What do we do when we see something out of the ordinary in business?
Curiosity is a gift. Too often, we let software limit our curiosity.
I once asked an analyst if he calculated profit. He told me that the systems weren't integrated well enough for him to incorporate profitability into his calculations. He didn't possess the curiosity required to investigate if any data could be linked.
Another analyst produced a report that didn't tie out with the report the EVP possessed. The analyst didn't have the curiosity to find out why the data didn't match, only offering that the data came from "different systems".
Or as I'm seeing a lot lately ... merchandise performance absolutely stinks, and somebody notices something odd in the data. But ... and this is a big but ... "that's the responsibility of the merchandising team, it's simply not my job to analyze the performance of merchandise, that's the job of the merchandising team."
Wrong.
Wrong.
Terribly wrong.
When you see something out of the ordinary, document it (i.e. take a picture). Then go figure out what the heck is going on. Odds are nobody else is seeing what you are seeing, and even if somebody else is analyzing the issue, they aren't analyzing it the way you analyze it!
