How Data Storytelling Can Transform Your FP&A Strategy with Brent Dykes
In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A Guy, dives deep into the art of data storytelling with analytics expert Brent Dykes. With extensive experience in data visualization and analytics, Brent shares insights on how finance professionals can effectively communicate data insights. He emphasizes that data storytelling is more than visuals—it's about crafting a compelling narrative that bridges data and decision-making.
Brent Dykes is the founder of Analytics Hero, a consultancy dedicated to data storytelling. He's also an author and educator with years of experience in data analytics, consulting, and data visualization. Brent wrote the book Effective Data Storytelling and has taught data visualization at the University of Utah. His work focuses on enhancing how organizations use data to inform strategy and decisions.
Expect to Learn:
The core components of data storytelling: data, narrative, and visuals.
Why narrative is often the missing link in data-driven presentations.
The role of empathy and audience understanding in effective communication.
Practical steps for creating a data-driven culture within your organization.
How human intuition complements data in decision-making processes.
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
"The last mile of analytics is where data storytelling lives. That’s where insights turn into action." - Brent Dykes
"It’s the combination of data, narrative, and visuals that makes a message stick and drives action." - Brent Dykes
"If you just present a problem without recommendations, you're leaving too much on the table. A story includes a path forward." - Brent Dykes
By explaining the science behind storytelling and offering practical advice, Brent Dykes underscores that empathy, clarity, and audience engagement are at the heart of effective data storytelling. FP&A professionals are encouraged to embrace this skill, not only to communicate data effectively but to foster a more data-driven culture in their organizations.
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In Today’s Episode
[01:37] - Introduction to the episode
[02:44] - The Importance of Clarity in FP&A
[09:02] - The Last Mile of Analytics
[11:25] - Defining Data Storytelling
[20:03] - Creating a Data-Driven Culture
[25:22] - The Psychology Behind Storytelling
[36:03] - Lessons Learned from Early Data Communication Mistakes
[42:36] - Getting Started with Data Storytelling
[52:13] - Closing Thoughts and Course Announcement
Full Show Transcript
[00:01:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy, and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Today, we are fortunate enough to be joined by a data analytics expert, someone I'm thrilled to have on the show. Brent Dykes, welcome to the show.
[00:02:07] Guest: Brent Dykes: Hey, thanks, Paul. Great to be here.
[00:02:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, really excited to have you. So a little bit about Brent Dykes. He hails from Lehi, Utah. These days we both live in Utah. He taught data visualization at the University of Utah a couple years ago. About three years ago, he started his own business called Analytics Hero. He's the author of the fabulous book, highly recommend it, called Effective Data Storytelling. And he earned his MBA from my alma mater, Brigham Young University. Did I cover it?
[00:02:39] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, that's a good overview of my last few years.
[00:02:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Great. So this is a question we ask everybody. And so I'm curious to get your take not being a finance or FP&A person when you think of budgeting forecasting you know, think of FP&A what does grade FP&A look like for you working in the business?
[00:02:58] Guest: Brent Dykes: Well, I think one thing is clarity, right? So when you're trying to leverage the financial data to make better decisions, you want to see clear insights that are going to really tell you something and help you shape that strategy or make the right decision. Another thought that comes to mind is going beyond just what happened to why it happened and what should be done about it, or what's going to happen next. You know, a lot of the times when I look at reporting, sometimes it's just, you know, rearview mirror stuff and really no guidance on how to move forward. And then I think another thing is getting engagement and buy-in from your stakeholders. Right. And so there's different ways, obviously, that I focus on in that area to get engagement from an audience. And then I think another good aspect of great FP&A is just bridging that gap between financial data and business strategy.
[00:03:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love your answer there, particularly that last part of bridging that gap between business strategy and finance. If we just bring the numbers. Nobody really wants to deal with finance. It's like, how can you bring it together to the business? And as you talk about clarity to the insights and the you know, what's next? Don't give me just what's in the rear view mirror, but help me look out and figure out how we best proceed forward. I think that's becoming more and more important as we look around this world that seems to constantly be changing, one crisis after another, it feels like.
[00:04:27] Guest: Brent Dykes: Right? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, I think ever since Covid, it feels like it's just been accelerating and hasn't slowed down.
[00:04:34] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. No, I think one of the key things is, you know, as we have all this data, as we're collecting all this data, how do we leverage it to really make better and smarter decisions? When we went through that phase of Covid, I think a lot more people were looking towards the data and saying, how can this help us manage situations like this. You know, maybe even situations like this where we've never experienced a global pandemic. And so, yeah, like we don't have can't really go back to the Spanish flu of the 1900s. Yeah, I think we can learn some lessons there. But in terms of today's world, just leveraging that data to make better and smarter decisions, you know, across the board is going to be really helpful. And I think more and more people are attuned to that.
[00:05:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. It's not like we have many people alive that remember the Spanish flu or the quality of data like we have today to analyze and gain insights from what happened.
[00:05:28] Guest: Brent Dykes: Right.
[00:05:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, sure, we can learn. And sure, there's some studies, but it's just different. All right. So I'm curious, you graduated in marketing, but you know, from what I can see in your career, it looks like you pretty quickly gravitated toward the analytics side, the data and data storytelling. What particularly interested you in that area within marketing?
