In this digital age where information is widespread, data is more accessible whether in news, reports and research. In our everyday life, decisions we make are always based on information and data we had at that moment. It is an integral part in a rational sense to make sure that information is accurate and values the truth.
In this week’s episode, Dr. Annette Shtivelband sits with us as she walks us through the phases to make data-driven decisions. She is the founder and principal consultant with an organization called Research Evaluation Consulting and an experienced researcher in her field. Her area of specialization includes research methods, data collection, survey development and validation, and various statistical analysis techniques. Whether you seek insights on how data and knowledge makes improvements in education, entrepreneurship and life, this podcast is for you.
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Importance of Analyzing Correct Data, and Critical Thinking with Dr. Annette Shtivelband
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One thing that’s become more and more prevalent in our lives in recent years is data and analytics. A lot of organizations are making the push to become more data driven and I personally have a historic career path in data and analytics and also helping organizations achieve this data-driven state. But, of course, there is the proper balance in how we use our data and what kind of role it is to have in our lives. My guest today, Annette Shtivelband, is the founder and principal consultant with an organization called Research Evaluation and Consulting.
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Annette, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Stephen, and it’s Research Evaluation Consulting.
Oh, did I accidentally put the and in there?
Yeah, we can start over. And it’s Dr. Annette Shtivelband because I worked really hard for that credential.
Dr. Annette Shtivelband. Now, Dr. Annette Shtivelband, your PhD, tell me a little bit about that story because sometimes people see education and entrepreneurship as somewhat different paths so definitely a unique perspective from your end there.
Absolutely. So I think, for me, I have always wanted to be the type of person who could use knowledge to make improvements and make changes. I think a part of me felt that getting the doctorate would help position me well to have the knowledge and the expertise and the technical skills, but I do not think that the PhD program itself helped me be prepared for the entrepreneurial journey. And I didn’t really expect it to, to be honest with you. I think a lot of it is going to be trial and error, but I think that it helped build my confidence and, also, I think that, as I interact with clients, having a doctor before your name is really handy.
A lot of people talk about the manner in which you present yourself and although there’s a lot of people that wish that that was not really a thing, it really is. The first impression, whether it be the name, whether it be the signature on your email, whether it be the shirt you’re wearing, or anything else does seem to make an impact and so you having that doctor next to your name, how do you think that that has impacted the way clients or potential clients see you in your business?
Absolutely. So on a personal level, I’ve always looked relatively young. It’s kind of comical, it’s flattering, it’s annoying. As I’ve gotten older, I like that I look younger, but, for the longest time, I think earlier in my life, people may not have taken me as seriously. When you enter a room or you have a meeting with the client and you speak well, you’re able to answer questions, you’re able to show your knowledge but you also have that credential, I do find that people take you seriously. I’ve even had situations before as a business owner where we might submit a request for proposal or RFP, I get feedback that they love what we put there but I actually had an instance where a board member thought I looked too young, they mentioned that.
There’s definitely consequences, I think, in our society if you’re a young female business owner. It’s not an easy path, for sure. Click To Tweet
People just see you and they see that you appear young and, of course, make some sort of a mental association with that. And so what you’re saying is that it seems like your whole life, you’ve had to make up for that, whether it be with having doctor next year title or with just how you come across to people, how you speak. Do you notice that this has made you more sensitive towards other people’s appearance and how certain aspects of their appearance which they might not be able to help, I don’t know, if you want to look — a lot of people do want to look younger than they are and I’ll admit to being one of them, but if someone’s appearance does impact that, has that made you more sensitive to it and more likely to want to wait to meet them a little bit before having that thought in your head about who you think they are?
Absolutely. We all have our own biases, but, as a person, I treat everyone exactly the same so when I was younger and I lived in Portland, Oregon, I would have conversations with homeless people on the street. On the other end of the continuum, I remember when I was in college and a friend of mine was working with a celebrity and he came walking down the stairs and he was like, “Oh, I had the weirdest dream,” and without thinking, I just asked, “What did you dream?”
Do you ever feel that this concept of treating people as being in different strata, different segments, also tear some people apart because it prevents you from actually wanting to get to know certain people? This whole idea like, “Oh, it’s a celebrity, I shouldn’t talk to this person, they’re too busy for me, they don’t wanna talk to me,” or something like that?
