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014 - The Power of Story Telling
171 Plays1 year ago
๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ข๐ฆ๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐๐ง๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ญ๐?
The ability to influence is pivotal for success in data. After all, the role of a data function is to inform business decision-making. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through Storytelling.
Excited to share the latest episode of The Stacked Data Podcast, where I had the privilege of chatting with Phil Thirlwell, the Director of Analytics and Data Strategy at FIS. Today, we unravel the transformative power of storytelling in driving business impact and value creation.
As a leader, the ability to manage and influence C-Suite is pivotal for success.
Join us for some insightful takeaways:
๐ฃ๏ธ ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฅ'๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐๐ฒ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ญ๐
๐ ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐ฆ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ & ๐๐ฑ๐๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐๐จ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง:
As the Head of Analytics at FIS, Phil plays a pivotal role in influencing global business strategy. We dive into the dynamics of working closely with executive teams and explore how it differs from collaborating with other stakeholders.
๐ ๐๐๐ญ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐๐ญ๐ญ๐๐ซ:
The importance of setting the right metrics and measures cannot be overstated. Phil shares his insights on the critical role metrics play in ensuring impactful data-driven decisions.
๐ ๐๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฑ๐๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ:
One common challenge faced by data leaders is aligning with executive requirements. Phil shares strategies on ensuring executives get what they need, not just what they want.
๐ข ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ :
Discover how Phil leverages storytelling to influence stakeholders and drive business decisions. We delve into the nuances of storytelling with data products.
๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐ฑ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐:
Phil reflects on the qualities that distinguish a good analyst from a great one and what it takes to rise to leadership within the realm of data.
๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ฅ ๐๐ก๐ข๐๐ญ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ญ๐-๐๐ซ๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ง:
With organizations striving to become "data-driven," Phil shares insights on changing the mindset of more traditional businesses stuck in their ways.
๐๏ธ Tune in for More ๐๏ธ
Be sure to listen to the full episode for in-depth insights from Phil. Subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions on The Stacked Data Podcast!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Stacked Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Stacked podcast brought to you by Cognify, the recruitment partner for modern data teams hosted by me, Harry Golop. Stacked with incredible content from the most influential and successful data teams, interviewing industry experts who share their invaluable journeys, groundbreaking projects, and most importantly, their key learnings. So get ready to join us as we uncover the dynamic world of modern data.
00:00:35
Speaker
The ability to influence is pivotal for success in data. After all, the role of a data function is to inform business decision making. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through storytelling.
Influence in Data Teams
00:00:49
Speaker
Today, I'm joined by Phil Frilwell, the Head of Data at FIS.
00:00:55
Speaker
As the Head of Data at FIS, Phil plays a pivotal role in influencing global business strategy. We dive into the dynamics of working closely with executive teams and explore how it differs from collaborating with other stakeholders, as well as sharing his strategy for effective storytelling, which Phil attributes to a lot of the success in his career and is an area he's extremely passionate about. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
00:01:22
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to the Stacked Data podcast. Today I'm joined by Phil. Phil is the Head of Data at FIS. The role of a data function is to inform business decision making, but how do you ensure the insights you're giving the business has the desired effect and leads to value creation?
00:01:43
Speaker
That's what we're going to uncover today with Phil. He's also going to uncover a bit more about his journey, his experiences, and really dive into the power of effective storytelling. Phil, it's great to have you on the podcast. How are you doing today? Thanks, Harry. It's great to be here. All good. I'm excited to dive in. This is the first podcast of all we've done, so we'll see how it goes, but I'm very excited. I'm sure it's going to be a good one.
Phil Frilwell's Career Journey
00:02:09
Speaker
Lots to dive into.
00:02:11
Speaker
First off, it'd be great to get a bit more of an overview for the audience about yourself, your journey in data, and what your current role is at FIS. Yeah, sure. I can give you a brief history. So when I was in school, I was born into maths and science, not so much on the languages and that sort of thing. So led me to doing maths at university. I did pure maths.
