09/15/2025

Why CEOs Need a Story

Research numbers matter, but context around those numbers matters just as much

"We need to be a data-driven association," a CEO might say. OK, great. Why?

I don't ask that because I question the importance of data to a successful organization—it certainly is. But it's worth taking the time to consider what that data is being gathered for, used for and why. Numbers in themselves aren't meaningful; they only have an impact when they fuel intelligent decision-making and when leaders can articulate the reasons for that decision.

At the Sloan MIT Management Review, Jiaxi Zhu explores the importance of going beyond the numbers when it comes to data, and how data feeds into organizational storytelling. Zhu, head of analytics in Google’s Small and Medium Business division, explains how all of the team’s data-gathering mattered little if executives couldn’t apply it to real-world needs. “Executives were overwhelmed by the complexity and skeptical of black-box insights they could not contextualize,” Zhu writes of one analytics report.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.