I heard it again the other day. Somebody said with reverent certainty that, “The data never lie.” So, here’s my quarterly rant about the perils of blind allegiance to data.
The sad
truth is that data lie all the time, in so many creative and interesting ways.
As leaders, managers and analysts, it’s our responsibility to understand that
data are only as good as the people and processes used to collect, interpret
and apply them. It’s always our duty to ask probing questions about any data we’re
presented.
Financial Times columnist Tim Harford provided a
good case in point on Saturday. He reported that the homicide rate in England
and Wales was reported to have jumped an alarming 21 percent in 2016. 21
percent! That’s 100 additional homicides over the 2015 figures. Public
officials decried the new statistic and, depending upon their interests,
ideologies or party affiliations, played it up or down in varying ways.
It turns
out, however, that 96 of those 100 additional homicides actually occurred in the
1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster. Once these deaths 27 years ago had
been reclassified by the government at the conclusion of an official review, they
were rolled into the most recent year’s totals – for reasons that make no sense
whatsoever. The lesson for us all when it comes to interpreting and applying
data is to read the fine print.
Photo courtesy of memegenerator.net