I think it’s a complex question because, on one end, I think that there are a lot of considerations that we should make when we’re connecting with people from all backgrounds and experiences, but on the other end, we’re all people and, at the end of the day, even if I might not agree with someone’s opinion, I would hope that we could have a dialogue about why we may not agree with each other without it becoming personal regardless of whatever labels we put on each other.
So this like middle ground between completely ignoring how someone’s experience may be different because of any aspect of how they naturally appear to others or the background where they came from, but also not using that as a reason why you could never connect with a person, this whole idea like, “Oh, you don’t understand specifically what I’m going through as me, therefore, we’ll never connect,” can be a pretty dangerous place to be too.
Right, because when you start applying those labels and that’s what someone becomes, I think we stop listening to each other and understanding what we might have in common. I guess you could take the complete extreme where some people’s values or beliefs might be in direct conflict with others or may put their lives at risk, and so I’m not saying for those instances that, “Kumbaya we’re all going to get along,” but I hope at the end of the day, that we all try to understand where each other is coming from enough to have a conversation where we can share our ideas and express our opinions and I’ll feel heard and at least somewhat understood.
Hopefully, at least as much as possible. I mean, there’s always going to be people whose differences are so irreconcilable, they shouldn’t be friends, they shouldn’t be in a relationship, they shouldn’t work together. Yeah, if we can eliminate that and stop trying to look for reasons to dismiss a person, which is, I think, what a lot of people are trying to balance out in anything. We all have a way we naturally come across, whether it be our facial expression, whether it be something about the title, even something about our name and how it sounds. I know I asked you a few times to make sure I was pronouncing your last name right before introducing you on this particular episode. The key is to maybe try to reduce the amount of barriers that that creates.
I would agree with that, for sure. I think the whole expression of “Treat others the way that they’d like to be treated” typically works for most life situations.
Yeah. First of all, what made you decide data and analytics was going to be your field? What made you decide that you wanted to go on an entrepreneurial path? And what made you decide the types of organizations that you were going to eventually work with?
Absolutely. So I think, for me, I have always been really inquisitive and curious. When I was a kid, I’d always be asking questions and trying to figure out why things were the way that they were and challenging things and so I think there is a part of me as an individual that was really drawn to doing things my way and then also guiding other people on the journey and it was just something that felt like a natural extension for me. I’d say that in terms of data analytics itself, I don’t necessarily know that it was a field. I think, for me, when I went to college, I actually studied psychology. I’ve always been drawn to psychology, why people do what they do, as well as Russian, so they both don’t go together whatsoever, trust me on that. I studied abroad in Russia and they’re never going to pay someone for advice, that’s just against their culture.
That’s just not what they do in Russia.
I kid, I kid. Through all of the different things that I’ve been involved with over time, connecting with people, trying to gather information to make decisions, trying to figure out why things are the way that they are, trying to make things better, by the time I applied for graduate school, I realized that I wanted to take knowledge and use it to make things better. And so I had worked with nonprofits when I was younger. I had volunteered a lot. For me, it’s so cool to work with a nonprofit because they’re doing amazing work. They’re people who are really heart centered and they really are passionate and believe what they’re doing. I realized that they might need extra support so that they can make the best decisions possible given limited resources, limited time, limited staffing. Typically, someone who works in the nonprofit sector is having to juggle so many different things simultaneously. That was sort of what drew me more into that area of focus. Also, along my own journey, I started thinking about why do people do work that they hate or that’s not meaningful for them and then spend their whole life doing that. So, I actually got a specialization in occupational psychology, which is the health and wellbeing of people at work but can also be extended to the larger community, because I don’t think people should ever get injured or die from where they work. And so I think that throughout my whole journey, I just felt a strong pull towards this sort of gathering information and helping organizations make decisions from that. Now, to answer your question about entrepreneurialship, I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to live my life in regret and, for me, I thought it would be really neat to create a business where I’d want to work there and other people would want to work there. And, also, it would be a way for people to kind of use their talents and their skills to make a positive difference with our clients. And so I kind of joked about this idea, even when I was in college about, “Oh, well, you’ll join my future consulting firm. I want you to be a part of this.” So I think I was kind of kidding at the time but, sometimes, there’s a little bit of truth to jokes and so, during graduate school, I had worked for the government, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, I had worked for a research firm, I had worked for a consulting firm that worked with nonprofits, and I decided I wanted to take that leap.