00:02:38
Speaker
just enjoy the challenge, really. When I was going through university 12, 13 years ago, there wasn't many flying tasks in the data, and I would expect there is today. I think there's much more of an industry around it of itself.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I didn't ask, I didn't really have an idea about what I was going to do when I grew up at that point. And when I finished uni, there was an opportunity to get involved in a startup, which was quite exciting. I didn't really have any commitments at the time. So I jumped sort of, you know, two feet straight into that. And it was sort of in digital media marketing.
00:03:19
Speaker
learned a whole lot about business, about the startup world and obviously technology as part of that. But it didn't go the distance. So after about 12 months or so, the venture sort of folded and I was without a job. So I was having a look around thinking about
00:03:40
Speaker
All right, now I've finished uni, I've got a master's degree. I've got a bit of experience here, so that, you know, that puts me in front of some other graduates, but where should I go? So I kind of went for a more traditional route at that point and went into a graduate scheme at UW-Tacod. It, you know, quite a traditional grad scheme with a six month sort of rotations. I didn't really have that much influence about where I was going, but it was good that, you know, that they were rotating every six months or so.
00:04:10
Speaker
There was variety of different things, change, BI, project management, but sort of every single wall I did was not massively well defined, but it was good because it gave me a bit of a, you know, leeway to
00:04:25
Speaker
kind of make it my own. And I found myself naturally, I guess, as a maths grad, always being towards the challenges where data was required or, you know, that was really what interested me. So I learned, well, at uni, I just kind of got a bit more savvy from a technical point of view. And so I started using some of those skills, you know, SQL, and taught myself some of the ETL of the day, which was Informatica, that sort of stuff.
00:04:54
Speaker
relatively archaic when you look back at it now, but I learned a lot and it was good to learn about different sort of areas of the business and how everything sort of interacts.
Modernizing Data Platforms
00:05:04
Speaker
Then I kind of got an opportunity to join Worldpay. Worldpay is a payments business at the time. It was just a UK-based business, not massively big. I just went through IPO. I joined as a contractor and really the objective was to modernize the data sort of platform for particularly focused on ops and sales.
00:05:24
Speaker
They were working in access databases, Excel spreadsheets, and probably some areas still are, to be honest, but the project itself was kind of moving towards SQL, moving towards a more modern, if you look at it, sort of infrastructure with SSIS at the time, and Power BI as well. That was in the early days of Power BI.
00:05:45
Speaker
So I got the opportunity to become a leader really of the team that was kind of going through that transformation and there was two quick acquisitions of the business, one by another payments company based in the US and then by FIS. So I joined FIS through the second acquisition and it was a really good opportunity for me to I guess
00:06:08
Speaker
expand my remake because it was globalizing the team from what was a UK-based team and obviously it was a lot of synergies expected, particularly on their operations point of view. So it was around kind of defining a global team and a global strategy for data.
00:06:26
Speaker
What I learned pretty quickly from that was, you know, I've happened upon leadership, but I wasn't necessarily the best of leaders. And I had a lot to learn when it comes to leadership. So I was lucky enough to be sponsored through an MBA where I really did learn a lot.
00:06:42
Speaker
not just about leadership, but all sorts of things in business, but definitely helped me grow as a leader. But kind of coming out the end of that, there's an opportunity to move into the banking line of business. So this was a totally new area, different sort of line of business altogether. Just a link of payments, but focused on the banking software, the banking side of the business.
Building Analytics at FIS
00:07:04
Speaker
And, you know, it was, there wasn't an analytics team where they joined. So I really built the team from the ground up.
00:07:11
Speaker
And I've been on that journey for two and a half years now, and we've come a massively long way from, you know, to begin with, just being able to do some descriptive analytics starting from nothing, really, into moving towards predictive analytics and in some areas, you know, kind of pushing the boundaries a bit further than that. So that's the kind of a preview into sort of my journey.
