Hello. It is season two, episode 16 of the Presentation Boss podcast. Look at us. Go. We’re in the corner of the office again. It is a discussion episode. So, uh, hi Kate. How are you? How have you been? What’s going on?

Kate: Hello. I’m good. I am good, but tired.

Thomas: Okay.

Kate: Um, we have a client as you, as you would know Yeah.

Um, in, based in Florida at the moment. And it is maybe the worst lining up of time zones because there is, there is zero overlap of like office hours.

Thomas: Oh.

Not

even office hours, just like reasonable awake hours.

Kate: Yeah. Um, so we’re working with them at 9:00 AM at their time. Yeah. Which means that we are starting literally at midnight our time.

Mm. So, um, yeah, it’s just one of the joys of running a business and, um, yeah. Working with time zones around the world.

Thomas: Yeah. It makes me very, very grateful for when I fly to Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and it’s like, oh, one hour time difference. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll take that actually. That’s fine. Yeah.

Kate: Yeah. It’s, um, I actually quite enjoy it ’cause the, the peacefulness of midnight, I mean, my internet is fast.

Thomas: Yeah. Nobody else is up like I know.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Playing video games.

Kate: Um, yeah. So that’s, that’s kind of what’s going on.

Thomas: Yeah. All right. And today we are talking about the, well, we talk about data storytelling, which is the intersection of analytics and communication. And today we’re gonna talk about that intersection and

Kate: how it works together.

Uh, what happens when you’ve got more of one skill than the other, and how that kind of all balances out.

Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. We know that you to be an excellent, valuable data analyst or person working with data within a business, you need to have quite a nice balance between the analytics and the communication skills.

So what we wanna talk about today, about what happens when those are a little bit out of balance, what happens when they’re working together. And if you hear yourself, which I think you will, what might be the next step for you personally, which skill to work on, which direction to go.

So.

Kate: Yeah, let’s jump into it.

Thomas: Yeah. So before we kick on, I want you to, wherever you’re listening to this, ’cause I appreciate, I’m, I listen to podcasts mostly while driving and sort of walking or running.

Are you a bit the same?

Kate: I do often when I’m cooking, actually.

Thomas: Yeah. So if you’re anything like us, you’re not readily at a computer and able to like download a thing or watch the video. So I want you to just think about this for a moment, which is to think about two specific skills that you have. One is analysis, your analytic skill, and one is your communication skill.

Mm-hmm. So your, let’s not get too nitty gritty in this. Literally, do you consider your own analytic skill to be high or low?

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Thomas: Just high or low compared to the people around you compared to what you see in the world? Do you think you are pretty good at it or There’s definitely room for improvement?

Likewise, communication, not a long scale, not out of 10, just high or low communication skill. Do you feel confident, competent when you communicate, or is there definitely room for improvement now to get finer detail on that next time you’re in front of a computer, Kate?

Kate: Uh, we have a quiz available on our website so you can answer a couple of questions and it will put you exactly where you sit on the analytics scale and also the communication scale.

So you will know exactly which kind of segment you fall into. Um, and yeah, get that little bit more, uh, knowledge about yourself. Yeah. Insight into your own skills.

Thomas: I also say next time you’re in front of a computer, because I’m a millennial and a big screen kind of person for important stuff, it’ll totally work on mobile.

Kate: Yeah. I’m a big screen person

Thomas: too. Yeah. I’ve never bought an airline ticket on a mobile. I That’s a big screen purchase, right?

Kate: That’s a big screen task.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So have a think communication, analytics. Are you high and low? Low and low. High and high where you fit with your communication and your analytics skill?

And let’s have a discussion about what each one of those means.

Kate: Alright, so let’s, uh, kick off by talking about the framework that we’re going to be working within today. It is called our Lighthouse framework. It’s all a bit thematic. We’ve got names for each of the segments.

Thomas: Yeah, there’s a lighthouse and some stuff.

Kate: We’ll get to it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but what we’re going to start with, what we’re gonna start talking about is where you have that lower end of analytics skill and also the lower end of the communication skills and where you fit in here.

It’s called the fog because limited visibility. Yep. Um, so what we’re gonna talk about with all of these segments is first of all what it looks like, how people end up in this segment, uh, what it is, the experience for the audience, and then what’s the next step that you can actually take?

Thomas: What’s your next focus, your next skill? What’s your next focus to learn skill development?