And so I did, because I’d rather fall flat on my face and fail than at some point later on in my life regret that I never tried at all. Click To Tweet
So one thing I’m wondering is that in your thought process, it feels like where you are now, you’ve managed to synthesize all these things it seems like you care about, which, at the surface, seem like they’re disparate. They seem like a little bit all over the place, like, okay, work, particularly like why do people spend, and I’ve worried about this too, your entire life in a job you hate and you just grumble about it to the point where so many people are in that situation that dislike of work is embedded into our culture. “Thank God, it’s Friday.” “Oh, I got the Sunday scaries, Tuesday night low.” Like it’s embedded into our culture so much. You got this feeling, this feeling of empathy, this desire to like make work better, but you also have this, I would say, there’s a reason research is the first word in your name, even though I got it wrong, the first part, because like data and analytics, some people are in it mostly just because they love crunching numbers as opposed to it seems like you’re in it more for the research idea of like, “I am learning something,” and then using it to improve something at an organization. What I’m wondering is, with all this, how many iterations did it take in your head to figure out what this thing was that’s going to synthesize all the things that are drawing you at the same time while also matching the personality you have of being the kind of person that’s going to want to fall flat on your face as opposed to never try?
Well, there’s definitely a lot of different life experiences that led me to where I am now. I think we would talk for hours if I went through every single one of them. I would just say that, as an individual, every time I had a new job experience, it would give me an opportunity to reflect on what did I like about this experience? What did I not like about it? Does this seem to energize me? Does this seem to motivate me? Do I want to keep doing more or less of this? I’ve been working since the age of 15 and so my first job was actually an assistant dance teacher and…
Oh, wow. That seems pretty awesome for a 15-year-old, but, anyway.
Well, it was part time. To be honest with you, it was to get some financial support because my family couldn’t afford the dance lesson so it was — I really loved that my dance teacher created that opportunity for us. Even whether it was an educational thing or whether it was a job-related thing, I just have thought a lot about that fit. I mean, my dissertation focused on person-environment fit so I’ve read a lot of studies on this topic. In my opinion, it’s like looking at who you are as a person, it’s looking at what your knowledge, skills, and abilities are, it’s looking at what gives you energy throughout the day, it’s looking at even when you’re in a job situation, what do you look forward to most and what do you hate? We’re all so different and I learned that, just being in a lot of the different jobs I had, is on the surface with data analytics, you might think that working for a research firm would be the best fit ever and that was not necessarily my experience because, as an extrovert, I literally was in front of a computer screen all the time and it just wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.
And so a lot of those kinds of experiences shaped where I am now.
And how many of these experiences did you have before Research Evaluation Consulting became what you knew you wanted to do?
Honestly, I can’t really quantify it.
Oh, wow, okay.
But when starting a business, they say that the first year is typically the most challenging and I did a lot of research on starting businesses and if that’s something you want to do, I kind of just but you may not want to look at the research because it’s pretty depressing, especially for female entrepreneurs. I mean, we only account for a 2 percent of gross margin of profits and so forth. So, I feel like once you decide to start your own business, you have to be willing to stick with it regardless, because I kept having moments in the first two or three years where I was getting tested. So, case in point, when I was looking to start my own business, I had a colleague who sent me a journal publication where he had collected data from a bunch of entrepreneurs in New York and they had elevated levels of depression and anxiety, the money that they were bringing in wasn’t great, so, okay, great, wonderful. Reasons to start a business is you may not be able to support your own livelihood and you’ll be feeling more depressed and anxious. I’m oversimplifying. But other things happened as well where I kept getting recruited for full-time jobs and I remember having a conversation with another business owner and this was a time where I had been out there trying to get projects and it wasn’t going very smoothly right off the bat and it was really comforting to be offered a full-time job with benefits to start a research and evaluation division for their organization and I said, “I am so flattered. However, I cannot accept this position, I have to see where things can go with my business.” She told me that, sometimes, people who start an entrepreneurial journey are actually doing it to find a full-time job that’s more meaningful for them versus the people who are actually out there trying to create something of their own from the ground up.
I hadn’t really thought about it in that particular fashion where someone might be starting the journey because they’re trying to fill a hole that may be a different type of full-time job than the ones that they’d had before could be filling it. And so if anyone out there listening heard this and is not quite sure which side they fall on, “Am I meant to be an entrepreneur or am I just looking for a different work environment and maybe there’s a full-time job that’s more appropriate for me based on my personality and interests and values?” what would someone be looking to in their own behavior, in their own thoughts and feelings to try to figure out which of these two camps that they’re in?