00:07:40
Speaker
Amazing. I mean, the route into data was never as clear as it is now. You have people that are going to university with the eye and the goal of going straight into a data role. There's degrees focusing on data analytics, data science, computer science, et cetera. So yeah, many people, I think, tended to fall into the industry, unlike now, whereas it's very much
00:08:07
Speaker
a focus. So interested to hear that. And I think what stood out for me was your experience where you were constantly put into, I suppose, an environment that seemed to challenge you. And that's probably helped with your progression to get to where you're at, constantly being out of your comfort zone, I suppose.
00:08:26
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's, you know, any career advice is if you're not challenging yourself, then you're not learning. So it's definitely key. I always strive to do whatever project that I'm working on, whichever team that be.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, brilliant. Definitely great advice. So Phil, your role at the moment, it's all about impacting business strategy, but on a global level, you work closely with the business executives. As a data leader, how do you work effectively with
00:09:00
Speaker
the executive team and how does it differ managing executive stakeholders versus other stakeholders in the business? I think what's important to remember when working with the executive team is that it's a team made up of individuals and other individuals with different priorities. As with any stakeholder relationship, you really have to understand their perspectives and their drivers, and that's going to make it easier to build a working relationship there.
00:09:28
Speaker
I think what the main difference is to working with executives with some of the other stakeholders you might have is that you have significantly less time with them to actually build a working relationship.
Effective Executive Communication
00:09:40
Speaker
That's really the challenge that I see. In that sense, it's really critical that you get on the right spot and you can build trust and credibility from the LSAC.
00:09:51
Speaker
And that really means that you can deliver a clear succinct message in a language that are able to understand. I'll give you an example of a mistake I made in the past. So I was, you know, at this point, relatively junior. We were presenting some recommendations for improving the telephony system.
00:10:08
Speaker
Now, I was really deep into the project with the team. I knew the technology and the process inside out, but I'd never met this executive before. So rather than kind of doing some finding about the executive, I made a ton of assumptions about their level of knowledge of the system and also assumptions about what they must have heard from their subordinates about what the challenges were.
00:10:31
Speaker
And having that must expose you at all when they come to working with executives. So I'd assume that they're all direct and want to get straight to the point. So with that, you know, I kind of crafted a few slides and was ready, you know, to
00:10:47
Speaker
Getting straight into the point, you know, I had a lot of trust in what the team had done. And we also even went by a lot of different stakeholders, you know, lowered down the organization. Conversation was, yes, it was a car crash really a complete opposite impact of what was intended. You know, we walked away without approval for the proposed changes and with a serious lack of credibility. So in other words, it took us another couple of months before I should get signed up on the project.
00:11:16
Speaker
Now, the lesson learned there was with a couple of, but mainly that, you know, you want to reduce to a bigger degree as you can do the assumptions that you're making going into those conversations. So, although you may not have time, right, and this is often the case, that you won't actually have time with the executive, and it might be the first time you're meeting with them and you're presenting in a
00:11:37
Speaker
and a meeting, and maybe it's a big, beating a lot, big audience, or maybe it's a more intimate second, but either way, you know, you haven't had a chance to even meet that person yet. One of the good things that you can do is, although you might be meeting them for the first time, you know, if you've worked with potentially some of the leaders underneath them, you know, potentially another executive, you do have a relationship, you can do a bit of fact-finding around
00:12:02
Speaker
getting some context. What are all their drivers? What are they like? How do they think about things? And that's going to help you craft your message in a way that they are actually going to understand you. And it's going to increase your chances of getting off on the right foot. So if I had done any research in that scenario, would have learned that
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't either the business had been transferred from one of the areas. We're still learning about things and had a lot of questions that we didn't necessarily have the answer for right away in the conversation that obviously led to that lack of trust, that lack of credibility. So definitely a lesson learned there, but something that I would ask to share when I talk around how to prepare for these sort of conversations is how to build those relationships.
00:12:51
Speaker
No, I think that's an excellent story. The ability to use time wisely is so important and fact-finding is a key point of that. You need to know your target audience, like in anything, what you can deliver to one person is not how you would deliver it to the next. And yeah, great advice to speak to other people before trying to understand where they're at, how they're going to think and what's going to work well for them.