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah. Sure.

Kate: Yep.

Thomas: Alright, so the fog. What does the fog look like? What does somebody sitting there look like?

Kate: Um, when you’re in the fog, this is generally what it looks like is someone who produces a lot of dashboards, a lot of charts.

It is basically a report that has a lot of data, a lot of information, but it’s lacking in the insights. Maybe we’re missing the So what factor? It’s definitely missing the so what next?

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Factor. Um, it’s just at this stage information, it’s kind of what it looks like. It’s not presented particularly well.

It’s not particularly insightful.

Thomas: Is this a kind of, if we go back a few episodes, the, the kind of the data dumper, they’re just Yeah. Producing information. It’s certainly made available. They’re probably doing quite an earnest effort at being transparent, making data available, but there’s just kind of, not that I was gonna say depth, but it’s is what you said, the insight.

Yeah. That, that, so what next factor, isn’t it?

Kate: Yeah. And, and I like what you said, like the data dumper is often kind of colouring in data.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: Like that’s data decorator, but it is, you’ve got data and you turning it into graphs.

Thomas: It’s just, it’s just, it’s

Kate: just as deep as it graphs.

Thomas: It’s just not matured yet.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah. Alright. So what does the audience experience look like for this?

Kate: I’m gonna say pretty underwhelmed. Um, definitely the, the audience is not clear on the next steps. They’re not entirely clear on what you’re saying. They maybe don’t fully engage with you because that communication isn’t there. Um, and it’s, it’s all just a little bit unclear, which is why it’s called the fog.

It’s like this fog around the information and around the person a little bit.

Thomas: And I don’t mean to throw you under the bus here, but this reminds me of the story you like to tell about your early days where you were told that your information was interesting.

Kate: Well, absolutely. I mean, this is where you start your career.

This is a junior skill. It’s just an an. Immature skillset.

Thomas: Yeah. Tell me the story. Tell us, tell the nice people up there. The story. I know it. You know it.

Kate: So when I was first in, um, data, I had a very cool job where I got to go to the executive team every month and I would present what was happening, well, in safety ’cause I worked in, in safety.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And I would show them all of my charts and it’d be like this and this and this. And um, at the end of every session someone would say, thanks Kate. That was really interesting. And I would feel quite good because I was interested.

Thomas: You wanna be interesting. Yeah.

Kate: And it took me a number of months to work out that.

Thanks. That was interesting.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Is not a compliment. It just kind of means. Thanks for your effort. Good job, buddy. It’s, it’s not a compliment.

Thomas: We dunno what to do next.

Kate: We dunno what to do next.

Thomas: So what does that, what does that look like? You come to the next, you’re presented executives. Yeah. What does that look like next on a month or quarter where you go back and you presented all that information, you go back and then

Kate: nothing has happened.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: You’ve had no impact. You’ve had no influence on any kind of outcome.

Thomas: Mm mm It’s really just reporting the state of data.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Here is what happened.

Kate: Yeah. And like I said, it’s, it’s just an immature skill. Yeah. You haven’t had that experience yet. You haven’t had that formal training yet either.

Communication training.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Or analytics kind of experience and training. Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah. And I think let’s continue on why you would end up here inexperience. Absolutely. Completely defensible position. I think, and there’s a, a, a chance, and, and we see this when we’re working with clients who have some juniors in the room, is often they’ve just inherited some stuff.

Like here’s the template, here’s the report, here’s the slide deck, here’s what we do each month, quarter, year.

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Thomas: And they’re like, okay. And we just kind of, it’s where you start is moving through, uh, producing just what is expected. And, and even worse than that sometimes is what is expected. Those is missing.

There’s no clear expectations. It’s just kind of we have to report this information or make it available. And so that’s what

Kate: you do. Yeah. Because no one has really taken that time to say, here, here’s exactly the standard that is expected. Your what? What could potentially increase your value.

Thomas: Yeah. And sometimes that can be a also a maturity issue within the organisation.

More at large or the team, which is we don’t really know what we want from the data. We just know that we have data, we want data. Maybe it’ll help us. And we don’t really know what the direction is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you’re in this position. What next? How do we move? Move our analytics and our communication skill up that I was gonna say, not all the way, we just wanna move the next step, right?

