Ep. 34 - Data-Driven vs. Gut-Driven Decision Making: What’s Most Effective? - with Steve Brown, Dana Cavalea, Dr. Mary Lamia, Kyle Loudermilk, & Jen McDonald

In business today, being data-driven can be a major factor in whether you and the company you work for succeed or fail.

The wealth of information that’s now available is helping us make decisions big and small, strategic and tactical... but we didn’t have all of this data in the past and people were still making good decisions every day.

Without a world full of data, people were just relying more on their gut, their instincts.

Given this shift towards data and analytics in decision making, I wanted to understand – is one style of decision making now more effective than the other?

To help me answer this question, I talked to a number of experts across different fields to get their take:

• Dr. Mary Lamia, a psychologist who has spent her career studying and encouraging emotional awareness. Dr. Lamia has joined us twice on the show before, back in episodes 9 and 12, to discuss emotions and motivational styles.
• Jen McDonald, the Executive Director of Client Engagement at global marketing agency VMLY&R. As a 20 year marketing veteran, she’s worked across a variety of industries and has been at the forefront of the digital and data revolution.
• Kyle Loudermilk, the President and CEO of GSE Systems, which provides professional and technical engineering, staffing services, and simulation software to clients in the power and process industries.
• Steve Brown, a Director at Salesforce that’s inspiring growth of Salesforce Einstein by leading a team of talented Specialists committed to driving customer success.
• And Dana Cavalea, our guest in episode 24 and the former Director of Strength and Conditioning and Performance Enhancement with the New York Yankees Organization. Dana helped pioneer data-driven performance optimization in baseball, and now, Dana brings those same performance optimization techniques to business leaders, entrepreneurs, and pro athletes around the world.

Learn more, and find the complete show notes, at flywheelassociates.com/podcast.

Resources:

• Connect with Dana Cavalea: DanaCavalea.com | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
• Connect with Steve Brown on LinkedIn
• Connect with Kyle Loudermilk on LinkedIn
• Connect with Jen McDonald: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Connect with Dr. Lamia at MaryLamia.com

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