What’s in this podcast?
Being right isn’t enough. If people don’t understand the insight, trust it or know what to do with it, its value can quickly disappear.
In this episode of Hub & Spoken, Jason Foster, CEO & Founder of Cynozure, is joined by Aubrey HB, senior executive data leader, to explore why communication and storytelling are such critical skills for data leaders.
Drawing on Aubrey’s journey from computational mathematics and data science into senior leadership, they discuss the shift from explaining how something works to making clear why it matters. They explore how data teams can move beyond being order takers by asking what decision an insight will enable and what value it is ultimately there to create.
The conversation also looks at adapting your message for different audiences, building trust through the story behind the data and coaching teams to communicate with greater impact. Because whether you’re speaking to a CEO, presenting to a board or working with a business stakeholder, how you communicate the insight can be just as important as the work itself.
Episode timings
00:00 — Introduction
05:56 — Communication as a data leadership skill
08:31 — Educating stakeholders and focusing on decisions
14:16 — Communicating the ‘so what’
18:15 — Building narratives that people trust
22:17 — Tailoring communication to the audience and culture
29:38 — Trust, change and the power of storytelling
34:18 — Developing storytellers across data teams
39:31 — The art and science of solving people problems
The following interview transcription has been edited for length and clarity.
00:00 — Introduction
Jason Foster:
Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I have with me Aubrey HB. She is a senior data leader with bags of experience in data leadership across various organisations and industries.
We’re talking about the role of communication and storytelling in successful data leadership, a topic very close to my heart and one I’m really passionate about. Aubrey, it’s absolutely brilliant to have you here. Thank you for being on the show.
Aubrey HB:
Thank you very much for having me.
Jason Foster:
Let’s get you introduced. Tell us a bit about you, your background and how you got into data leadership. Then we can get into this whole conversation about communications and telling stories.
Aubrey HB:
I started my career by getting a PhD in computational algebraic topology, which meant that I became a data scientist in a number of different industries and organisations.
To deliver any kind of value, I needed to learn all the other aspects of data that would make me successful as a data scientist: data engineering, data modelling, architecture, infrastructure and database design. It was soup to nuts, covering every one of the data sub-disciplines that enable you to deliver value through data science solutions.
My career took a natural progression as I started to get more and more of those data capabilities underneath me. That’s how I now sit as a senior executive data leader who specialises in growing and scaling data capabilities within organisations that realise value.
Jason Foster:
We need plenty of those, so it’s good to talk to you about this. Your route through data science isn’t as common as you might think in data leadership. It’s often more from a technology perspective or broader programme leadership.
Going back to your PhD, what was it called again?
Aubrey HB:
Computational algebraic topology. It’s a very interesting and niche area: pure maths applied to very large, high-dimensional datasets.
Jason Foster:
So a career in statistics and data science was a natural progression?
Aubrey HB:
It was indeed. I liked maths growing up.
Jason Foster:
And you still do?
Aubrey HB:
I still love it. As a data leader, I don’t think I could ever decouple from analytics because the data needs to work in concert for you to use the really smart, intelligent and unusual areas of maths to deliver value to organisations.
We’ve seen it with AI and everything that’s coming out. It’s maths-based at the end of the day, so I love that.
05:56 — Communication as a data leadership skill
Jason Foster:
This conversation about communication and storytelling takes us from science to art. It’s almost a complete turn from where you studied and started your career. Now we’re talking about the art of communication and storytelling. Why is that a topic of interest to you, and where did that interest come from?
Aubrey HB:
At all the different stages of my career, I started to realise, and then compound that realisation, just how important it is to communicate and tell stories effectively.
As a numbers kid, I completely dismissed English, history and all those subjects. But when you’re in an organisation and see first-hand the power of really good PR and messaging, it hits you. I realised that this is vitally important.
It’s an area in which I don’t think a lot of data people excel or realise how intrinsic effective communication is to their success.
Jason Foster:
I think that’s probably true for all leadership roles, and non-leadership roles, frankly. As more of the work done at a hands-on level becomes easier, more automated and more AI-driven, the ability to communicate and tell stories is going to become even more valuable, important and relevant to all our roles.
Aubrey HB:
Absolutely. When you’re hands-on, especially in the data space and within analysis, you tend to become absorbed in all the details and everything you’ve considered.
When presenting that work to somebody, you rarely remember to take them on the journey you took yourself. You present things that, when taken out of context, don’t really make sense. People think, “That sounds really smart, but I don’t know what they’re actually saying.”