Kate: Yeah. So the first thing to do is you really need to think about your audience.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: Who am I producing this for and what do they need? What is going to help them? So really thinking about the audience and the easiest way to do this, ask them.

Thomas: I was gonna say, how would you find this out? You would ask them.

Yeah.

Kate: You would ask them, yeah. What is going to help you? What is going to be of value? That would be the one thing. And the other is to get really clear on a message. So you’ve got all of this information, all of this data. How do you distil that into one or two sentences?

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And just being really clear with like a point.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And I think when you have that conversation with your audience, ’cause I’m gonna say that you are. Uh, presenting upwards a level maybe to a manager, a team lead, like not to the whole multinational organisation. It’s to literally up a step. You start to have that conversation about what do you need?

What are we trying to build here? Because if there is that organisational immaturity around what is expected of you, you are now leading that conversation around what are we actually aiming for here? Yeah. What do you need from me? And then we’re making them think about it a bit as well. If they haven’t before, we’re certainly getting really clear on it.

And then that one message, those few sentences that are gonna be quite clear starts to become almost the executive summary, right? We’ve gone deeper into our, our analysis by finding answers to those questions and we’re able to communicate it better, sort of one step better in both directions.

Kate: Yeah, for sure.

And I’m gonna add to all of that. Uh, the easiest way to find out like what is valuable, what do people need? KPIs, you’re gonna have organisational KPIs and you’re gonna have KPIs at every level. So what is the next level that you are aiming at? What are you speaking to and you know, direct your work towards that.

Thomas: Yeah. So that is the fog. The lovely people who have, feel like they have low communication and low analytical skills. It’s not a bad place to be, it’s just not a particularly mature place to be. And you’ve got heaps of directions to go with it. So if that’s you, uh, best of luck.

Kate: Hmm.

Thomas: All right. So place number two that we might end up is high analytical skill. Really good at the ANA analytics piece, but communication is still a low score for you. Mm-hmm. And we call this one Kate,

Kate: the treasure chest.

Thomas: Yeah. There’s good value in there. There is gold nuggets and coins and valuables in there, but it’s just locked away.

And if, if we could just, if we could just unlock it, we will find good stuff. Um, but getting it out is the communication piece. Good value comes from analytics. Getting it out is how we sort of share the treasure and the booty with the rest of the crew. Uh, this is not a scripted episode at all. Right. What does treasure chest look like?

Kate: Treasure chest looks like, uh, honestly, this is, this is a lot of our clients that we work with. Oh, yeah. Because they are the people who are really comfortable with analytics.

Thomas: Yeah. A lot of technical skill have really worked on those skills

Kate: Yeah. And these people love their detail. And, um, we talked earlier about the data dumper.

I think this is more where the data, this is

Thomas: definitely data dumper

Kate: sits in.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Which is people who can produce a lot of charts, a lot of reports, dashboards fits so nicely in here. Um, just so much is being produced. There is so much detail.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And it’s probably really good. But trying to find again, kind of the gold in it, we’re really gonna push this metaphor.

Um, is, is difficult.

Thomas: Yeah.

And I think that too much detail directly stems from having low communication skills.

Kate: Yes.

Thomas: Uh, and that’s why your data dump is like, here’s everything. I hope something sticks. When we become more adept at the communication piece and understanding our audience, we know how do we strip out detail and simplify this for our audience?

Mm. Um, so that’s why too much detail stems from having a low communication skill. I’ve got all the information, all the knowledge, all the analytics, but just missing that step of how do I now take complexity and simplify it for audience and, and summarise that effectively.

Kate: Yep.

Thomas: And speaking of audience,

what is the audience experience when watching a, a treasure chest

Kate: overwhelm.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Yeah. If, if we talk about the fog being kind of underwhelm, I think the treasure chest is overwhelmed. There’s so much going on. There is so much detail. Often with dashboards. This can be like, um, people will talk about all of the things you can possibly do with your dashboard.

Here’s, you can, your filter, you can go by department or you can go by location, or you can go by year or you can go by and

Thomas: and then there’s 98 drill downs.

Kate: Yeah. And that is all capability of dashboard, but it is not outcome of dashboard.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it is highly likely that a treasure chest will be trusted.

Like the audience will trust you. It is clear to me that this person knows the data. They know ironically what they’re talking about. Um, but I just, I dunno what to do with it. There’s so much coming at me. It’s clearly good stuff, but I dunno what to do next. I trust that it’s good, but I need you to help me with the next steps.

