The Stories That Data Tell

Welcome to this conversation

To Get to the Other Side, Episode 4 (July 19, 2020): The Stories That Data Tell We are surrounded by – inundated with – information. How do we sift through it to make meaning and decisions as we imagine and move toward the other side of this pandemic? Brene Brown suggests that “Maybe stories are just data with a soul” and that “we’re all storytellers.” So whose stories do you hear, believe and tell, and why? Bjorn Westgard is an ER physician and community health researcher. Katy Schalla Lesiak is a pediatric nurse practitioner and school nurse. Together they share the compelling thinking of Phillip Atiba Goff and Abigail Echo-Hawk to help us all explore the stories that data tell.

Key takeaways

What we call data is our modern way of seeing the parts of a whole bunch of stories at one time to understand patterns.

Data can help us see complicated problems so that we can take steps to actually change outcomes.

“There’s nothing so inspiring in the face of our history of racism as a solvable problem.” - Phillip Atiba Goff

Data can also be incomplete and used to reinforce simple stories.

“I always think about the data as story, and each person who contributed to that data as storytellers. What is our responsibility to the story and our responsibility to the storyteller?” - Abigail Echo-Hawk

We're not talking about using data to prove something that you've already decided is true. We're talking about using data to really dig in to learn more about what's actually happening

When we use data well it actually confounds a simple story - and that’s a good thing.

• It helps us understand where we are and informs our next action.

• We ask and notice:  Whose stories are we missing in this data? What stories are being told with it? Who is telling them?  What complexity does it reveal to me?

Just like tracking our health, we each get information from all the personal interactions we are a part of, and it’s worth asking questions about how we use that to make more meaning than the simple stories we’ve been “dealt”.

Homework practice: Today and this week - notice times when your assumptions about something or someone turned out to be wrong. Pause for a moment to consider what the assumption was, what it was based on (gender? age? language? appearance?) Consider whether that assumption is something you want to carry forward with you.