How to avoid inside-out decisions…even when you think you’re data-driven

Last week I participated in a course about being data-driven, and one insight hit me hard.

Discussing the importance of being data and not opinion driven, the teacher asked us:

If you had to work on churn, which group would you prioritize?

A – churn risk 20%

B – churn risk 50%

C – churn risk 80%

My brain immediately went into analysis mode:

What’s the LTV of each group? How big are the cohorts? What’s the buying pattern?

I felt I didn’t have enough information to make a “proper” data-driven decision.

And then he said:

“The question is the wrong one.”

The real question to ask is:

Which group responds better to incentives?

And there it was. Punch. Ouch. Knock-out.

I thought I was being data-driven.

But I was really being data-blind, looking for the numbers that would support the question I already assumed was right.

Yes, LTV matters. Yes, churn percentages matter.

But if you start with “what is best for us,” you miss the entire point of behavioral change. And where you can make an impact.

Now I’m asking myself a different set of questions:

What’s the real problem?

What incentives actually move behavior?

And only then, what data do I need?

If we want to build truly customer-driven products that make an impact, the shift isn’t “more data,” but better questions.

Problem first. Customer incentives second. Data third.

(Post-it going on my laptop as a daily reminder.)