00:13:18
Speaker
saves you time and is going to save them time and help push the business forward quicker and projects forward quicker. That's great advice for people stepping into that space. Another area we're keen to uncover is the importance of setting the right metrics and measures. Obviously, data is about having that desired impact and that value creation. How important is
00:13:46
Speaker
setting the right metrics and measures to that aspect of the equation? Well, I think it's critically important, really, because what we measure, and in particular, what metrics that we target directly influence the behavior of the teams, of the business, and therefore directly influence performance.
00:14:05
Speaker
So I think first of all, most we need to have a clear idea of what success looks like. I'm talking about on a broader scale for the business. What does success look like? Is it growth? Is it cost cutting, savings? Is it customer experience? It really having that knowing what success looks like, it then seems easy, but it's
00:14:31
Speaker
And it's easy to come up with a bunch of ideas, but every single business is different, every single team is different. So what is the true measure of success in that scenario? Without alignment on that, we're going to end up with measures that don't make sense, that people don't agree with, other people are going to try and work against in many ways.
00:14:56
Speaker
Once that's established, then it follows clearly what outcomes are best aligned with those objectives. And I think when it comes to the right set of metrics and measures, it's important to be really balanced. So you obviously drive it towards certain outcomes.
00:15:15
Speaker
But you do need a good mix of leading and lagging indicators in order to, particularly the leading indicators, are going to help the stakeholders make decisions, are they going to drive the right outcomes. But obviously we don't want to leave sight of the outcomes in their show.
00:15:31
Speaker
having those lagging indicators is critical when you come to reflect on things. So in my experience, it's easy to get carried away. We work in analytics where we're keen to get more and more features to help us predict outcomes. But from the stakeholder perspective, it's important that they have the right legal indicators to help them make the right decisions.
00:15:53
Speaker
If you have too many, you often see this on dashboards of things where the end of getting called KPIs, key performance indicators, but if you've got too many, you're dropping that key out there and it's just a bunch of performance indicators and particularly for teams that are less data savvy.
00:16:13
Speaker
It really dilutes the focus and it takes the attention away from where it needs to be. So having a sort of crisp, clean set of metrics that everyone agrees on and understands is really important to sort of driving the right outcomes for the business.
00:16:31
Speaker
That makes sense. Don't overcomplicate it. Don't give yourself too many goals to hit because in the end, you'll miss the big one, which you're trying to achieve. And it seems that they can probably be distractions. Yeah. And I would say, and this goes beyond analytics.
00:16:51
Speaker
and it's more sort of culturally within leadership in the business. It's important that the measures are used in the right way. It's obviously important that we have targets, but we also need to have things in perspective. Like we're measuring things because they're indicators, right? So what, you know, sometimes you might see,
Metrics and Business Outcomes
00:17:13
Speaker
and I've seen in the past with some leaders is that they'll beat teams up over metrics not being where they want them to be.
00:17:21
Speaker
And that's really, it's only going to drive negative behaviors. It's going to drive people to game in the metrics rather than actually taking action to systematically improve performance where necessary.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great point. If you flip it on its head, you've set these metrics. If they're not set to encourage the right behaviors and the right outcomes, then you'll get people who are essentially going to try and play the systems. You're hitting the metrics, but are you hitting the actual goal? Maybe not. So yeah, it's definitely something to be aware of when you're setting these metrics and measures.
00:18:05
Speaker
I think that links nicely, Phil, into a common challenge that I know many data leaders face. And I suppose it can be trickled down to any data professional. And it's essentially challenging executives' teams, particularly around requirements. I suppose it's that managing up part of a situation. How do you ensure executives get what they need opposed to what they want?
00:18:35
Speaker
sometimes they don't match up. Yeah, it is a challenge. And look, everybody is busy. And it kind of goes back to, you know, being clear on where we're going, having organized ASL objectives that make sense. Once, you know, there's a common understanding of that, then it's easier to kind of
00:19:00
Speaker
influence decisions that are going to kind of help us move in that direction. I think it's, you know, you might get asked for, you know, a new dashboard, a new data product that solves a specific problem and in one perspective, it might make sense.