You’ve then lost the moment to deliver the impact of what you spent hours, days or weeks building through your analysis. It has fallen on deaf ears.
08:31 — Educating stakeholders and focusing on decisions
Jason Foster:
There are the broad categories of communication and storytelling, but there’s also some education needed, both for the teams doing the work and the stakeholders or customers engaging with them.
How much of a data leader’s role is about educating the organisation to understand data, compared with all the other things they could do or simply providing information and insight? What has your experience been?
Aubrey HB:
Every leader, whether they’re in marketing or they’re the chief financial officer, has a responsibility to educate their peers and stakeholders about the importance of their department. I don’t think that’s unique to data, but data confuses a lot of people.
It’s a hard subject for people to grasp and understand, especially when most people don’t like maths, numbers and those sorts of things. That can make it even more challenging.
At the end of the day, data is a team sport, and a lot of people don’t necessarily realise or appreciate that. If people don’t understand how they play the sport with you or recognise their role in everybody’s success, they won’t know what they don’t know. You have to educate them and help them join you on that journey so that they appreciate all the work your teams are doing.
Jason Foster:
There’s the work being done in the background to satisfy what can feel like quite a simple request for a certain metric or set of insights.
There’s also the role played by the people asking for the insight. They need to ensure the data used to produce it is clean, accurate and up to date.
Aubrey HB:
Exactly. Those are usually the people who own the systems generating or delivering the data you’ll need to build their next dashboard, piece of insight or whatever else they’re asking for.
Jason Foster:
I often see the conversation getting lost in the data itself. There’s definite value in ensuring that people understand their responsibility for making sure the data is good, clean and of sufficient quality, and how it ends up as a number that somebody uses.
The other side is helping people understand the value of the output, the value of data and the value of insight so that they can grasp the opportunity data gives them.
Aubrey HB:
Absolutely. More and more, especially with AI and advances in technology, people leapfrog over the question of what problem they’re trying to solve.
Fine, you want a dashboard or you want data, but what will you do with it? Once you have it readily available, what decision is going to come out of it?
You might think that’s commonplace and stakeholders would already have those answers. But when you’re treated as an order taker, as data people tend to be, it’s important to help stakeholders clarify what they’re going to do with the data.
That way, they feel invested when you give them what they’ve asked for and are more likely to make the decisions or take the actions they intended to take with that insight, analysis or dataset.
Jason Foster:
The connection between the work and why it’s being used is important. Knowing what will be done with it helps you understand what to build in the first place.
Everybody wants to do the right thing and spend their time and the company’s money on the right work. As a collective, let’s make sure we’re investing in the right things and understand what each request is for. Other people might be asking for the same thing, and there may be economies of scale.
You mentioned the “why”, but the other question is, “So what?” Data science, technical work and AI can all feel complicated. People can be afraid of maths and think they need to be good at it to do anything with data. How do you go from something complex to something simple that connects with the “so what” or the “why”?
14:16 — Communicating the ‘so what’
Aubrey HB:
Ideally, if you have a good stakeholder who’s willing to spar with you mentally and have those conversations, that’s a great place to start. But so many people come to data and say, “I don’t know. You just tell me.”
It’s important to coach your data teams, analysts and data scientists to begin with the short version: this is the point you need to take away, and this is the “so what”.
Embed that narrative into every opportunity you have with stakeholders. Through repetition, if people hear it enough times, they start to think that way. You’re effectively creating the shift in data culture needed for people to use data effectively, drive value and make decisions.
People almost expect data professionals to approach things through the “so what” lens. We have to step into that role and help everybody on that journey understand what they want to do with the data.
Jason Foster:
I remember sitting in meetings when I was in industry. The customer analytics team and lead data scientist were presenting some work. We had an hour-long meeting, and about 50 minutes were spent explaining how clever the work was, how the model worked, how it produced the results and all the steps involved.
It was interesting but complicated, and it wasn’t relevant to the marketing business lead we were speaking to. She simply wanted to understand the impact these things were having on customers so she could make a better marketing decision. How clever the model was wasn’t relevant to that conversation.
It got lost in translation. I think you’re saying the data leader’s role includes coaching people to approach that type of conversation differently.
Aubrey HB:
Absolutely. You can’t be in every conversation to say, “Let’s take a step back. This is what you should care about.”
As a data leader, you need to bring that education into your team so they can have conversations without going into the gory details of how the sausage is made. They need to focus on the fact that they’re delivering something delicious, piping hot and exactly what the person asked for.
