The Meaning and Impact of Data: From Individuals to Companies

Decision-making is a process of exploring the possibilities, and merging with a group or themselves in order to come up with a solution. Using data to make a decision can be explained in numerous ways.  Corporations, schools, students, teachers, scientists, researchers, innovation teams, and individuals use data to make decisions every day.  Making a decision based on data is common for everyone that is human.  We make decisions from what we read, write, see, and hear.

In dealing with the question of, how enormous amounts of data leads people to change their concept of how the world works involves sources like the media, press, and face-to-face conversations. Making sense of data and information to make a decision is in our human nature.  Some examples of the decision that we make are weather reports seen on TV, the prices of what food is in grocery stores, what school to go to, and what doctor to see.  Using the information that is available to us guides us through life.  During our days as humans we can decide not to deicide, and make decisions that we think are sometimes right and wrong.   

Thinkers and feelings are two categories of what kind of decision maker someone is.  A thinker may use things such as there reason, logic, and objectives in order to make a decision.  In order for a feeler to make a decision they use their, heart, and values.  This relates to the specific data that an individual chooses to believe or use.    

In the business culture data and decision-making is a very important skill to have not only to help others but individuals that are making a decision.  This brings up the topic of problem solving within a business, and a lot of the time this is put on the CEO, management, and team leaders.  In a professional environment using data to problem solve and make a decision requires recognizing the task at hand.  In a business and corporation it is important not to make decisions that will hurt the company. Sociology of Management, a current course I am taking discusses how good corporations make decisions that help and at times hurt a business. How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins one of he required books for class explains decision making and how data/information from successful and unsuccessful companies can help other corporations succeed. Decisions making has two major stages, problem identification and problem solutions.  Problem identification is “information about environmental and organizational conditions that are monitored to determine if performance is satisfactory in order to diagnose the cause of shortcomings, while the problem solution is a stage where alternative courses of action are considered and one alternative is selected and then implemented”.  How does this relate to the topic of how data leads people to change notions of how the world works?  Well, to make a decision in business there are steps that need to be taken to insure that the right decision is made. 

Data is collected from several parts of a company in order to hire the right people in order to put the right people in charge. Data is also collected to show and give other businesses a format to follow when hiring the right people. This is seen in a study done by Jim Collins, in How the Mighty Fall.  He describes two companies, Hewlett Packer (HP) and International Business Machines (IBM).  Both companies hire new CEO’s in order to achieve excellence after the corporations have fell tremendously in the early 1990’s.  HP hired Carly Fiornia, because the board at HP wanted a powerful, glamorous, exciting and celebrity leader.  In 1999, right before Fiornia was hired she was announced as the most powerful woman, right above Oprah Winfrey.  Fiornia did not succeed the expectations of the company because even though she was so powerful she didn’t use the right techniques and steps.  Fiornia made rash and fast decisions that helped the company in the short-run, but then hurt HP in the long run.  She was too busy with creating new slogans, and attracting media such as The Wall Street Journal, and even did a TV commercial.  She was eventually fired because the company began to fall.  In contrast to HP, the newly hired CEO of IBM, Louis V. Gerstner wanted to first concentrate on the task at hand and began to meet with management face-to-face to collect data in order to organize a plan for success.  He took a much different approach then Fiornia where his priorities revolved around basic activities, such as making sure the right people were in key seats.  He wanted to “regain profitability, increase cash flow, and put the costumer back at the center of everything” (Collins).  He took a much more pedestrian method, and declined to many interviews, and stories that media wanted to do on him because he saw that it would hurt the company and take it off track. 

When compared to Fiornia, and asked why he didn’t feel a sense of crises? He stated, “I have a sense of urgency that never changes whether we’re doing well or poorly.”  This is the right way to do things because he saw the large picture of things, while Fiornia didn’t.  In conclusion Gerstner increased profitability by slow and gradual change, while Fiornia used a more erratic pattern of change that did not work.    

This is just one example of many that show how data can change the way people’s notions of the world; in this case it was a company atmosphere.  Reviewing data, forming hypothesis, and creating the right plans of action helps not only companies but also every day people in society.  Both IBM and HP wanted to become great companies and they hired new CEO’s to help them do this.  Both companies collected data and information that helped them succeed and not succeed.  When a company fails the blame cannot only be put on the CEO’s/ leader but it is the data that the board of that company used.  Data is used to move toward a goal of creating positive change, and the decisions from that data can also be unsuccessful.
Why Data Matters

Innovation, invention, and implementation are also aspects within a company where data.  These are three aspects that companies use to become an effective and powerful force.  In order to become a successful competitor in the corporation world, companies must take risks, accept failure and work from their failures, and get everyone from small employees to large to participate in plans and implement them.  It is a company as a whole, and not just one person that collects data that they see important.  Getting the whole company involved in data collection is very important in decision-making because it is a deciding factor of a successful corporation.