Replace the Culture in Your Gut (and Workplace) with Data.

One of the greatest takeaways in my college career comes from my Social Psychology professor, Iris Mauss during our first class (I totally felt guilty for learning something on my first day of class). I remember walking in to the packed lecture hall (the only time it was) to find that we were defining what social psychology was. Someone eventually raised their hand to ask: "why should we care?". Articulately, she said:

Common sense is not so common. After all, human behavior is counter-intuitive. We expect one thing to happen, but something we never expected to happen, does. Empirically, social psychology has lots to add to common sense.

In my personal experience, I've noticed that psychology as a discipline gets a lot of shit for being a "fluff pseudoscience masquerading around as a true science". But we use some hardcore research methodology, develop strong technical writing skills, learn how to code, and utilize programming languages like R. We are truly, a data driven field, and we need strong research foundations to identify predictability in human unpredictability. This is where I think my love of data comes from, because as a field, we discover a lot of gems hidden in plain sight and most importantly, we prove our haters wrong.

To give you a sense of some of the gems our field has found, here are several studies that have produced counter-intuitive results:

• Intuition suggested that once we knew something was a placebo, it would no longer work. Data indicates that placebo medication works, even if we know it's a placebo.
• Intuition suggested that if we were in a group, we would maintain our sense of individuality. Data indicates that we are quick to conform out of lack of education or because we want to fit in. See Asch's line test below.

• Intuition (via the old adage) suggested that romantically, opposites attract. Data suggests that we're attracted to people who look like our relatives, and share similar characteristics to us.

Data in the current workplace.

Too often, I see myself and the companies I work for base many important decisions on their intuition. Intuition will often look like one person making an executive decision for their team or entire company based a few anecdotes from their closest colleagues. That executive decision can help to bypass bureaucracy to promote a results based culture, but at the same time, by avoiding the necessary hurdles of feedback, it can also come at the cost of a poor or even fatal outcome. It's not that there's no place for intuition-- it's that we need more space for data, especially since we humans are influenced by so many cognitive biases that hurt our decision making process.

Here are just a few examples of cognitive biases

Now of course, I don't want to be preachy, and let's be honest, I already am, but I do want to share some of my own personal experiences, including one time when I blindly followed my intuition and it failed me.

Here are some ways data has proven me wrong:

The Botched Paint Job

As part of one of my jobs, I was responsible for redesigning conference rooms. Having worked at this company for a few weeks, I noticed that the people were energetic and quirky--we shared loud "HELLOS!", got into debates over the Kim and T Swizzy debacle, and shared obscure memes with each other. This company was growing at the time, and we were hiring a lot of people. And because the people were energetic and wanted new hires to feel our energy, I intuited that we should paint the rooms some bright tones. Turns out our people really liked the muted, more mellow colors when I asked in a formal survey.

The poor decision I avoided: I saved us thousands of dollars on having to redo a botched paint job; preserved hours of time on researching new contractors and paints; and avoided tanking our employee productivity and happiness numbers.

Caring Too Much That I Was Almost Careless

As a residential adviser in college, one of my jobs was to contribute to the professional development of my students. Throughout the semester, my students relentlessly asked me questions about finance, job hunting, adult things, etc. at all hours of the day (including 4 am, yes). I thought it would be a good idea to put on a speaker series where professionals could address these issues better than I could. When I collected my data, I found out 98% of people ended up not wanting to do the event because they were stressed and would rather have the money allocated for relaxing events; preferred advice from an older "student mentor"; and didn't have the time slot for an elaborate event.

The poor decision I avoided: I avoided spending potentially 12 hours setting up the logistics of the event; risking the reputation of my organization because the speakers wasted their time; and burning 40% of my residential funds for an event that no one would have probably attended.

Here's My F%#k Up*

Okay, you were probably waiting to hear how me-- this perfect human being-- made a pretty dangerous mistake that cost him dearly. Well, here's the story:

While a manager for an LGBT themed house ( *do you get the pun?), one of my responsibilities was to foster community within the house and with the larger Berkeley community. A few alumni from previous years told me that they enjoyed holding collaborative events with other houses in the area. Giddy, I arranged an event with another group, which failed. Hard. How? Well:

• I depleted our social budget by nearly 30%
• I lost 12 hours of time to planning and setup logistics
• I saw my approval ratings as a manager drop from 87% to 71% ( I know I shouldn't care, but I'm a shallow plebe).
• Worst of all, at an event that was supposed to foster community, I had one of my members addressed by homophobic slur.

What I learned: My mistake was basing the event on the needs of previous members, not current. In addition, I only talked to people I knew who shared the same mind as me on the issue. I later found out that the house we invited over had problems in the past with us, and should I have held a house meeting to discuss this as a group, and had held a accompanying vote. We could have protected our finances, and avoided the whole incident with the slur.

How does one choose a culture of data?

(Here's where I'll pretend to be wise, and share what I've learned with you.) Changing a culture can be relatively difficult, but it starts with you. Here's some of what I learned on how to be more data oriented:

1. Be able to quantitatively measure something, or operationalize it. Businesses measure abstract concepts like engagement through click rates, bounce rates, etc. Do the same. If you're trying to measure something abstract like happiness at work, ask on a scale. If you're trying determine how much bullshit you're dealing with from a co-worker pull out a scale and weigh it against actual bull feces.
2. Keep the feedback loop open. Prevent your opinion from being the only one--ask people around the workplace. If you're at a relatively large place-- 30 people or more is great. I say 30 because it's a large enough number where not everyone you ask will be directly working with you, and because (bonus if they're randomly selected) your data will have a higher probability of having a normal distribution (see the CLT), meaning it has a better chance of being representative.If you're at a smaller place (less than 30), ask at least 2/3 of the people for an opinion-- but definitely aim for 100% if feasible. And once you've received your results, never shut your people completely out. Opinions may change in light of new information. Kind of like that friend who can't choose between the pad thai, and pad see ew, but because you're cool, you let them sweat the choice out, order stressfully, and sprint to the waitress to change their order once she's handed it over to the cook.
3. Avoid basing decisions on the anecdotes of the few. Sometimes, you may hear several people in a row voice the same opinion. It may turn out those are in the minority and you may end up over representing them. Just because four people came to you wanting to throw a Satanic My Little Pony Princess party for Susan from HR doesn't mean everyone, including Susan from HR, would want it. Besides, such a party is too niche (or is it? Let the data speak).

Closing Thoughts:

Ultimately, the question comes down to: "why is it important to have a culture of data?". In my role, I would argue it leads to stronger performing companies, and happier people. Data is a tool of dialogue; data is communication. When we see data, it tells us something we may not know. We're able to solve those problems that plague us when we're on the pooper. We're able to give a voice to our people. We're able to get shit done.

Maybe don't replace your gut culture with data, since 1) data isn't food and 2) you need that gut culture to live. But maybe, it's time to replace the culture in your workplace with a culture of data. 

What do you think? When was a time you trusted your intuition and it failed you? Does your workplace have a culture of data? Share all your stories in the comments below.

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Kunal has volunteered at an elephant and rhino orphanage in Kenya, was a nationally ranked video game player, and has taught a university accredited class on Mean Girls. Currently, he is the founder of a research based non-profit, and a student at UC Berkeley double majoring in rhetoric and psychology. He enjoys writing about the intersection of people, business, and psychology. You can follow him on Twitter (@KunalKerai) or send him any wonderful insights you may have to kunal@berkeley.edu.

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