Study finds executives trust their gut, tarot card makers rejoice

A post from the Datadoodle archive, 2009

Forty percent of business executives trust their guts over data? I admit those survey results made me raise an eyebrow — but then I turned to the next email. False alarm.

Forty percent may be significant, but compared with what? Is that worse than last year? For all we know — at least from the press release, as I can't seem to find the actual report — this could be a huge improvement for the analytics industry.

Now I'd like to know more about that 40 percent who prefer "guts" over data. How many used pure clairvoyance, and how many used aids like tea leaves, pig entrails, and tarot cards?

If the survey had probed more — I assume it didn't — it would have found the answer: Data is everywhere, and it's often stored layer upon layer and called experience. "Guts" is another way to say, "I don't remember where I got the data."

Even a lot of thought leaders in the analytics industry would admit to deciding by gut. Imagine if 254 of them were asked "guts or data for most decisions about your own business?" They decide every day things like whether they'll attend this conference or that one, when to take a vacation, how to replace that failing keyboard, and whether to go to the mall with the wife or finish that damned course outline. What's it gonna be, Charlie, data or guts? My gut says most would pick guts.

Here's what the results do say: Sixty-one percent of those who opt for guts cited lack of good data — I suppose as in, "Hmm, no data. Let's eyeball it." Wouldn’t anyone say so? The survey's base of 254 managers and executives working at companies earning $500 million or more in 2007 are no fools. (At least as reported here.) Sixty percent — apparently overlapping the first group — cited no past data, data that could show trends. Fifty-five percent gave the excuse that their decisions relied on qualitative or subjective factors.

Guts or judgement is a murky choice, but the results are total waste if the questionnaire forced respondents to define terms for themselves. Were respondents given the simple choice of analytics or "judgment"? If so, the "40 percent" results mean nothing.

To see why, look at the comments after Thomas Wailgum's "To Hell with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut" on CIO.com. Most confuse analytics with tools, architecture, or Dilbertertian obstacles. So what did respondents really mean when they chose guts or judgment? Did some, for example, think of a bad interface and select judgement as a way of voting against the tool? We don't know.

Only a few commenters, such as Kalido CTO Cliff Longman, try to untangle the false choice of guts-or-data.

Longman writes, "Managers make all decisions by gut feel (a mixture of experience, beliefs, observations etc.) — but if there is trusted data available for them to see, I think it becomes part of the 'gut feeling.' ... Digestible data — good for the gut."

Me, I use tea leaves. Good for the guts.

Also see Neil Raden's "Gut Versus Analytics: What's the Real Story?" and Marcus Borba's "Several executives trust gut."