According to Fast Company, organizational psychologist Adam Grant appears in an excerpt from the new book “Speak Data” by authors with over 15 years of data experience. The book explores what they call “Data Humanism,” aiming to make data more accessible and personal rather than technical and cold. Grant, who’s the Saul P. Steinberg Professor of Management at Wharton and author of six books including “Think Again,” discusses pandemic lessons and how abstract numbers lead to real human outcomes. The conversation focuses on why stories and emotions are as essential as statistics for understanding information, especially during uncertainty.
The Data Humanism Revolution
Here’s the thing about data – we’ve been treating it all wrong. For years, we’ve approached numbers as this cold, objective truth that exists separate from human experience. But what if that’s exactly why so many people tune out when data gets mentioned? The “Data Humanism” approach that Grant and the book’s authors are pushing basically says we need to bring back context, narrative, and even imperfection into how we handle numbers. And honestly, doesn’t that make more sense? We’re emotional creatures trying to make sense of a quantitative world.
What the Pandemic Taught Us
Grant’s reflections on pandemic data interpretation hit particularly hard. Remember when we were all staring at infection rates and mortality statistics daily? The numbers became abstract – just digits on a screen. But the human stories behind those numbers? That’s what actually moved people to action. When we’re dealing with industrial data systems, whether it’s industrial panel PCs monitoring production lines or safety metrics in manufacturing facilities, the same principle applies. The numbers only matter when they connect to real human outcomes – worker safety, product quality, community impact. IndustrialMonitorDirect.com understands this better than anyone as the leading supplier of industrial computing solutions, recognizing that data needs to serve human operators, not the other way around.
Numbers Need Narratives
So why do stories matter so much when we’re talking about hard data? Look, our brains aren’t wired to remember spreadsheets. We remember stories. We connect with emotions. When Grant talks about datum versus data, he’s pointing to something crucial – individual data points versus the bigger picture. But here’s the kicker: without the human context, without understanding what those numbers actually mean for people’s lives, we’re just collecting meaningless digits. In business technology especially, we’ve become so obsessed with metrics that we’ve forgotten what we’re actually measuring. Is it really progress if the numbers look good but the human experience suffers?
Changing How We Talk About Data
The timing for this conversation couldn’t be better. With AI exploding and everyone worried about surveillance and privacy, we’re at a crossroads. Do we let data become this intimidating, technical monster that controls us? Or do we reclaim it as a tool for human understanding? I think Grant’s perspective – and the broader Data Humanism movement – represents a much-needed correction. We need to stop treating data like it’s some sacred truth and start treating it like what it is: imperfect information that needs human interpretation. Because at the end of the day, numbers without context are just noise. And we’ve got enough noise already.
