Executive Mandate #1: Become Value Driven, Not Data Driven

I hate it when I hear senior executives state that they want to become data-driven, as if somehow having data is value in of itself. Now, one can hardly blame the unenlightened executive whose only perspectives on data are associated with statements like "Data is really the new oil" (Wall Street Journal) or "The world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data" (The Economist). The infatuation with "data-driven" versus "value-driven" can be confirmed from Google Trends (Figure 1). However, this is where the value determination of data and oil diverge. Oil has value as determined by General Acceptable Accounting Principles (GAAP).