I think that’s a really good and important question. I would say that in the camp of entrepreneurialship is the path you should jump into if you’re the type of person who enjoys creating your rules, you’re okay with taking risk, you have a clear idea of what you want to put out into the world. You’re not looking for approval from other people, per se. You can give yourself your own approval. You have some kind of skill that is marketable, in demand. I did do market research on what my company offers before I started. I also saved up a year and a half of money, assuming I lived as a graduate student so that I have the runway to actually see this to fruition.
So I think if you’re in that phase, that it’s worth it to go forward with it. Click To Tweet
However, if you’re looking to start your own business because you hate what you’re doing, you’re looking to leave a bad situation, you’re wanting to maybe do something different but you don’t necessarily know what your North Star is or you don’t really have a good idea of what that might be or maybe you really love doing something and you think that, “If I start my own business, I’m gonna be able to do more of that one thing,” and, on some level, you are doing more of that one thing, but on another level, being a business owner has a lot more skills and responsibilities that might be outside of your passion area. Maybe someone really loves designing websites and then they start their own business because that’s what they think you’re going to be doing all the time but, in reality, they’re going to be meeting with clients, they’re going to be having to put together contracts, they’re going to have to manage projects and so, all of a sudden, your job is not really in your passion area, per se.
Yeah, if you expand enough, you’re not even doing any of the web designing work yourself, you’re just hiring a bunch of people and managing their work and, eventually, if you get big enough, leading the managers that are managing that work and it’s really much more of a business endeavor. Now, when you were talking about your experience, it seems like from a pretty young age, you were pretty in tune to looking into what excites me? What doesn’t? What am I feeling now? Why am I feeling this? What kinds of things make me feel this way? If someone is listening and lost, what would you recommend someone does as far as going back into those experiences? Because memories can be a little bit elusive. Some studies have shown that we don’t always remember things exactly the way they really were. And, of course, people change quite a bit too. So what motivated the 14-year-old version of me is going to be nothing like what motivates who I am now. How would someone navigate those limits as they go back and say, “Okay, I need to figure out what excites me so I can kind of figure out where my passion and what path I want to be on is”?
Right. So I would say that there’s going to be different signs or clues throughout your life. Maybe this is more from the intuitive part of me but if you have experiences that seem to be a bit easier or more natural, kind of go with your own energy, those are signs that maybe you should see more of that, whereas, if try as you might, everything is just a challenge and an uphill battle and no matter what, all you get is just struggle, maybe you’re trying to fit a round peg into a square box or whatever the saying is. I think for me, personally, so I’m a type 1 diabetic and have been since the age of five, whether I wanted it or not, my whole life centers on what my blood sugar levels are and so it’s always what is the number? What does this mean? What happens if I have too much sugar or too much insulin or too much exercise or all the different things that can influence your blood sugar levels? And so seeing how data can influence like your day to day or whatever is going on in your life, that’s just, like I wanted it or not, a specific part of my life.
I doubt you after that experience but you saw exactly and I think more and more people as I’m doing wearing the Apple watches, I’ve always viewed this as one of the best uses of data because we use big data for a lot of things. We use big data to figure out, I always joke that Instagram can figure out the exact moment you get pregnant so that they can slam you with diaper ads from the very instant, we have all these other things to figure out but these health outcomes to me have always been one of the best outcomes of data tracking and stuff like that. What kind of approach to data do you take from that experience, I guess is the question from your experience? Has that informed the way you approach the data with your clients?
Absolutely. So, what I would say is that having the right data can make all the difference, especially when you’re trying to make decisions for your organization. That being said, one thing people don’t talk a lot about in the world of data and data analytics is how messy real data really is. And not just that, but there are so many different factors that might be related to a specific outcome.
So, there’s a lot of different layers and I think sometimes people overly simplify, “Here’s a survey, we’re done,” or, “Here’s a number, four out of five, we’re done,” but they really need to dig deeper into what that actually means.
I recently looked at some weather data, I was originally in meteorology, for Denver and found out that since 2000, we’ve jumped up to an average of, I think, 2.8 or something close to three and was wondering like why is there such a big jump and then came to the realization later that part of it is naturally explained or possibly explained by the fact that we also moved the location of our airport here in Denver in I think the mid to late 1990s from Stapleton to Denver International Airport, which is further out. So, when you’re approaching data with your clients, do some of these things like this, like, “Oh, we did a restructure that year,” “Oh, we relocated,” the thing that you’re like, “Okay, why am I suddenly observing this? Oh, yeah, this thing changed and that’s why.” Does that come up a lot in those conversations?