[00:05:49] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. So I started my career more on the marketing analytics side. I worked as a marketer and then got my MBA and then got into analytics consulting. And so I was working with a lot of marketing people, and as a consultant, we would either work with clients who are working with a lot of data, or we ourselves are providing, you know, serving as an analyst for them. And there was a real issue around communicating with data effectively. And so I found, like, wow, you know, this is a real skill that is deficient in my space. And people struggle to take complex data and communicate it in a meaningful way and really extract the insights and communicate those clearly. And so I saw it as an opportunity to really and it aligned with my passions. You know, I've always been interested in data and technology, and so it was really something right up an alley that spoke to me.
[00:06:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm curious, why do you think it is, especially your field, but just in general, I've seen it as well as finance. People struggle so much to communicate what the data is telling them, right? It's often a real challenge, whether it's the visuals, the narrative, the story, the whole part. Why do we struggle with that so much, do you think?
[00:07:02] Guest: Brent Dykes: Well, I think there's inherently this complexity already with the data. Right. And so just us trying to grasp it and find those, those signals within the noise is really hard. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is then we get excited when we find something, we turn around and want to share that eagerly with other people. But then we forget to realize that these people haven't spent as much time in the data. They may not know all the metrics and data like we do, and then that messaging kind of doesn't resonate with them as we thought it would. And sometimes we forget the curse of knowledge that we have, that we've spent time analyzing this data, looking at the numbers backwards and forwards, and then we go to share it and we don't realize, wait a second. These people aren't as up to speed on these metrics. They may not have all the context that we have in our heads, and we fail on that front because we don't communicate our information clearly and effectively to them.
[00:08:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, one of the best lessons I learned in my career was around that I spent six months on a project, you know, obviously knew the data extremely well, had got everybody aligned, the head of sales, the account manager, my CFO, the general manager on this new commission plan and figured it'd be pretty much be a slam dunk to take it to the CFO and didn't really spend much time on the presentation. Right. And I got in there, we got about ten minutes into the meeting, and he looked at us and he said something to the effect of this, this idea is stupid. Why would we do this? And I was kind of dumbfounded. Like I wasn't expecting that answer at all. And he called in the general manager into the meeting, who wasn't part of it, and he talked to him for about five minutes, explained things, and he signed off on it and like ended the meeting. And I was kind of like, okay, what just happened? And I asked my boss, I'm like, okay, obviously that didn't go well. I did something wrong there. You know, walk me through kind of what happened. He goes, your analysis was brilliant, but your presentation lacked. And it's kind of like what you were talking about. I'd done all the analysis and knew it, but I didn't bring them along for the story. Right. And he got lost. And it was just a real reminder of how important that last part of analytics is, how sometimes we can get so focused on the analysis and wanting to share it, that we don't think about how to share it.
[00:09:15] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, that's that critical last mile. I call it the last mile of the analytics marathon. I wrote an article on Forbes about the analytics marathon. And that's really where data storytelling lives in that last mile where we're trying to we've we've done we've done a lot of the hard work, you know, just getting the right data, finding an insight that that's huge. And then we stumble on that last mile where it turns around to communicating it effectively to other people, and I wonder how many good insights have just been wasted. And, you know, probably the analyst or the finance person is wondering what went wrong. You know, I guess that wasn't a good insight when in actuality, maybe it could have been a really great insight, just failed on that communication part. And then that's where it went sideways.
[00:10:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Is that why you wrote effective data? Storytelling is to kind of help people with that last mile? Was that the thinking behind the book or what was the impetus for writing the book?
[00:10:13] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I mean, there are some triggers. I mean, obviously working in consulting, working with my clients and fellow consultants, I can see there's a lot of struggle in how they're communicating information and data. So that was the first thing. Then I also as I started to get interested in data storytelling, I saw that there was a heavy focus on data visualization and almost making that the main focus of data storytelling. I'm like, no, no, no, no, there's the narrative part that is probably equally or maybe even more important, like how do we form a narrative around our findings? And then I also saw a lot of dashboard vendors that were misrepresenting what data storytelling was and telling people that that data storytelling, you know, their tools were providing data story storytelling. And really all they were providing was just maybe a fancier way of reporting. And for me, I saw that as a danger, that data storytelling was becoming just another way, another throwaway buzzword. And I was and I saw real potential in data storytelling. And so I felt so passionate about it that it encouraged me to write another book. This one has been a passion project since I started it.
[00:11:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And so I'm curious, how would you define kind of data storytelling as you feel like the term is often been hijacked? Everybody has a different opinion. We all hear the term storytelling. So when you're talking data storytelling, what does that mean?
[00:11:39] Guest: Brent Dykes: Well, for me, I look at it as there's three core elements. Obviously, a data story is going to be based on a foundation of data. So we've done some analysis. We've found some facts, we've got some data. And that's different than a story with data where I recently talked about that in a LinkedIn post where I drew that distinction between a data story, which is the foundation. It comes from an analysis. Its foundation is in data, as opposed to a story with data, where you may have a narrative that you've already come up with, that you're trying to maybe tell people about a new product launch or some new features. And so then you're sprinkling in some data to kind of as evidence to reinforce why those new features are important or should be important to customers or prospects. So those are two different things.