It’s a hard balance to strike. Data people love sharing all their intelligence and the details, but you have to remind them that nobody cares. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Give them the social cues to watch out for. Did you see where the audience’s eyes glazed over? You’ve completely lost them. You need to think about landing the message and staying focused on the purpose of the meeting.
I routinely do dress rehearsals with my people before any major presentation. It keeps them on track, allows me to call out when they’re about to go down a rabbit hole that nobody will follow, and makes sure they land the message they have that senior stakeholder’s attention to deliver.
Jason Foster:
What turns something into a story or gives it a narrative, rather than simply telling somebody an answer? How do you usually bring that to life?
18:15 — Building narratives that people trust
Aubrey HB:
There are a couple of techniques I’ve used. First and foremost, somebody very wise once told me that people don’t make decisions based on logic and reason. They make decisions based on emotion.
The first thing you need to do is identify how to tell your story in a way that grabs somebody and makes them remember it. You might play to feelings such as nervousness or excitement that are already present in your stakeholder.
Then it’s about the narrative and taking them on the journey: we started here, we looked at this, we didn’t find anything, so we investigated these other areas and examined the data through a particular lens.
Help them follow the same progression as an analyst or data scientist. It’s fine to talk about where you didn’t find information or where things were misleading, but you have to help them understand that you put in the work, completed your due diligence and followed a number of logical paths.
The conclusion you’re presenting is therefore something they can trust. They’ve followed the journey of how you reached it.
Jason Foster:
I like that perspective. My thought is about connecting the answer to what the individual really cares about. In my example, the whole conversation with the marketing leader should have been about the customer insight and what could be done about it.
But I hadn’t really considered the value of describing the journey through the analysis. People are smart, especially in business. They like to know that you considered different scenarios and angles.
You might have found that there was no interesting insight into customer behaviour in one area, but they know you reached that conclusion because you looked. What you ended up with wasn’t merely the first thing you found; it was the result of several iterations. Have you found that the business side of the method is interesting to people?
Aubrey HB:
I have, especially if you position it in their language and in the context of their subject area. As you said, people are smart, particularly about their own areas. They’ll be able to follow it.
That’s where the details come to life and give somebody an appreciation of the effort, due diligence and parallel tracks involved. It builds trust with stakeholders, much more than simply giving them an answer without explaining how you got there.
Alternatively, if you do explain how you got there but make it so technically complicated that they can’t follow, that doesn’t help either. It’s about creating dialogue and narrative.
When you have an opportunity to present or have a conversation, you can do much more of that. Written communication is a different beast, and you have to tailor how you communicate to the forum. It might be written, verbal, a presentation or a conversation.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that you have a unique opportunity to land a message. Part of that message can be the journey you took to reach the insight you’re presenting.
22:17 — Tailoring communication to the audience and culture
Jason Foster:
That journey shouldn’t be included by default every time. It depends on whether it’s relevant and the person is interested in it. Different stakeholders want different levels of detail or have different levels of interest in how you reached the answer.
Some just want the answer, what to do about it and what options they have. Others want the context behind it. There’s a whole train of thought here about tailoring communication.
I was thinking about a meeting, but there are many different forums. Sometimes you’re sending an email or following up after the release of a dashboard. Sometimes it’s an impromptu conversation over coffee. You might be presenting at an all-hands meeting, speaking in a team meeting or presenting to the board.
The context and audience can be different each time, and individuals have different ways of taking in information. Do you find that you need to tailor your approach to the form of communication, even if the insight is the same?
Aubrey HB:
One hundred per cent. That’s where storytelling and communication become art. You need to know your audience, what matters to them and how they want to hear it.
If it’s a CEO, you have 30 seconds. Deliver it in a punchy way that lands the message. Let them double-click if they have the curiosity and interest, and find the right way to communicate so that everything you say or write lands the message you need to land.
Jason Foster:
Is there a way to understand what that approach should be? Sometimes you know the individual, but sometimes you’re caught out. Have you found a way to unpick the right approach?
Aubrey HB:
That’s what makes it an art form to some extent. I don’t have a magic answer, but it takes a little self-reflection after you meet the person.
Make a mental note: what’s going to work with this individual? How am I preparing to make this message land? How am I designing this for a particular audience?
As you said, the same insight or analysis can be targeted at different audiences. You have to take the time to sit back and decide to present it one way for one audience and another way for somebody else.
