Numbers Please!

How to encourage a business culture that favours facts and figures rather than whims and desires.
One of the biggest words exchanged in our world of social media is the word “Like”, which has
popped out from our individualistic society that gives freedom to the individual to justify any
personal decision with the phrase “I just like it”. In fact, fast food companies like the American chain
McDonalds has brought into the English language and new verb that was not there before and that
is “Liking” in their advertisement line “I am liking it”. All this is fine, we are free to base our decisions
on gut feeling, it is after all our money and our time. In fact, many times the one of us can be correct
in his/her decision based on gut feeling. This works when it is a personal decision affecting only one
person. When the decisions belong to a company that can affect many employees, clients and other
stakeholders, basing decisions on personal like is a crime.
Every business must begin, if they have not already done so, a campaign to educate all their staff at
all levels of the importance of basing decisions on facts and figures.
One day I was in an executive meeting discussing the construction plans of a new school that is
about to accommodation 1700 students. I was thinking of the logistics of how these kids are going to
enter the school and leave it considering that all families used cars for transport. The project
manager began explaining how the entrance looks like and where would cars stop to drop off
students. Then he said the gates will open for 30 minutes during drop off and pick up. My question
was: Did you simulate this process using numbers and computer software? The answer was “No”.
My reasoning was to work out the capacity so we know how many temporary parking bays or lanes
we would need.
You could be the best construction engineer that built hundreds of schools before, but if you do not
have the mentality to base your decisions on facts and numbers you are doing a disservice to our
society and the coming generations. Please think in facts, figures and numbers so you can contribute
with quality products and services.