00:19:18
Speaker
But it's important to kind of dig a little bit deeper, right? You know, what I asked my team to do is, and this is with executives and with any stakeholder is, you know, there's a lot of demand coming in. So for us to build something for us to, I
00:19:35
Speaker
deliver something. But what problem are we actually solving and why? And it's the classic five whys. If you keep asking why, then you're going to get to the real problems. And I think it may be a slightly harder within executives, depending on the culture of the business, if people feel empowered to sort of challenge in that way. But
00:20:00
Speaker
even, and especially almost at that level, it's important that you get down to the real problem. Once you understand the real problem, you can build the right solution. So it's not batting them away. Requirements, it's really understanding them and contextualizing it within the objectives of the business. What is the target outcome? Why are we getting asked to do this? Then you can be a bit more creative about it.
00:20:27
Speaker
how to solve the problem is driving the requirement. So it's the same with executives done with any other stakeholder. It just can be sometimes a little bit more challenging depending on your relationships.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, the five Y's, it's a great tool, I think, when gathering requirements to truly understand, as you said, what's the real intention? That's how you're going to be able to build something that's going to be truly relevant and can save you months of work.
00:21:00
Speaker
you build something, it's not quite answering the true question. And we'll all trickle back to that initial conversation and understanding of the goal. It's something that McKinley from the Financial Times mentioned on the podcast that was aired last week, actually, as well, then Five Wise, and about how to truly understand what you're going to build. So definitely think that's great advice.
00:21:26
Speaker
I suppose you then have understand the requirements, you've built something. So Phil, how do you use storytelling to influence stakeholders? I suppose that can be at any part of the life cycle of a project, whether it's at the end, getting someone to act upon a data product or at the beginning when you're in that requirement gathering stage.
Storytelling in Data
00:21:48
Speaker
But I think the key is how
00:21:50
Speaker
and what the audience would like to understand is how do you actually use effective storytelling to really inspire influence? Yeah, good question isn't it? It's something that I'm quite passionate about actually. There's some absolutely fantastic resources that really helped me when I was sort of a big communist analyst. There's Coldness, Bama, Netflix, Storytelling with Data, and there's also work by Nancy
00:22:15
Speaker
to us and Edward Tufti as well. So there's a bunch of stuff that's out there to help define what that good data storytelling looks like. But we just think what is that and why. I mean, there's a ton of research that shows, you know, storytelling is, it helps
00:22:31
Speaker
first of all, it helps the audience understand the points that you're trying to make. If you think back to, you know, and I'm not just thinking about novels, right? Any good TED tool potentially that you've heard or any great information that you've read, it's usually the anecdotes that you actually remember. It's those anecdotes that illustrate the points that really resonate and that stick with you after the
00:22:57
Speaker
the podcast finish or after the long, long after you put the book down. So that's why we use storytelling is just how the human mind processes information and can easily contextualize or remember it. And if you package it in that way, there's, you know, like I said, there's a bunch of resources out there that you can, what does good storytelling look like? But you know, the classic answer of it depends is kind of true in this case.
00:23:25
Speaker
because it depends on the stakeholder, the audience, and the project that you're working on, how it is the best way to do it. You may be doing a long-term project, so you're looking to completely revamp
00:23:41
Speaker
an end-to-end process in the business or transition to a new way of working. That's a long relationship where you want to take your audience on the journey with you and there'll be points when you need decisions and if they're part and embedded in the story of what's going on.
00:24:00
Speaker
but they're going to feel more engaged and they'll be much easier for them to process the insights that you're potentially providing. Then there's other scenarios where you maybe go back to the first time you're meeting an executive or it may not even be an executive, but first time you're meeting someone and they're coming in late on a project and you need
00:24:23
Speaker
is specific decision made maybe needs a budget then that's a slightly different challenge right you haven't taken them along on the journey but you need to you do understand particularly that decision maker how you best can grab their attention how you best going to tell them the
00:24:42
Speaker
the story as it were in a way that they're going to understand it. You don't want to end with too much detail but you also need to present the information in a way that's going to resonate and essentially in a way that's going to help them make the right decision which you know you've arrived on through hours and hours of waiting through the data analyzing different things going down dead ends coming back again and you know you've found
00:25:09
Speaker
which way makes sense for the business and it's about getting that person on board so when it comes to storytelling it is only not just unique to the the person the decision maker or the audience but also to the the project in the situation and the reason that you're telling that story in the first place.
