But regardless of our apprehension, we owe it to ourselves to explore our true potential. We owe it to humanity to take that leap. We owe it to our future to make the right choice.
Analyst or innovator?
The answer should be clear.