Absolutely. So if we’re running inferential statistics, so if we’re trying to look at trends over time or pre to post, yes, the analyses is one way of looking at it but I remember with one of our clients in California, they wanted us to look at trends over the last five years and so we had annual survey data that we were able to look at but what we were missing was what happened, what decisions did the organization make during those time periods, whether it was restructuring, how they did things, where they’re staffing, where the services that they offer that might have COVID-19, changes in legislation that might have actually influenced some of those outcomes and so we were able to partner with our clients to map out what happened and when and then we were able to have a more comprehensive story or picture of what does the state really mean. I think that at REC, we look at everything as this collaborative process because our clients are the subject matter experts and we bring our expertise in data and evaluation to really help provide them with the support that they need but we’re not living the experience, we’re not there 24/7 like they might be.
People look at data way more frequently than a lot of people realize, even people who aren’t in a data-related field. You’re reading a news article, and I know like I used to subscribe to The Economist, they’d always have these charts like that that they would show a lot of those articles. One of the things I’m wondering, is that a common issue with a lot of people’s reading of any data that they come across in life? Is that oversimplification? Is it important that whenever anybody looks at data, they take a little bit of a deeper dive, really think through, okay, what’s really happening, what is this particular chart, this particular thing, really saying about whatever it’s describing?
Right, that would be the ideal scenario is that someone goes to the original source of the data and examines it for itself. One thing I have noticed often is that, sometimes, when findings are being reported, especially in the media, it reminds me of the game of telephone and so someone starts out with the first message and they have the best intention and then someone else listens to what that message is and they think they heard most of it and then it keeps on being passed to the next person, the next person. So I can tell you, having done some peer-reviewed journal publications myself, that level of technical writing is really difficult to digest for the average person. It’s actually something I have issue with because knowledge should be accessible for all. That being said, perhaps someone had really good intentions, they took this really complex study and then they diluted it for a layperson audience but, perhaps, because they didn’t understand the complexities fully of the study, they misinterpreted something, and before you know it, the information is being shared and disseminated to the masses and it may not be fully accurate or it may not include the disclaimers that the original researchers mentioned or maybe it’s making finding bigger than it actually is. So, there’s just so many places where the findings can get misconstrued or misinterpreted, even with good intent.
And so, as we express uncertainty of the belief that there’s a lot more uncertainty out there to a lot of conclusions than most people who think things through want to admit, no one ever really says, “I could be wrong.” When you’re talking about uncertainty with your clients, how do you represent it in a way that truly respects the amount of uncertainty with whatever your story you’re telling, whatever you’ve concluded with the data, while also satisfying what your clients want from a data analysis or from research evaluation?
Right, that is a great question. I would say that for most formal reports, we have a limitation section that really outlines what we can be confident about from the findings, what we can infer from the findings, and also where things may be unknown. I know in reports, we’ve put, “More research is needed to understand this finding.” We also believe in not simply sharing the final report but then also debriefing with clients, whether it’s a presentation or whether it’s just a meeting where they’ve had a chance to read the report and answer any questions. Really, it’s about that communication between everyone.
So there’s different levels of confidence in terms of outcomes as well.
So if anyone, just in your day to day life, if someone out there is going to make a decision based on data, based on just whether it be a report, whether it be a news story, whether it be anything else like that, how would someone go about preventing this over concluding something from whatever they’re hearing, even if it’s something you just hear from your favorite newscaster or one of your friends about what’s going on in the world?
I would recommend, let’s say that you’re really interested in a very specific topic and you read an article, you hear a radio host say one thing about it, some people, that’s enough for them and they move on with their lives. However, if you’re really interested in that topic, I would check other sources. I might go to sources that have been deemed more neutral or more objective rather than either ends of the extremes. I think one of the first things I learned when I took a psychology class early on was be a skeptic. So if it doesn’t pass the BS barometer, if something in you intuitively thinks that something seems a little bit strange about the data that you’re reading or the findings, check it out, test it out a little bit. Gather more information.
That’s how I would recommend thinking about it is like, first, be a skeptic, gather more information, and then test your hypothesis. Click To Tweet
Does this seem accurate? Is the source trusted? Is this information believable, reliable, etc.?