00:25:29
Speaker
Often it is to get a decision made, but sometimes it's to influence a wider group to take collective action. And then that's slightly harder, I guess. If you've targeted one person or a group of people, that's potentially easier to tailor things.
00:25:49
Speaker
With a wider group, you've got to kind of look for similarities between that group and picture in a way that is more accessible for a general audience.
00:26:01
Speaker
That makes sense. I think it comes back to that understanding, understanding your audience, having the empathy to understand what's going on in their world, treating them as their own entity, their own individual who has their own goals. And I think when you can influence and tell a story, which is going to
00:26:19
Speaker
help them achieve their goals. It gives you a lot more traction, a lot more likely of getting what you want. I think what's important as well is, like you say, I absolutely agree, knowing your audience, that's key. But you have to appreciate that different people in the business, different teams,
00:26:40
Speaker
are going to have varying levels of data literacy. And that can be a challenge sometimes if you happen to address multiple people in say different forums on a project. It's really important to be cognizant of that. And you can't just tell the same story every time.
00:27:01
Speaker
If that makes sense, you really have to tailor things to the story, to the audience in a way that they're going to actually be able to understand it. Some people might not want to get into the detail. You certainly don't want to spend your time explaining how to read the data. You want them to focus on the insights and the actions. Well, that insight and action is going to be what should be driving that decision for the impact, right? Absolutely.
00:27:31
Speaker
So Phil, often when people are progressing in their careers, there's a real difference between what a good analyst looks like and what a great analyst is.
Becoming a Great Analyst or Leader
00:27:42
Speaker
What are the differences between someone that's good and someone that's great? And yeah, what's your advice on how to get to being within that great bracket?
00:27:51
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a good question. And really to be a good analyst, I think it's important to have a solid sort of technical skills in a few key technologies across the data stack and obviously be able to use them to solve business problems efficiently. But to be a great analyst, I think, you know, they do tend to have
00:28:09
Speaker
you know, more advanced in the depth and breadth of the technical expertise. But what really distinguishes them in my view is this softer skills such as, you know, data storytelling, which we've talked about as well as really having an insatiable curiosity. I think that sort of combinations what enables a great analyst to solve more complex problems and have a bigger impact as well by effectively communicating with stakeholders and driving that impact.
00:28:37
Speaker
That's so true. I think the curiosity leads to complexity and complexity in analytics is where I think the real value comes from. It's not just looking at year sales to date. That's not massively valuable, is it, but being able to join up multiple systems, multiple departments, that curiosity to spot them differences.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think just to take one thing one step further as well, when you look at what makes a good day to leader, I think when it comes to leadership, really the most important thing is that it's a conscious decision for that person going into leadership because
00:29:15
Speaker
often you'll see the most experienced or tenured analyst or data scientist find themselves in a leadership position. And in those scenarios, it's really a 50-50 as a coin toss as to whether or not it's going to work out or not. So I think really wanting it and making that decision and knowing that your day-to-day looks totally different to when you're an expert doing technical mentorship with the team, whereas
00:29:41
Speaker
doing leadership in terms of mind and people and strategy, your actual composition of your day and how much free time you're going to have to focus is going to entirely change. So that really has to be a conscious decision. And really what defines a successful leader in my eye, the key attribute is really empathy. And in particular, being able to understand things from the perspective of your team, your stakeholders, and your customers.
00:30:10
Speaker
That's a brilliant point. Empathy is emotional intelligence and a trait which is needed, I think, in any part of business, but particularly in leadership. We've already discussed today whether it's talking to a stakeholder that you don't know and relating it to them, or as you mentioned just there, your team. So yeah, I think that's a great key takeaway point to really focus on your empathy and how what you're doing is being perceived by the other person.