The way you communicate what you’re trying to say is almost as important as the work you put in to begin with. It takes time, headspace and tailored thinking about the situation you’re entering.
Jason Foster:
Dare I say it, you need some data on your audience. Marketing teams work hard to understand their audiences, including different types of customers, personas and ways of interacting and communicating.
It’s the same here. You need to know what the CFO is like, whether they prefer things written down and other relevant information about that individual or the team you’re approaching.
Their style, approach, background and knowledge can help you make an informed decision about how best to present the data, information or conversation.
Aubrey HB:
One hundred per cent. To bring it back to data science, you also need a feedback loop. This didn’t land well, or I got my point across effectively in this particular way.
Use every opportunity, angle and situation to refine your approach and feed that learning back into improved communication for the next iteration.
Jason Foster:
Do you think culture affects this, whether that’s the culture of the organisation, your team or the teams you’re interacting with?
Aubrey HB:
Absolutely. Communication is a manifestation of an organisation’s or individual’s culture.
If it’s a fast-paced environment where nobody has time to think, you need to convey the message as a short summary: this is what you need to know, and this is what you should do with it. Nobody will give you the luxury of waxing lyrical for 45 minutes.
If you’re in a more collaborative, slower-paced environment where everything is decided by committee, you need to go around the houses. Give different stakeholders a taster of what you’re going to bring to the meeting, allow them to socialise it and give them time to become comfortable with it.
Then, when you bring it into the meeting where a decision needs to be made democratically, everybody has had time to process it and think it through. You can focus on calling out the common ground and explaining why everybody should support what you’re proposing, rather than suddenly introducing something unexpected and telling them to decide.
How you strategise and convey your message varies greatly depending on the whole landscape of the organisation.
Jason Foster:
There’s the culture of how communication happens and the style of communication that exists. That’s usually quite consistent across an organisation, although there will be pockets of subcultures.
But you’ve also touched on the culture and style of action and decision-making, which may be the most important part. It affects not only your communication style but also the level of refinement the insight needs before it’s discussed.
It affects people’s appetite for making a decision with less information and their comfort with some ambiguity in the decision-making process. That’s an interesting dynamic and a difficult one to manage.
Aubrey HB:
It’s a challenge that everybody should recognise, regardless of where they sit. I think it’s especially difficult for data people because you’re so intrinsic to data-driven decision-making.
Everybody is talking about using data, so they look to you as a central service organisation and expect you to provide all the answers. When you’re in that position of power, use it wisely.
Work out how to emphasise what needs to be said, how the decision should be made and where the evidence comes from, if they have the appetite to listen to all of it.
That sits on top of already being mathematically minded and data-savvy: you also need to tackle the art of effective communication, messaging and storytelling.
29:38 — Trust, change and the power of storytelling
Jason Foster:
We’ve covered science and art, so I’m going to move to philosophy. Underlying much of this is trust.
Regardless of how good the insight is or how good you are at communicating, although communication helps build trust, a certain level of trust is required. Unless the organisation buys into what you’re doing, none of this matters.
Aubrey HB:
Because of the nature of being a data professional, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been brought in as an “agent of change”. That comes with the challenge of people saying, “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
They’re comfortable because their approach has been sound until this point, and now you’re telling them to do something entirely different. Why would they believe you?
There’s natural hesitation, fear, uncertainty and doubt about whether this will improve anything. Establishing trust is incredibly important if you want people to do something differently.
As data becomes more embedded in decision-making and evidence-based practices within an organisation, we become agents of change. We’re changing established ways of working, processes and decision-making by doing something differently. You need trust to do that.
Jason Foster:
You have to get past the reaction of, “Who are you to tell me how to run my part of the business?”
It can be hard, but insight can help. If you can show that there’s a different way of doing something and demonstrate the value it produces, that at least starts the conversation.
Aubrey HB:
It does, and it’s important to share that insight. It goes back to taking people on the journey of your reasoning and telling the story of how you reached that point in a way they can understand.
I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve attended where I’ve watched an analyst flick through spreadsheets and heat maps and thought, “I have no idea what they’re saying.” I like numbers, so imagine somebody on the other side of the table who doesn’t understand them and is simply being bombarded.
It’s really challenging and devalues much of what you’re trying to say if you don’t bring people on the journey.
As I’ve explored this space, I’ve started to connect the storytelling used in films with storytelling in meetings. People will follow a plot. There’s no reason why reaching a conclusion or making a recommendation for a decision can’t have its own plot to follow.