And I’m guessing this is something that anyone should do whether they’re interested in the topic or not if they’re going to build a business around something or invest a lot of time or money in something, you need to pass it through that skeptic lens before going all in on something just based on a hunch or something that’s been said.
Right. I don’t think anyone’s ever told me, “Wow, I wish I had spent less time looking at this decision before I made it.” I do think people get into a place of analysis paralysis so I think that’s the other end of the continuum is once you’ve collected enough information to make your decision, I think you need to go with it. But, at the other end, if you’re not making a decision and you’re just spinning your wheels, at that point, you need to take a pause and make sure that there’s not some kind of psychological thing like maybe nerves or anxiety or whatever might be the case about implementing said decision.
That makes sense. And also a lot of people consume data, I don’t want to say passively but you’re just looking at a chart, whether it be in a newspaper article, on a screen online, and you’re not actually talking to people, like your clients are. What is the danger in making decisions from that? What does someone need to do to avoid or to get some level of the quality control that you get with your clients because you’re actually talking to them and it’s not just a chart, they’re getting a story that you tell or one of your consultants tells behind it?
So something that I’ve shared with my clients and just from professional integrity perspective is that we’re going to share what the data has to say. We are not going to manipulate the data or make the data say what you wanted it to say and so if that’s what you’re looking for from an evaluator or a data scientist, we’re not the right fit for you. But I think that in terms of what people are processing, whether it’s scrolling through Facebook or whether it’s on the news or whatever might be the case, I do think that a lot of the data that’s out there is really manipulated to support a specific idea or belief or lens and so I might be a bit more critical of data that’s being presented to essentially persuade you to think or do something. If something from a methodological perspective that I personally wouldn’t create a survey that’s going to create a specific outcome or analyze the data set that’s going to paint the story that someone wants but I do think that knowing how to design surveys and run inferential statistics and descriptive statistics, I would know how to manipulate the data. It’s just something I would not do.
Yeah, maybe there’s like an underlying motivation so it’s like a journal article, theoretically doesn’t have as much of an underlying motivation, but, of course, as you noticed, the lingo, some specifics can be so confusing to someone that’s not educated in that specific field that it doesn’t really go out that way into the general public. So this understanding what’s the motivation, like if someone is showing you this chart, does that person have a motivation for showing you the chart? Do they want you to buy this particular product or whatever it could be that they’re trying to get at?
Right. Or here’s a good example. You see an ad for a taste test, “You should drink more Pepsi,” and so they show a video of people choosing between one which is a competitor and Pepsi and everyone picks Pepsi. Well, what I’d like to see, assuming these are not actors, is how many people chose the competitor brand. They’re not going to show you that because they’re advertising, they’re trying to tell you to buy more Pepsi, drink more Pepsi, or whatever the product is so, yeah, they do have a motivation.
This reminds me of an experience when I was in college. I went to the Walmart and I was just in the toothpaste section and I just said, “How could every bottle of toothpaste be recommended by four out of five doctors?”
How many people did they sample? Were the doctors given some kind of incentive to recommend it? I mean, there’s just so many things behind the scenes, for sure.
For some reason, they were all at the time four out of five doctors, don’t have any understanding why. So one last thing I wanted to ask you is that you mentioned the process that a lot of entrepreneurs mentioned where you have to go through the delay, the time period between when you launch and when you actually start to get traction. Continuing to push, push, continuing to try to get traction. What would you say was the thing that drove you to keep going forward with your project when you got some of these potential setbacks, as they can be called?
I think circling back to why I started the business and what I wanted to create, I think, was really motivational. I think having friends and colleagues who are also entrepreneurs who I could talk to and brainstorm was really helpful as well. And also giving myself time to pause or take a moment to, if something wasn’t working, if something was frustrating, instead to keep doing the same thing over and over again, I had to pivot, I had to think of different approaches and different strategies. And because I love data and because I’ve been doing this now for about seven and a half years, I actually looked at our own metrics about what activities did I personally engaged in that seemed to be associated or correlated with business development? And so, sample size of one. I don’t know if that approach would work for every entrepreneur but I just think that evaluating what’s working, what’s not, where do we seem to be getting the traction, what kind of feedback are we getting, am I willing to kind of change things up a little bit or do I need to keep doing things the exact same way no matter what and, if that’s the case, I’m not sure if entrepreneurialship is going to be your path. So a little bit more of those self-exploration conversation with people you trust and then being willing to pivot as needed.