00:30:38
Speaker
Phil, it's been absolute pleasure to talk about storytelling with yourself today. Before we go, we just have the quick fire round. So this is a section of questions we ask all of the guests. So the first one, Phil, how do you assess a job opportunity in your career and how do you know it's the right move for you?
Career Advice and Skill Development
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think really, you can ask yourself two questions.
00:31:02
Speaker
Does the job excite me? And does this opportunity make me nervous? I think, really, if the answer to both of those questions is yes, then that's a good indication you found a role in company that you're passionate about. The being nervous one is, I think that's important because it indicates that you're going to be challenged in that role. And that's really key for your career development and sustaining motivation in the medium to long term now.
00:31:31
Speaker
I like that one. Nervous. Nervous equals growth. So, yeah, great one. But what's your best advice for people in an interview? Obviously, do your research. Interview the interviewer. You really need to ensure that you're the right, that, you know, not just you are the right fit, but that company and the culture that you're looking to be part of is the right fit for you.
00:31:52
Speaker
So if you don't have any questions when it comes to the end of the interview, that actually might be a signal that it's not actually going to be a good fit and it isn't the right one for you. And I guess finally, just in terms of securing the offer, the best advice I can give there is do something to stand out. So physical interview that might be taking a pack to leave is a takeaway.
00:32:14
Speaker
If it's a virtual one, maybe it's providing a link to some of your project portfolio on GitHub or on Kaggle or something like that. Yeah, the questions piece is a big one. Some of the many guests have brought up as well. Finally, if you could recommend one resource for the audience to help them up skill, what would that be? Great question. We're really spoiled for choice now, I think, when it comes to data analytics and data science.
00:32:43
Speaker
I'll give you a couple that really helped me accelerate quickly. From a technical perspective, I'd look for a provider with an integrated learning environment. Eight plus years ago, I used DataCamp, which was pretty new then to upskill really quickly. I found it really helped accelerate that.
00:33:01
Speaker
being able to watch videos and then apply code and not have to worry about setting up the environment when I didn't know what I was doing. And I hear that it's still a really good resource for many of the analysts that are in my team that have used it. So it's some really good content on there still, I believe. And then Kaggle is a great platform obviously for getting ideas and challenging yourself to put your skills to practice and solve some real problems there.
00:33:26
Speaker
Finally, just to circle around to the main theme of the pod, data storytelling. It's really something I'm passionate about. And this is what really has helped me get to the next level in my career. I mentioned this previously, but in particular, I studied the lessons in the storytelling with Databooks by Kollner Sparman and Affleck. And then what was most important was that I actually began to practice them immediately in my day-to-day. So whatever I was working on, I put those lessons to practice and refine my skills there.
00:33:53
Speaker
And I think that goes for anything, right? Knowledge is the foundation, but it's that deliberate practice that's really key to honing your skills and making an impact. Amazing, amazing. Well, we'll put a link to the book in the notes. But Phil, really appreciate your time today. It's been a really insightful journey on storytelling. So thank you very much for your time and have a good rest of your day. Thanks for having me. Bye, everyone.
00:34:25
Speaker
Well, that's it for this week. Thank you so, so much for tuning in. I really hope you've learned something. I know I have. The Stack podcast aims to share real journeys and lessons that empower you and the entire community. Together, we aim to unlock new perspectives and overcome challenges in the ever evolving landscape of modern data.
00:34:46
Speaker
Today's episode was brought to you by Cognify, the recruitment partner for modern data teams. If you've enjoyed today's episode, hit that follow button to stay updated with our latest releases. More importantly, if you believe this episode could benefit someone you know, please share it with them. We're always on the lookout for new guests who have inspiring stories and valuable lessons to share with our community.
00:35:09
Speaker
If you or someone you know fits that pill, please don't hesitate to reach out. I've been Harry Gollop from Cognify, your host and guide on this data-driven journey. Until next time, over and out.