Jason Foster:
I like that. My mind went to different plots and how different television shows deal with them.
The classic approach here is to give people the conclusion first so they know it upfront and then fill in the gaps. But not all stories work that way. Sometimes you build towards the crescendo of the conclusion and keep people guessing about what will happen and where it will end.
If you give them the answer upfront, you then have to keep them listening to understand how you got there. Each approach has its own benefits and challenges. It’s about finding the right balance, but the plot is important.
34:18 — Developing storytellers across data teams
Aubrey HB:
I absolutely believe so. That’s something a data leader can bring into their department and embed in its culture.
As I said earlier, I do dress rehearsals with people. We conduct peer code reviews in data engineering and data science, so there’s no reason we can’t also do peer storytelling.
Ask somebody to present to a colleague who has never seen the insight or analysis. Can that person follow how you started at point A and ended up here? Teams can practise with one another.
Jason Foster:
I love that. There are challenges because it can expose people and put them outside their comfort zones. But practice makes it second nature. When you’re in front of an audience, you then have the confidence to express yourself and tell the story positively.
Aubrey HB:
One hundred per cent. The person conducting the peer review might also identify blind spots and things you want to revisit.
They might make a good point you hadn’t considered because you’d been so immersed in the details for three weeks that you hadn’t thought to examine the issue through that particular lens. It has a lot of benefits.
Jason Foster:
The role of a data leader is broad, and we’ve been focusing on a specific but important part: storytelling, coaching your team to tell stories well, and being a good storyteller and communicator yourself.
There’s also a necessary aspect of the role that involves being the key spokesperson for data within the organisation. That’s mostly internal, although it can sometimes be external, depending on the business.
Should data leaders see themselves that way? They’re the spokesperson for the value of data, the value it can deliver, the opportunities it presents and the changes needed to become good at using it. How important is that part of the role?
Aubrey HB:
If not the data leader, who would do it? It’s absolutely a requirement of the role to educate everybody at the table about what needs to happen.
You need to explain why it isn’t simply a matter of flicking a switch and getting something done in five minutes, and why certain foundations need to be laid. You’re the spokesperson for the whole function.
It’s unfortunate that people still don’t understand data, even though it has been a hot topic for a long time. Somebody has to educate people about what it means, what needs to be done and why you can’t simply snap your fingers and make everything happen. I think that’s the responsibility of the senior data leader.
But if you can also give your team the confidence to do that locally, more people across the organisation will become truly data-literate or data-fluent.
People don’t know what they don’t know. If they make assumptions about data because they don’t understand it and nobody is there to correct them, they’ll carry those assumptions indefinitely.
It’s important for the data leader to use every opportunity to educate everybody about what the function does and why things have to be done in a particular way.
It’s becoming even more important as chief executives and boards expect some magical return on investment from data. Data leaders must communicate the value that remains available, everything left on the table because of decisions that have been made, and the full potential to optimise and create value by using data and insights more completely.
Jason Foster:
I couldn’t agree more. People inherently understand this now, but the ability to execute makes all the difference.
It’s complicated and, as you said, it’s an art. There’s no fixed rulebook, although you can apply some science to it. It’s also about emotion, trust and the things that connect people.
Becoming good at this is important. I’ve certainly seen data leaders who are good at it achieve more success. That’s anecdotal rather than a data-led conclusion, but it’s what I’ve observed from spending time with many people in this space.
39:31 — The art and science of solving people problems
Jason Foster:
To finish, which do you prefer: art or science?
Aubrey HB:
When I started my life, it was one hundred per cent science. It was repeatable, I could follow the logic, and I felt very confident grounding myself in science.
As I’ve progressed through my career, I’ve realised that most problems are people problems. Solving those takes finesse. It’s an art form and requires a completely different part of the brain.
Originally, science. Today, art.
Jason Foster:
It’s great to see that balance. You’re grounded in science, numbers and facts, but, as you say, much of this is about getting your point across, collaborating with people, helping them understand and working closely with them. That’s completely artful.
Aubrey, it’s been brilliant talking to you about this. As I said at the start, storytelling and communication are among my favourite topics. There’s so much to learn from other spaces, including marketing and communications specialists.
There are also lessons from general leadership methodologies and approaches that ring true in everything we’ve discussed. I love this topic and have loved this conversation. I really appreciate you joining me on the show to talk about it.
Aubrey HB:
Thank you so much for having me. This is something I’ve grown incredibly passionate about as my career has developed, so I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation with you.
