Competency #7 – Data Acumen and Resource Management

During my senior year in high school, my school offered a couple of one semester courses as electives for students who had room in their schedule. The only two I remember were psychology and sociology and I have no idea what I took. But I do remember learning about advertising and the ways advertisers try to capture our attention and, of course, our dollars. And of all of that I remember one idea/term, “pseudo-scientific jargon”. It’s a catchy term on its own, but it is also ubiquitous in advertising still today and it has been stuck in my head since high school. It’s one of the reasons I look at ads that say their product is 50% better and wonder “50% better than what?”

This memory popped up as I was thinking about this essay about the seventh competency on the list we’ve been exploring for the past weeks. Number seven is data acumen and resource management.

My first thought when I came to this one was that it was substantively different from the other six. For one thing, it seems to me that these are really two different skills. Did they put them together because they are both about numbers and therefore seem different than the other six in the list?

Just so we’re all starting from the same spot, here are the Google AI overview definitions of the two terms.

• “Data acumen is the ability to use data to solve problems and made good judgments.”
• “Resource management is the process of planning, scheduling, and allocating resources to maximize their value and potential.”

Looking at these two descriptions, perhaps they fit together better than my original thought. Obviously, one needs good data and a good understanding of data to be able to do any of the tasks of resource management. But even more, a leader needs to be able to know enough to ask good questions about the data they are being given. They need to know some of the jargon being used. They need enough acumen to ask good questions about the data they are seeing as well as about any resource questions they are facing. Percent signs don’t make numbers useful by themselves. That’s the management equivalent of pseudo-scientific jargon.

After working through a couple of iterations of this essay and reading a few definitions, I think the most important word in this competency is actually “acumen”.. Merriam-Webster defines acumen as “keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters.

Whether it’s about understanding and using data appropriately or managing resources of all kinds effectively, when it comes to practical matters, I’m going to prefer leaders with acumen. The good news is that we can all develop our acumen.

When I first began supervising the director of the Career Center at SMU, I knew very little beyond the basics. I was lucky to have a senior leader of that center who was excellent at her job and in working with her for a couple of years, I began to develop an understanding of the issues she faced, the needs of her staff and students, and the direction of career centers for the future. Thanks to that experience, I was a much better leader for all the rest of the career center directors I worked with. I had developed a level of acumen. I still depended on career experts to provide direction and day to day operational leadership, but I was much better at asking questions, helping them make their case for additional resources, and at hiring new directors. I was much more able to see and tell the story of career centers through their data and was much better at understanding what resources were needed vs what was wanted. My acumen in this field became more developed over time.

Even on first read, I didn’t disagree with this competency being on the list, but after exploring it a bit, I see the terms in richer ways. They are bases of knowledge that serve as a foundation for deeper questions and better decisions. It’s more than understanding which numbers are statistically significant and whether or not a departmental budget is balanced. Acumen in both data and resource management as well as a longer list of activities, skills, and information that we all need to work toward.

Where do you feel like you have true acumen? Where might you want to develop more? And then of course the next question, what can you do to develop and hone your knowledge and skills? Important questions for all leaders to ask and keep asking themselves and their teams.

Take care,

Gage