[00:12:28] Guest: Brent Dykes: Now the other two elements is obviously that the narrative is critical with a data story where we're forming, we're using the narrative structure. We're using different narrative elements to really engage the audience, make our content memorable and persuasive. And then often we use visuals to help tell that story, because when people see a chart or data not in a table, it's often going to resonate more with them because they're going to be able to see the anomalies, they're going to see the patterns or the trends in those numbers, and it's going to speak to them at a much deeper level. So it's really it's the combination of all three of those things that a foundation and then the visuals to then complement that and help to tell that story.
[00:13:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So it makes sense. And I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen your little circle that shows the three and talk about how you bring them together. And it makes change. I share that a lot with people because I think it summarizes it really well. And from my opinion. I'd love to get your thoughts. I think, you know, finance people in general do a really good job with data right now. They probably got better with visuals. Sometimes we tend to be too numbers driven as we like to call it, our wall of numbers. But in my experience, we've really struggled with the narrative. I'm going to guess in general, that's probably where most people struggle with the story.
[00:13:44] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. It's true. Whenever I've done a survey of like people on a podcast or on a webinar or whatever, it's usually about two thirds of the people they say of those three, the data, the narrative and the visuals, two thirds of them will say narrative. So it's definitely I feel like it's the area because, yeah, I'm often doing workshops with analysts and data science professionals and finance professionals. A lot of the audiences that I work with are very data savvy. Data is not the challenge. It's really like, okay, I've got something meaningful to share. How do I fashion it into a story that's going to really resonate with people? And so that narrative piece is definitely a core focus of what, you know, I think people come to me for help with.
[00:14:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And what's involved in the narrative. Is it trying to bring emotion into it, you know? To get people to relate to, trying to find the right balance between facts and story. Or why do you think we struggle so much with the narrative?
[00:14:42] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I think one of the things is that I think we've been trained for a long time to summarize our information. Right. One of the things that's been communicated to us is that we need to take all of this complex information and summarize it down. And in a summarization of a story is not a story anymore. It's a summary. And so I think sometimes we overlook the power of narrative, which is that narrative arc. Right. So with a summary we give all the important information up front, but with limited context, right. And a limited depth. And I think what we give up in that case, the sacrifice we're making is really that engagement of the audience. So when we follow that story arc, we're basically introducing the status quo. We're kind of laying the setting. We then have some kind of anomaly that we've detected in the data. Or maybe, you know, we saw sales shoot up or sales fall down or something happened, and maybe that might have even come from our audience, where they asked, why did our sales go up or down? And so they've already given us our hook of our data story. Right? And then from there, we then launch into the details of like, okay, well, here's what's going on. This is connected to this, and this is connected to this, which then means this, which is our aha moment.
[00:16:00] Guest: Brent Dykes: I call that the main insight of the data story. So we've kind of taken the audience through, we've identified a problem. We then unravel or kind of like an onion. We start peeling back the layers of the onion to then reveal an insight, and we're taking them through. We're almost like a guide. In the past, I've used the metaphor of a tour guide where, you know, we're taking people on an archeological dig site, and we are the experts, we're the archeologists, we've been working there. We know all the artifacts and everything. And so we have some visitors who are coming through this dig site and they're like, what's. What's happened here? What did you uncover? And rather than showing them all of the minutia and unimportant details, we're just giving them the highlights of what's really important and then hopefully then attaching that to action. I think that's another area. I see that on the analytics side. I don't know if it's the same on the finance side, but often I'll see a lot of analysts. They will go through that storytelling. They'll do their big reveal and then they're kind of just throw it on the audience's laps and not do any digging into, okay, so what does that mean? What are the options that we have.
[00:17:09] Guest: Brent Dykes: What do you recommend? What action should we take? And so that's something that I encourage my book as well. We're not just stopping at hey, introducing the insight. And then here you go. And good luck. You know part of the analysis process and the recommendation, the value that we add is analytics and finance professionals is actually saying, okay, so we found something meaningful here. Here's the three things you can do with it. You know, one I'm going to recommend. Here's an aggressive approach that we can take to addressing this problem. Here's kind of a conservative approach. And then here's something in the middle. And then the audience you know the stakeholders can then make a decision based on that. If we just stop at the insight and say, here's a problem. Yeah, you could start a conversation, I guess, but how much will be accomplished? Whereas if you come in with recommendations and options, that's so much more rich. It's a richer experience for the audience. It's you're adding more value. I think that's a real important thing that we need to, you know, that we should be doing. And that's what a data story, a well crafted data story will help you to do.
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[00:19:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I like how you said, hey, if you just come in, you know, with just the problem, you're missing that opportunity. People have plenty of problems. You're just throwing something else in their lap to solve versus those recommendations. You know, I also like to call it the what the so what and the now what you probably heard that, you know, before a lot of times finance and I say way too often we're good at the what we maybe cover a little bit of that. So what. But we forget about that now what that opportunity to give a recommendation. Because I think that, like you said, the call to action, whatever you want to call it, don't end with just, hey, here's the insight. Why is that insight important? Right? Because we can all find insights. It's what you do with them that makes them important.
[00:20:01] Guest: Brent Dykes: Absolutely.
[00:20:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I'm curious. I want to step back just a little bit for a minute. You know, I know you've worked with a lot of customers to help create a data driven culture and to be able to have good data storytelling in an organization, you know? Right. You got to have good data. You got to have that culture that helps drive decisions to be made by data. So what do you recommend to people when they're in an org. And most decisions are made by gut, you know, and you're working in finance. You're like, this data is telling me this and you want to help. What does it take for an organization to really start to be data driven so they can get to data storytelling?