First of all, having people you can bounce ideas back and forth on, having some kind of a network, also really understanding your purpose, being passionate about that purpose, but also the whole like, “I’m gonna try this and if it works better, great. If it doesn’t, I’m gonna now try that,” and see what actually gets you traction because when I think of people starting businesses, the phrase, “I’m wearing so many hats,” there’s always going to be an aspect of it that’s not naturally your field, whether it be like maybe marketing has a correlation with psychology and some of the stuff that that you studied but there’s aspects of it, like how you get noticed, things like that. But regardless of what it is, you’re always going to have something. And that’s something, something you have to like, I guess, learn the alternate way because the predominant way people learn things now is through classroom instruction but there’s also the more powerful way to learn which is learning by trial and error, learning by doing, learning by, “I tried doing it this way, I failed,” which everything I’ve read has said it’s like a kid learning to walk. No one instructs this nine-month-old child, “Well, if you put your foot like this and you balance it,” like they just try something and fall over. They hold on to the chair, they hold on to the couch and fall over until finally, they just get it which is a lot of similar ways to how a lot of people get the right combination of all these things in their business.
Right. And I remember reading a book quite a while ago, I wish I could remember the name of it, but they looked at entrepreneurs and they found that those that were more “successful” were those that, despite having failure, they were quicker to get back up and try again. So, if one setback derails you for months at a time, maybe entrepreneurship isn’t your path. Whereas if you have something bad happen unexpected, you pick yourself back up again and go at it the next day, I think it might be more an avenue for you. Also, something else I’ve noticed is that I have found that some entrepreneurs try to be everything to everyone and I haven’t noticed a lot of success with that approach. I personally have the perspective of we know what we’re really good at, our lane, and then we partner with other entrepreneurs who have complementary skills that we can work with but we have our area of expertise, which is evaluation, which is data, which is writing reports and helping organizations make data-driven decisions.
I think a trap some people fall into is exactly that, like I’m trying to do everything, including the stuff that I’m not naturally good at when the best is to find what you’re good at and then, as division of labor would indicate, maybe you’re not as good at building websites so find someone that builds websites. If you’re not as good at even like sales and marketing, maybe find someone that can handle that for you. I mean, there’s all sorts of resources and resources of people I’ve interviewed on this particular podcast as well.
Yes, definitely. I mean, we all have different gifts that we can give to the world and so I think just reflecting even on our conversation today, just having that self-awareness of who you are and what engages you and how you want to show up in the world. Yeah, that self-awareness piece I think is critical.
Definitely. And one last thing to wrap up, if anyone listening out here wants to get a hold of you, wants to talk to you about your services, I know you primarily work with purpose-driven and a lot of nonprofit but anything that’s really purpose-driven businesses so if someone listening wants to get a hold of you what will be the best way to inquire?
Great, thank you for asking. So, you can find us at researchevaluationconsulting.com and you can also contact me at my email, which is annette@researchevaluationconsulting.com. I love to talk with people and connect, so happy to help.
And that’s Annette with 2 n’s and 2 t’s, right?
And 2 e’s but not in order.
Well, Annette, thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes and telling us about your specific unique story and a little bit about what we can do to properly use data in our lives, properly use data to evaluate and to make decisions without either extreme, the extreme of jumping to conclusions as soon as anyone says anything and the extreme of analysis paralysis where you never make a decision. I would also like to thank everyone out there for listening, joining us today on Action’s Antidotes. Please tune in for other episodes with other people that are doing interesting things. I have 60 some before this, probably will have a whole bunch more, who knows how long it will keep going.
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About Dr. Annete Shtivelband
Dr. Annette Shtivelband is Founder and Principal Consultant of Research Evaluation Consulting (REC) LLC. Annette has extensive experience working with social sector agencies and purpose-driven organizations to help them make data-driven decisions. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Shtivelband has worked with more than 100 different organizations as a researcher, evaluator, and consultant. She works with her clients to systematically, strategically, and thoroughly measure their impact. She excels in program evaluation, quantitative and qualitative methods, training, reporting and sharing findings, and all forms of data analytics. She received her PhD in Applied Social Psychology with a specialization in Occupational Health Psychology from Colorado State University. In her spare time, Annette enjoys cooking, reading, traveling, dancing, and spending time with loved ones.