The so what next part of that? Yeah.

Kate: And part of that communication skill about like getting something from your analysis to someone else is that skill of discernment, which kind of fits in the, in the communication skill of trying to understand what is important and what is not important.

Thomas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So,

Kate: um, and they don’t quite have that. Yeah. And everything just kind of goes in.

Thomas: So we should probably dig into that, what we mean by discernment, which is again, we’re gonna go back to KPIs. I think that’s the, I think that’s the easiest place to start, which is what are we as a team, a department, a business trying to accomplish?

And then the discernment comes from what of this analysis, what of all of this information matters? What is important here today in this piece of communication or presentation or dashboard or report? What matters and what doesn’t. And priorities change. Priorities will change week to week. Quarter to quarter.

We get that. But having some idea around what do people want to be told or communicated? I don’t mean like tell them what they want to hear, but like what, um, what if the information is really relevant here and now? I think that is discernment. Would you?

Kate: Yep, yep, yep. For sure. And so how do we actually develop that?

What does that look like when you’re trying to develop that and become clearer and. For want of a word better in your communication. Mm-hmm. The irony and just like, just become betterer at communication. Um,

Thomas: but communication, I think genuinely communication like analytics is a learnable skill. Oh, absolutely.

And it’s about what is the next thing that I need to work on? And honestly, that’s, that’s how I got to be the communicator. I’m, I worked on one skill at a time.

Kate: Yeah. Yep, yep. So for me it would be, it would be using a structure and trying to get your information that is in your head into clear boxes. We like the boxes of what, so what, so what next.

Mm-hmm. And having that information separated and literally writing it down, having a script. Because when oftentimes, and I know that we’ve all seen this a thousand times, you get someone who is so comfortable in detail Yeah. And when they start talking, they just keep talking in detail and you know, in four minutes you’ve got a thousand words said.

Thomas: Yeah. Because when you start speaking, if you’re a reasonably normal human, you get anxious, you get nervous. And so when we aim for that place of comfort, it’s, it’s detailed. Let’s can we keep talking about the thing that we’re comfortable with?

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Yep. So have a structure

Thomas: Yep.

Kate: If you can and have a script.

Thomas: Yep.

Kate: Certainly at first, like I’m not saying you will for the rest of your life need to script, but certainly while you’re working on this skill, scripting is so important and being able to be really clear with that message and maybe that recommendation Exactly what should be done with this information.

Thomas: Yeah. I think the recommendation is quite strong here. I think it’s part of your structure. Um, and when you’re scripting out, I think the important thing of a script is I like to think of it not as, what is it I’m going to say? Because what I’m going to say is all that remains after I’ve decided all the stuff I’m not going to say.

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Thomas: So it, what it helps you do is not get caught in that detail and not get lost and stay within time as well. And you move from script, you move to dot points and eventually you’ll move to, I dunno, a single slide, whatever, whatever’s next, right? Yeah. Um, but that recommendation I think is super strong.

Literally answering that question for your audience. So what do we do with this? So what next? What, what do you see treasure chest that we can unlock and actually put into action.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: What’s the gold nugget?

Kate: Yep.

Thomas: All right. So that is the treasure chest.

Kate: That’s treasure chest.

Thomas: Yeah. If you are strong in analysis, uh, and not so strong in communication, like we said, we work with loads of people in this space who are technically brilliant.

I like to say I’m rarely the smartest person in the room if I have a room of treasure tests around me. It’s just the skill of how do I now get that gold out of your head and shared with the rest of the world and the business.

Kate: Hmm.

Thomas: Number three. We’re not numbering them, but I dunno, this is chapter three. Anyway, this is the, this is the person who is really strong, feels quite high in their communication skill, but lower in the analytical skill. So strong communicator, low analytical skill. And this person is Kate

Kate: the siren.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: Do you know what a siren is like in mythology?

Thomas: Uh, in my mind it’s a mermaid thing, but I’m not enough of a fantasy nerd to definitely know,

Kate: well, you are right. Like, uh,

Thomas: alright.

Kate: I would call myself a fantasy nerd, but, um,

Thomas: I would call you a fantasy nerd,

Kate: but you are, you are Right. Is essentially a mermaid. So in mythology, the sirens were these beautiful women who, um, when like the sailors were sailing their ships mm-hmm.