[00:20:39] Guest: Brent Dykes: Well, I can see data storytelling as a means to developing a data culture. So it's not like where you have to have all of the data culture figured out. So one of the things, so what is culture? Culture is the way that we do things around here, right? That's a simple phrase. And I like to think of a data culture is we do things around here with data. So when we're making decisions, when we're taking action, when we're, you know, whatever projects we're working on, it's always a priority. We're always thinking of where's the data? What does the data say? How can we get data? How are we going to measure this? I mean, it's a constant focus. And so when it comes to data storytelling. You know, I think a lot of companies or organizations are somewhere in their journey. Some are just starting, some are really mature and have developed, you know, a data culture for a lot of those companies. In the middle, though, I see data storytelling as a means for getting more people interested in data. Hearing data, you know, in meetings and different things. Because basically I use the analogy of when we want our kids to learn how to read or appreciate books. What do we do? We read to them, we read them books and we tell them stories. And then, you know, over time, they start to develop their own curiosity.
[00:22:00] Guest: Brent Dykes: And then they want to what? Read books on their own and pick what stories they read. I think it's the same process with data storytelling. We get some of those people in your organization that are data savvy, savvy, probably within your finance, within your analytics teams, and then have them start to craft what I call our deep dives. Going in and taking a look at a customer segment, looking at a market, looking at a category of products that you're selling or whatever it is, and do a deeper dive, tell a story, share an insight. And then those people that are in your organization that are maybe more gut driven, you know, they're going to learn something each time they hear one of these stories. Maybe. Maybe they're not the ones making the decision on this, but they're learning about the customers. They're learning about market segments. They're learning about trends, different things in the industry that may be going on as you share these stories. And then they become, over time, a little bit more deliberate. And then they start to ask questions about the data, and then they start to get curious themselves. And then that's kind of how I see this process working and how data storytelling can help you to develop a data culture.
[00:23:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you want to call any type of culture. You start by modeling it, by doing that behavior. And if you want a data driven culture, one of the keys is data storytelling. What better way than tell stories with data and show people that it has value? I'm curious. You talked about it a fair amount in the book. I know there are some different stories. I think he gave the example of handwashing and some others. How do you, you know, get somebody to come on board? It seems like often if you just throw the facts at them and just throw out the data, that's not enough. So why is that? Why do you think it's so important that you're crafting a story around that versus letting, as we like to say, the facts speak for themselves?
[00:23:55] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. I mean, often we say this, you know, we get excited. We can see with clarity that the value, the data is valuable. I think there's some things we have to think about from the audience's perspective. We need to make sure that we're aligned with what's important to them. You know, if we're doing an analysis for a department and we're trying to help them make some decisions. Do we clearly understand what their goals are? Do we understand what objectives what are they trying to achieve this year, this quarter? And make sure that when we're sharing data stories, when we're sharing insights that they're relevant and meaningful to those audiences. I mean, that's one of the first mistakes we can make. We can get really excited about maybe something we found in the data, but we're sharing it with the wrong audience. They don't, they're not focused on that. That's not one of their key priorities. They're looking over here and we're looking over there. And that's the first disconnect. And then in terms of just getting people, I think a lot of the things that financial professionals are looking for is engagement and buy-in. You know, when you're sharing information, you want to get that engagement and buy in. Well, a table of numbers, you know, 100 rows and maybe 30 columns is not the tool to get engagement. It's the recipe to put people to sleep.
[00:25:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's to get a glassy eyed look.
[00:25:17] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, exactly. And we want to make sure that we get buy in. And so often the interesting thing when I started studying the psychology behind data storytelling. Now this is something that I felt like nobody really looked at when I, when I saw the other authors who touched on this topic, I got really curious because I wanted to understand why. Why do we why do our brains react differently to narrative as opposed to to facts? And there's a number of different factors involved. But one of the key things is that when we tell a story, we activate cortisol in the brain of our audience, and that if you know what cortisol is, it's a stress hormone. And what does that do? It gets their attention. They're they're listening. They're trying to follow where the story is going. So that's released into the bloodstream. The other thing that's released when they did their studies and found that oxytocin is being released into the bloodstream when they're hearing a story. Now, what is oxytocin? Well, it's kind of like an empathy hormone where we, your audience, are now much more amenable to acting on what you're sharing, because you've put it in a story format. You're touching those emotions. You're triggering that release of that, of those two hormones which are beneficial to getting that engagement and that buy in and in getting their awareness and their attention. I think those are all things that finance professionals, analytics, data professionals. We all want people to pay attention to us and we want our messages to resonate. And how do we get that when we tell a story and start to take advantage of those things that are happening in people's brains that help us to communicate better and get our messages across more, more strongly than we would with just dumping a bunch of data on their lap.
[00:27:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like that you studied that in your book. I've been reading about that, the psychology section that you have and some of the different studies. I know you talk about Daniel Kahneman, the think Fast and slow and a number of other examples. And I just remember reading that the cortisol and the other and I think often we forget about that. There's a psychological reason behind this too. It's not just that, oh, hey, tell a story, because sometimes I think people think we need to tell a story. Isn't that for my little kid? You know, I put him to sleep and I read him a story. But we, as humans, we want to create stories out of things. You talk about that in the book, right? Isn't it kind of our human nature? When we see something, we want to make a story out of it?
[00:28:01] Guest: Brent Dykes: Absolutely. So I, you know, from Daniel Kahneman, if you've read the book Thinking Fast and Slow, he talks about system one and system two. So system one is our intuition, right? It's our unconscious mind processing information very quickly. And then system two is our analytical mind. Our conscious analytical mind. Now system one does a lot of pre-processing of information for us. And what is it doing? It's basically trying to make sense of the world around us. And it establishes narratives to basically say, okay, well, Paul's a pretty smart guy, so blah, blah, blah. And then so then this is going to, you know, and so I'm going to craft this whole story around Paul being this smart guy that does x, y, z.
[00:28:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like it. Keep going. Yeah.
[00:28:49] Guest: Brent Dykes: Keep going. Yeah. Stroke an ego here. But no, like that's a narrative that forms in our brain. Now when we're telling a data story, we might come with a contrarian position. And then we need to form a. We're not just dropping data, you know? Actually, Paul may not be as bright as we know. No, not going there, but. But no, if we have counter evidence, it's not enough to just drop that on somebody's lap and say, there you go. This disproves your current narrative that you're operating on. No, we actually have to package that in a new narrative, because we need to replace the old narrative with a new one. We're not just, you know, there's a great quote that I heard and now I'm forgetting the name of who said it, but basically they said, you can't replace a story with a fact. You know, you basically have to basically change. You have to add you have to bring them a new story to replace the old story. And so that's, you know, when we're communicating things, it's really important that we package them as stories, because that's how the brain is trying to make sense, you know? And so when you're prepackaging something in a narrative, the brain, you know, probably unconsciously, is going, oh, this is great. Thank you. Thank you for putting all that hard work together so I can just absorb the whole thing.
[00:30:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. Well. Well said. And as you were saying that, I couldn't help but think in your book, you tell a story. How early in your career, I think you might have been doing an internship or very early on where you worked on a project, found some insight where you recommended they make a pretty big change in the company, and you were kind of ignored, for lack of a better word. The manager kind of like, oh, that's nice, go sit in your corner type of thing. Can you tell that story and why it went wrong? Maybe. Yeah. That from your book?
[00:30:34] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I showed that in the first chapter of the book because for me, this has been a journey to find storytelling because I probably early in my career, I probably didn't believe in the power of story. I felt like story was like, oh, that's just, you know, that's just twisting the numbers and, you know, it's bias and all that stuff, and it's not. It's hokey. It's, you know, it's emotional stuff. It's not important. But over time I've shifted quite a bit. I've really softened my perspective on that, and I really see value in a lot of that. So anyways, going back to that story, when I was an MBA student, I was one of multiple MBA students, and we were all trying to make an impression to kind of land a job. And you're being somebody who is an international student studying in the US during a recession. It was hard to get job offers. And so I had a lot riding on this. And so anyways, we were preparing to present to our SVP of e-commerce, who is a very interesting character because he came from a military background. He was a special force, a former Special Forces helicopter pilot. He went to a prestigious business school after he got out of the military, and was a very intimidating character to present to.
[00:31:50] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. Anyway, as I was preparing my midpoint presentations, this is just a midpoint presentation to show how our project was doing or going where he could give us feedback. I had stumbled across some feedback on our shipping policy. So this is an e-commerce department. One of our pillars was our shipping policy that we felt it was really important to our customers that differentiated us in the marketplace. And so as I was reviewing customer feedback on this survey, I realized a lot of them didn't really value the shipping policy as much as we thought they did. And so I was debating whether I should include this in my presentation, because technically it wasn't really part of my project. It was kind of a side discovery that I had found. But being the good corporate citizen and maybe eager to impress and show how diligent I was, I decided, you know what? I'm going to include that data point in my presentation. So fast forward a couple of weeks later. I'm in the boardroom. He's in the middle. There's other managers and directors around the table, and I get to the slide with that data point. And it didn't have the result. It didn't have the impact I thought it would be. He looked at it one moment for a moment, and then he said, bullshit.
[00:33:01] Guest: Brent Dykes: And then I was like, oh my gosh, I have just tanked my operation. What have I done here? And I was a little bit frustrated. I wasn't expecting that reaction. I thought he might say, oh, Brent, that's really interesting. You know, what other data do you have on that? Or maybe you could take a closer look, come back next week and follow up with some more discovery? You know, I was expecting a positive reaction, not a negative one. And luckily I had a mentor who jumped in and gave me some cover fire. And I got out of there relatively unscathed. But it taught me a valuable lesson in terms of communication. If I had really, truly valued that potential insight, I should have told a story around it. I should have packaged it and communicated it much better than I did, especially maybe I was very naive. I was very naive in thinking that, hey, Brent's trying to shake. You know, he's just dropping a fact that he found, based on some survey data, and leaving it at that, that that to me was very foolhardy of me and taught me a very big lesson that I need to do a better job. And so I've tried to do that throughout the rest of my career.