They would hear these beautiful women and they would direct their ships towards it and they’d, you know, be sitting on the rock.

Thomas: Yeah. Like an alluring sort of

Kate: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and you know, they’d have magical properties and they would direct the ships towards the rocks and then ruin the ships.

Thomas: Oh. Oh, okay.

Great.

Kate: Yeah. Which is, which is kind of the point here is that the sirens may be quite alluring what they’re saying, but because their analytical skill is not particularly high, it’s not particularly developed, you run the risk of leading people astray.

Thomas: Being a bit misleading.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Okay. Alright.

Kate: So

Thomas: good name.

Kate: I, I created this framework, which is kind of why we are, we’re getting some mythology. Yeah. Influence here

Thomas: or you are reading like pirates the Caribbean at the time. Yeah.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Okay. Alright. So high communicator.

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Thomas: Low analytical skill with siren. Now this is the person who, what do they look like?

Engaging, I think is the big word. They look engaging. They sound really good. They sound great. I’m not saying that they’re not really great, but they sound really great. Um,

Kate: this is the person who has the gift of the gab.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. They look confident, they look competent, sound, great type of person, you know, when they’re speaking that you probably wanna go along and listen ’cause it’s easy to be an audience member.

They probably have really nice slides as well to back them up. Everything just looks and sounds great. They are just a natural born communicator. Brilliant.

Kate: Yeah. Um, so when I was working, there was a couple of guys that I, um, would talk to. They were engineers.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And one of them, Hash was a classic treasure chest.

Like absolutely knew that, uh, like his stuff, he was an engineer through and through.

Thomas: That’s very classic engineer. We know.

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: But there was a guy in his team, Ben, who was, um, a siren basically. So, okay. And I remember Hash saying to me, like, when Ben speaks, he’s so confident and it, and he can be so wrong, but the confidence that he projects it makes me question my own knowledge.

Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.

Kate: He’s like, he’s like, I know my stuff, but I can’t go up against him ’cause I can’t, I can’t fight him on that. On like, the communication front. Like again, classic engineer.

Thomas: Yeah. When you feel like just kind of, kind of stutter your way through and Oh, you’re actually technically, but they look confident.

That’s

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: That’s a, a big gap. A big mismatch.

Kate: And guess who got promoted?

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: It was Ben.

Thomas: The, the person who is visible, the person who is good at self-promotion. And I’m, I’m gonna draw, uh, correlation here, which is the person who’s extroverted.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. ‘

Thomas: cause often the person who’s a natural communicator is more extroverted than your stereotypical engineer, which means they’re probably having more conversations, more relationships in meetings are a bit louder.

They’re heard, they’re Yeah. A bit more self-promotional. They’re visible, even if that sort of robust evidence is not backing them up.

Kate: Yeah. And I mean, I know Ben, like I worked with him as well. Great guy.

Thomas: If you’re

Kate: listening,

Thomas: Ben,

Kate: nothing. Yeah. Like, nothing malicious, nothing like untoward. It was just that he didn’t have the same, um, detail, love of detail.

Thomas: Mm-hmm. And we, we do find this split, right. Which is and I get it. I, I, I tend towards being a treasure chest, love detail, super detail focused. And sirens are probably the other direction. I know not as detail focused.

Kate: I can drift into siren because like, I love a spreadsheet, but I also, I’m not naturally super detail oriented.

Like I’ll happily gloss over details.

Thomas: You’ll Yeah. Happily sort of draw high level.

Kate: Yeah. Like I can drift into

Thomas: this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas I, I drift treasure chest way. Yeah.

Kate: Mm.

Thomas: And I think we’re, we are seeing in general a bit of a. A drifting towards, um, sirenage, siren-ness. We’re seeing sort of, uh, more people tend towards sirens, I think, in the data space because we’re seeing a decentralisation of data.

So we’re seeing sort of less and less quote unquote data teams and more other departments having to do their own data. And I’m thinking like, if we think like HR is sort of one that has recently seen more and more data come into it, HR stereotypically, people people, good communicators, and so probably just haven’t been exposed to formalised analytics and technical training or naturally, uh, detailed kind of people.

And so we’re sort of seeing people who maybe have backing of some evidence or they’ve seen some stuff that I’m not gonna say agree with, but like makes sense to them. And so they talk about that. I think we’re seeing a drift in this, in this direction where communication is pretty good, but we’re just missing that analytics backup.