[00:34:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: FP&A guy here today I want to talk about the FP&A guys ultimate FP&A course bundle. This bundle includes over ten hours of content recorded by Ron Monteiro and myself. Many templates and great lessons to make you a better FP&A professional. The content includes FP&A business partnering, how to manage tough conversations, build world class relationships, and hold the business accountable. Includes modern Excel, which is a real game changer for the way you'll work in Excel. Excel tables the gateway to modern Excel. Power Query a game changer for transforming your manual processes and loading data, and then dynamic arrays. Next, we cover modeling design principles. In this course, we talk about the importance of designing models in a certain way and how important it is that you think about design. And last but not least, driving value through smart analysis how you can conduct data analysis to be a better FP&A professional. Go ahead and sign up for this bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's thefpandaguy.com. Use the code Podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. Thank you for sharing. I really appreciate that. I've had similar experiences one early in my career where I thought the data would speak for itself and I didn't really have to influence people, and everybody just looked at me like, go away! But it's a good idea. My boss likes it and never went anywhere. And I look back now and I'm like, you didn't even try to tell a story. You didn't even try to influence them. You just threw it at him and expected them to agree with you. And so I think those lessons are often the most valuable where, you know, we come away with it didn't go as planned. If you're willing to look at it and say, how can I learn?
[00:36:03] Guest: Brent Dykes: Right. Yeah, it's the curse of knowledge. I mean, that comes up a lot. You know, if you work in data you work with, you're going to have the curse of knowledge. And it's hard for us to not recognize that and then communicate poorly. And people are like, I'm not feeling it the same way you're feeling it, or I don't understand it, like you understand it, and then we don't have the impact that we feel we should have. You know, in many cases we should have that impact. It's just that it's that communication piece that's letting us down.
[00:36:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. My big challenge for a lot of my career is I get too detailed. I want to share all the facts and it's like, nope, they don't care about all the detail. They need to know the numbers are right and what they should do and where they go and how it informs strategy. Not well. We looked at these 36 and all. I want to tell you about this one little thing that doesn't matter. I don't care about the work you did. That's why you did the work, right.
[00:36:56] Guest: Brent Dykes: And if you're ever worried that, like, I've seen some data professionals, financial professionals there, well, what if I get asked this question? What if they. What if they ask me this or that? That's why you have your appendix. You can have 100 slides in your appendix. It doesn't matter as long as you can navigate to the appropriate slide easily. But do you need to walk them through all of the details and answer potential questions that maybe they're not even thinking of? And and unfortunately, by dragging them through the weeds of all the details of the data, you're now you're you have a much higher percentage chance that you're going to lose your audience because they're going to, you know, to what you were saying earlier, their eyes are going to gloss over, they're going to go to sleep, they're going to start checking their phone. They're going to start thinking about their next meeting. And guess what? They're not thinking about what you're sharing.
[00:37:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, you've lost them. You've lost that opportunity to connect with them. And so I want to ask a question. We've talked a lot about data, but I was looking through your LinkedIn. You ran a poll last week that I thought was interesting. That I think relates here. You ran a poll about the role of human intuition in decision making. So kind of what prompted the poll, what role do you think it should play? Maybe talk a little bit about it.
[00:38:11] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I mean more and more and more I've run into the term data humanist or humanism. And I think that's very interesting. It probably reflects where I'm at right now in my philosophy, where I still value the importance of obviously, I'm a big advocate for data. I see the potential for automation in many cases, in data driven decision making is really critical. But my viewpoint has softened because I also value the importance and the role that human beings play, especially with AI. You know, like we have AI now walking into our, our professions and and then maybe people who are less knowledgeable saying, oh, I could probably automate a lot of what you're doing. And, and looking at automation is this cure all magic wand that's going to just do everything. And, and I'm, I'm saying to back up I see incredible potential from AI. Sure. But I also see tremendous value from human beings who have that contextual awareness, human judgment, empathy, creativity. These are all things that AI lacks today. And so I, I really view it as in many cases, technology augmenting our ability to do our jobs better, eliminating the laborious, manual, crappy stuff that I hate to do.
[00:39:40] Guest: Brent Dykes: And freeing me up so that I can focus more on the strategic Stuff where I can add more value. And so I'm, you know, I think that data humanism kind of was the trigger. And just how really we need both data and human people to come together. And is it intuition over data? No. I want to listen to the data and see what goes there. But then also, you know, sometimes the approach we make and the decisions we make, does need to rely more on intuition, because in some cases we have unknown new challenges or situations. That past data doesn't help us at all. I mean, it's irrelevant to this, this new normal that we're facing or this new challenge that we're running into. And so it can be that, you know, I really believe in the combination of both data and intuition coming together to really drive better decision making.
[00:40:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I interviewed a behavioral economist, Mara Federman, I think was her name. It's been over a couple years ago now, and she talked about how study after study shows human judgment. With data. You get the best outcome. Right, right. And if you're willing to look at the data, but the data doesn't often tell you the strategy, you should take at least the details you should do. It may point you in a clear direction. Yeah, that doesn't mean it lays out the steps for you. Right, right. Yeah, I think I agree with you. It's that combination. I think sometimes we think AI is going to solve everything and it's like, no, it's not because I don't see it anytime soon.
[00:41:18] Guest: Brent Dykes: No. I think as human beings we add value and it's in certain areas. I mean, there's obviously other areas where you know what, AI can do it better than us and agreed with fewer errors and less bias potentially. You know, so there's definitely roles for both sides. But I think it's really about understanding where we add the most value and then emphasizing those. And I feel like data storytelling. I feel like that is an area where we as human beings, we've been telling stories for thousands of years. We have these innate storytelling capabilities that I believe anybody can unlock with, with some practice and with some training, to tell better, more powerful stories. And that's robots. They don't need anything else other than the data. But if we're not presenting to robots, we're not presenting to machines. We're presenting to people who have, you know, meat computers in their heads. And those meat computers are a little bit more. They're definitely powerful, but they respond to emotion and in other things, not just the data.
[00:42:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, there's emotion. There's a rational and irrational side and all of that in humans. And you need to tap into that. Well, if someone in our audience is listening, I know a lot of finance people struggle with telling that story. What's the recommendation? Where? Where should they start if they want to get better at data storytelling, what do you usually tell people? Is there a framework? Is there an area? How do you encourage people to get better at this?
[00:42:55] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, well, the first thing I'm going to say is go read my book, go buy my book, read my book, follow me on LinkedIn.
[00:43:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'll give it a thumbs up.
[00:43:03] Guest: Brent Dykes: Follow me on LinkedIn. I share a lot of blog posts, so that's another thing. But yeah, I think it's getting starting to read books. That's an easy step. First step. Then from there I offer training and different things so I can actually coach and train teams of of professional, you know, I've done it for finance teams, I've done it for analytics teams, I've done it for even business teams, marketing teams, customer support, customer success management teams and and different things. Anybody who communicates with data can get better at this. And so then I think another thing is just looking at how other people are communicating information within your organization, outside of your organization, starting to to notice when somebody does something that you like or in a way, an effective manner that speaks to you and feels like, oh, wow, that was really powerful, what they did there, and start to record or capture those examples and then use that for inspiration with your own work. But yeah, there's lots of different paths that you can take.
[00:44:06] Guest: Brent Dykes: And I think obviously there's free content and then there's paid content. But first the key thing is to just start and start thinking, how can I get better at this? How can I improve? And recognizing that maybe, you know, the communication aspect is going to be just as important as your ability to be analytical and find the insights, because at the end of the day, you can be the Einstein of finding insights at your organization. But if you cannot communicate them effectively, there's a good chance many of them will be wasted because nobody understands what you're communicating or they don't understand what your points are and they go nowhere.
[00:44:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Agreed. Thank you for sharing that. Speaking of, I know you have your book and a lot of training. You're working on your first digital course. How's it coming? When does it come out? Tell us about it.
[00:44:54] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. It's been something I've been working on for several years now. And I'm kind of embarrassed to say that because it's been something I've picked up, started working on, and then I get busy with client work, and then I put it down and. And then I pick it up again when it gets slow. And then I put it down again. And so now I'm, I'm like, okay, now this has got to happen. So I was targeting getting it done in October, but now it's looking probably more like November. But it's definitely going to happen this year. I have to, you know, I have to get it out there. I've already started recording the lessons. And so it's going to be just to give an overview of the course. It's going to be six sections. So the first section is an introduction to data storytelling. And then looking at the first two pillars which are the first three pillars. So data, narrative and visuals. Then I have a section on delivery as well, because I think that's also another key part of it. And then the last, the sixth section is just going through some examples of actual data stories and talking about things like AI and how we can leverage that in our data storytelling.
[00:45:57] Guest: Brent Dykes: So I'm excited to launch that. There'll probably be about 60 lessons in there or modules within that. It's going to be a masterclass. And then later on I'm thinking of doing more of an essentials class, which will be kind of more narrow scope. Maybe people who don't want to get into all the nitty gritty, and that'll be once I've got the masterclass out, then I'll focus on the essentials and get that out as well. So you'll have a couple of options there, depending on how deeply you want to get into this topic. And then you also have an upgrade path if you take the essentials and then you're like, oh wow, this is I want to learn more. Then you can upgrade to the master class. So yeah, I'm excited to get that out. It's long overdue. And I know we've been talking about it a lot. And ever since I started talking to you, I think I've mentioned my course and now it's now it's now it's happening.
[00:46:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, Definitely talked about it a few times. So I'm excited. We're looking forward to that coming out. So thank you for sharing a little bit about that. And if it's anything like the book, I'd recommend it to people. So excited to see that come out. All right. I'm going to ask a couple FP&A questions, because we like to get the thoughts of some people who aren't, you know, I know you train a lot of finance people but haven't worked in a finance role. So when you think of FP&A, what do you think is the number one technical skill they need to have?
[00:47:13] Guest: Brent Dykes: I think financial modeling, I mean, if somebody outside of the finance world, I think that would be a core skill that I would go to finance people for. And if they didn't have it, that would be a problem.
[00:47:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Make sense. And that's one that even in the profession, gets often mentioned as the top Excel financial modeling are usually the most common answers. What about that softer human skill, communication skills? I figured that you were going to go somewhere in that area. Call it a hunch, maybe storytelling or communication. All right. Are you currently using generative AI today?
[00:47:48] Guest: Brent Dykes: I am, yeah, I'm mainly using it for brainstorming.
[00:47:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. How has it helped you? How do you find it works?
[00:47:54] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I mean, as an independent person, you know, basically it's just me and my daughter working. And my daughter doesn't come from a data background. And so my ability to kind of bounce ideas off people is limited because I don't have, you know, somebody who's working with me that I can kind of do it. And so ChatGPT becomes my way of bouncing ideas off of somebody, you know, with I kind of, you know, find the professor there. My TA, you know, this tool is my TA and I can kind of get somebody who kind of knows a little bit about what my world is and provide a perspective and, and help me on that front. So that's helpful to me.