And I think, I think the audience experience here then becomes, you’ve got somebody who’s super engaging, I want to go and listen to them and speak to them, but hope you, hope you are, you are with me here. Which is their, their confidence sort of exceeds the ability to defend their position with evidence and that backup.

Kate: Yeah, for sure. For sure. So then I guess that begs the question, what is the next step for this person? If you are, if you are kinda like, Ooh, that can be me.

Thomas: Oh, I have an idea. If, if you are, if you are Ben, if you’re a siren, do you need to go find yourself a Hash? Go find yourself a, a little tech nerd.

Kate: Yeah, for sure.

Thomas: But this, seriously, would you, would you, um, work with that person to make sure that your, your data is, or your presentation I should say is robust enough before you’re in front of stakeholders?

Kate: Oh, for sure. I mean, again, I can drift into siren and having you as a natural detailed person,

Thomas: natural nerd

Kate: is really helpful.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: To, um, make sure that, um, the depth is there, I guess.

Thomas: And when do we do that

Kate: before it matters?

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Before the stakes are there. Your presentation happens before you are being questioned by stakeholders.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And I think challenging your own assumptions as well, and that certainly helps having a conversation with somebody, but challenging your own assumptions.

Just challenging that and making sure that stands up on scrutiny.

Kate: Yeah, sure. So that’s the siren.

Thomas: Hmm.

Okay. So we have discussed what happens and what it looks like when you feel like you are a lower score in communication and or analytics. And of course I encourage you to go and do the cheeky little quiz, uh, on, on the website. There’s a link in the show notes for that. It’s free. I’m not trying to trick you into anything, um, and work out exactly where you are.

Read into this a little bit more in depth. But we really probably should talk about what happens when you are high communication, high analytics, good data storyteller, uh, what that looks like and arguably what we’re aiming for.

Kate: Yeah. So we call this one the lighthouse. It is the lighthouse framework.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: Because that is what we’re ultimately aiming for.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And the person that warns of risks that provides direction that, um,

Thomas: visible

Kate: the guiding light, if you will.

Thomas: Yeah. Keeping a business away from the rocks.

Kate: Yes.

Thomas: Yes. The type of person who is influential, and I don’t use that word necessarily super heavily.

Uh, maybe not influencing like full business direction here, but certainly influencing in the world, in the realm that you have, whether it’s in your team, the department, the people around you, which is, uh, knowing exactly what we’re trying to achieve here, what the priorities are this month, this quarter for this, uh, audience member person.

And being able to locate that in the data and knowing what the priorities are and what needs to be talked about now, um, is that strong business acumen, but then also able to be like a lighthouse visible and promoting, um, your own work. Uh, being able to communicate that clearly and succinctly to the people around you.

And that’s what creates influence.

Kate: Yeah. So what that actually looks like, the actual audience experience with that is you as an audience member sitting there, you’re going to feel like, you know, kind of exactly what happened, why that happened, and then what to do next.

Thomas: Yeah. That’s strong future focus.

Kate: Yeah, for sure. And you’re also going to feel confident making a decision as a result of this person’s information and presentation.

Thomas: Hmm. I think it’s also important, um, before you can feel confident. After the presentation, like making that decision and making the changes. Think it’s really important that we wanna make our audience feel confident during the presentation.

And what that looks like. This comes from straight communication skills, which is, I’m confident as an audience member, and I, I, I trust this person to stick to time, to stay on topic, to, um, like if speaking in front of an audience, like not faint from anxiety or something, right. Um, but I’m confident and I feel safe just letting this person be in charge for these few minutes.

Like

Kate: mm-hmm.

Thomas: I, I think you have to be confident there before I can feel confident going, ah, their recommendation makes sense and that’s the direction we need to go.

Kate: Yep.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: Yep. So next step forwards, because we’ve given next steps for all of the others. Mm-hmm. I think next step for Lighthouse, like the potential, not downfall, but the potential, uh, I guess negative aspect is that you can become a bottleneck.

Thomas: Okay.

Kate: You can become the person that everybody comes to. And so

Thomas: you become, you become like the help desk

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: Instead of, instead of people kind

Kate: of, ’cause you’re trusted

Thomas: Yeah. And probably efficient at your work as well, right?

Kate: Mm. Um, and so what I believe you need to do is start those mentor conversations and start to develop others.

Thomas: Mm.

Kate: This is, this is a funny one because early when, earlier in the season we did an episode and I talked about having an experience with a senior in my team when I was junior, and I knew that he was really good.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And his last day he left and he was kind of like, Hey, this is all the things that you kind of need to be doing. I give you that big download was why weren’t we talking about this in the, you know, the year that I have worked with you?

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And we had a couple of comments on that episode.

Thomas: Yep.

Kate: One was like, why should he give you his time?

That’s not his job. That’s unpaid work. And you don’t deserve just to be mentored just because you don’t know as much. It

Thomas: was like he doesn’t owe you anything kind of.

Kate: Yeah. And then the other comment was like, he probably didn’t want competition in the workplace, so of course he wasn’t gonna develop you.

Thomas: Yeah.

Kate: And I find both of those perspectives bizarre. Uh, first of all, because there is, there is play a space for multiple good people. More good people is a good thing.

Thomas: Yep.

Kate: So I don’t believe the competition aspect. And also I really believe in mentoring. I believe mentoring is a skill in itself and it is what is going to progress your own career.

People who are good at mentoring, who can have those conversations, who can develop others are the ones who are going to get promoted.

Thomas: Yeah. And I think even selfishly in the medium to long term, you’re creating more capacity out there, which means you are less likely to remain the help desk to, um, get burnout or maybe be so good at your job that you’re overlooked for moving into another position

Kate: because they don’t wanna move you.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. ’cause you’re so good right here. Yeah.

Kate: Too valuable where you are. Yeah, for sure.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how do we get to being a lighthouse? How do we develop skills?

Kate: I think unfortunately the answer is simply experience.

Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Kate: And training

Thomas: y you develop the skills.

Kate: You develop the skills.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we’ve talked about both of these. Skills, analytics and communication are learnable. I’m not naturally a brilliant communicator. I’ve spent a lot of time and money becoming a much better, uh, communicator. I know they’re learnable and it can be absolutely worth in your journey to getting to being a lighthouse, I’m gonna say is like bolting yourself a bit to somebody who’s good, which is

Kate: mentors, people with opposite skill sets.

Thomas: Yep.

Kate: To you.

Thomas: Go find your Ben or, um, and I think genuinely watch those people as well. Yeah. I think there is so much value in watching people who are good at presenting and even if you kind of mimic them a little bit, you sit there and you analyse and you evaluate what they’re doing, see if you can replicate it.

Certainly like you said, mentoring, have those conversations, ask questions. And I think if I cast my mind back to our previous clients, those who are good lighthouses, don’t rush things.

Kate: Mm.

Thomas: Um, you know, and I talk, I talk about this whenever we have a session, with, um, a group of clients and that is we are literally just going to take the time to consider data storytelling.

I’m gonna tell you how to be better at your job or, um, you know, try and multitask things is literally just we’re going to think about audience and message and purpose and what we are doing here to the exclusion of other distractions. And the people who are good lighthouses take that time to consider those things to be purposeful.

They’re not rushed. It’s not something that’s just dropped out the back of AI and sort of tried to present it is literally just considered.

Kate: Yeah. Right. So that is the four.

Thomas: Yeah. So we had the person who is low communication, low analytic skill, the fog, not great visibility.

Kate: Uh, we’ve got the treasure chest, which is higher in the analytic skill and low in the communication skill.

Thomas: Yep. Then we had the siren. The, high-end communication and low analytics skill,

Kate: and then of course the lighthouse, which is high in the analytics and the communication skill, and ultimately what we’re aiming to be.

Thomas: Yeah. An excellent data storyteller.

Kate: Yeah.

So have a think about where you feel like you naturally fit, like what your inclination is. Mm. Which of those segments you fit into. And then jump onto the quiz link in the show notes and on our website and work out exactly where you do fit. There’s a couple of questions that you can answer. Yep. And find out exactly where you do fit.

Thomas: Yep. And exactly what your next steps are to move towards the lighthouse quadrant. Yeah. Yes. Good one. All right. Thank you very much for listening in. If you found value in today’s episode, I think you should subscribe. And if you wanna share this episode with a friend or colleague, please do so.

Kate: Yes. And if you would like to know anything about data storytelling, please feel free or to email us podcast@presentationboss.com.au.

Thomas: And I think that’s enough for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. See you next week.