[00:48:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you for sharing that. So now we get to ask you the opportunity to tell us what drives you crazy about us FP&A and finance people. I'm sure you've had to do more than one budget where you're like, this is driving me crazy.
[00:48:50] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I think one of the things is the focus on too much detail. I find getting, you know, data tables with, you know, like what I mentioned earlier, 100 rows and 30 columns. Yeah. Like overkill. There's just too much minutia here. And it can be, you know, kind of, you know, I can experience the glossing eyes over experience that many stakeholders probably experience as well.
[00:49:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, You'll get a laugh. I think you'll appreciate this because it tells a story and it kind of pokes some fun. My training partner, Ron Monteiro, he worked for Kraft and they released a commercial when he worked there and they show everybody getting super excited, you hear one turn to the other. It's a budget meeting and they all get in there, and it's because they had bagels with cream cheese on them and they're all just eating them. And you see the guy up at the front, and we can see here from our algorithm that and everybody's just looking at him like, you know, what are you talking about with all these charts everywhere, right. And you know, we kind of show that as this isn't how we want to be perceived, but this is often how we are perceived, you know, and there's a reason for it. We've often earned that reputation with being too detailed. So thank you for sharing that. All right. We have a little get to know you section. This is just a couple minutes here and ask you a couple questions. What do you like to do in your free time? What's that hobby or passion that you enjoy?
[00:50:09] Guest: Brent Dykes: A couple of things. I love collecting comic books. And so that's kind of a passion of mine. And then the other thing is ice hockey, being a Canadian, I think, you know, and now with Utah, we have our own hockey team finally. So the hockey club. Yeah.
[00:50:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: When you go into your first game.
[00:50:24] Guest: Brent Dykes: The October 19th against Boston Bruins.
[00:50:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: This week, nice. And they're undefeated so far. Probably not when this comes out. But if they are, then they're really doing well.
[00:50:34] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. If you could recommend one book obviously beyond your own. Yeah. To our audience, what book would it be?
[00:50:42] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah. There's a really good communication book out there that I read several years ago, and I still recommend it. It's made to stick by Chip and Dan Heath.
[00:50:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Made to stick, I like it. All right. Next one. If you can go anywhere in the world tomorrow. Where are you traveling?
[00:50:59] Guest: Brent Dykes: I would love to go back to Japan. I've been there several times for work and. And every time I go there, I just love the scenery, the people, the culture. So if there's anybody who wants me to come to Japan to deliver a workshop or or speak engagement, sign me up. I love Japan.
[00:51:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, that's on my bucket list. If you could have dinner with one person alive in the world today. Who are you taking to dinner?
[00:51:28] Guest: Brent Dykes: I would love to go to dinner with Adam Grant. He's just. I feel like he's really. So if you don't know him, he's an author. He's written several books, and he looks at human psychology and just how we make decisions. And I just think that he's got some really good, good perspectives that he shares in his books and, and his podcasts and his interviews that I've seen. I'd love to sit down with him and just have dinner with him. I think it'd be fascinating to kind of pick his brain.
[00:51:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It'd be a lot of fun. I was lucky enough. Two years ago he was the keynote speaker at AFP. Okay, fabulous. Watching him present, I really enjoyed it. So yeah, I, I agree with you. Adam Grant would be a fun one to sit and talk with. Yeah, I know, it's like it's a little much, but. All right. If you could offer kind of one final piece of advice for finance to get better at data storytelling, what's that last piece of advice you're going to leave us with?
[00:52:24] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, I think, I think try and develop your empathy for your audience. The more you understand your stakeholders, the better you can partner with them. And I think that's something that sometimes we take for granted, or we overlook that we don't really take the time to really understand what are their priorities, what are their needs, what are they focused on, and how can we help them to achieve their goals. And so I think having a little bit more audience empathy can be really important because I think sometimes analysts make this mistake. They kind of expect their audience to come up to their level. And that could be a mistake because they never get to their level. They get lost. And so with empathy, we reach down to their level. We understand, you know, what they understand and how they feel and what they're thinking about the numbers. And we try and make it relatable and approachable for them to come away with. So, it can help them make better decisions and help them to learn more about the business. And I think that's really critical.
[00:53:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you for that. I appreciate it. That's one that's come up a lot lately is empathy. And I'm glad because I do think it is definitely an important skill. Last thing, if someone wants to learn more about you or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:53:41] Guest: Brent Dykes: Yeah, probably the best way would be to go to www.effectivedatastorytelling.com/. That's my book website. You can go there and learn more. Or you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. So I'm constantly publishing content and putting out content there. So that's a good way to stay abreast of what I'm thinking and what I'm sharing.
[00:54:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks, I appreciate that and I can vouch for his content on LinkedIn. I know you have a lot of great content. I see it come across my feed all the time and I appreciate it. I've enjoyed your book and really appreciate you carving out some time and talking to us as a finance audience, because data storytelling comes up so often for us in finance, and I think it's something many people struggle with. So thanks for carving out about an hour of your time to chat with us.
[00:54:28] Guest: Brent Dykes: Thanks, Paul. Thanks for the invitation. Glad I could join.
[00:54:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. We'll look forward to your course here soon.
[00:54:34] Guest: Brent Dykes: Thank you.
[00:54:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me, the show host for further details.