Great analytics is not built on dashboards. It is built on discipline.

Jim Collins absolutely nails it.

Two teams. Same tools. One is a noisy reporting shop. The other drives the board agenda.

The difference is not technology. It is leadership choices repeated every week.

If you are an analyst looking to stepping into leadership, Good to Great is your operating manual. Today’s issue translates Collins’ research-backed big ideas into actionable moves you can make in the next 48 hours to be, and be seen as the sort of leadership material who turns analytics into a profit engine.

This issue is jam packed with actions. I don’t even know where I would suggest to start to be honest, other than pick something. Own it. Pick the next thing. Do it. Repeat.

Give me 6 minutes, in this issue you will learn:

• Level 5 leadership beats loud charisma.

• First Who, Then What: fix the seats before the route.

• Confront brutal facts without losing faith in the goal.

• Hedgehog focus beats scatter.

• Discipline first, tech second.

• Momentum comes from flywheels, not hero projects

Good to Great, translated for analytics leaders

Below are seven Collins principles, each with a field test you can run immediately. Use them to raise your bar and your visibility this week.

Lets keep it short but actionable, no fluff - just the way we like it!!!

1) Level 5 Leadership, without the title

Collins found that great companies are led by people who mix humility with fierce resolve. In analytics, that looks like quiet ownership of outcomes and public credit to others.

Do this today

1. Send a two-line “credit note” to your manager naming one person who unblocked your work and what that unlocked for the business.

2. Start a “responsibility ledger.” For every miss, write the sentence: “I own X, here is the fix by date Y.” Then deliver.

3. In meetings, replace hedge words with clear commitments. “We can decide by Thursday with A, B, C validated.”

Why it works
Leaders notice two things quickly: who creates clarity, and who makes others look good. This signals both.

2) First Who, Then What for projects

Some teams debate tools and roadmaps first. Collins flips it. Get the right people in the right seats, then choose the route. Even if you have no hiring power, you can apply it to a project.

Do this this week

1. Define the “bus” for your current initiative. Three seats: business owner, synthesiser, builder.

2. Map names to seats with crisp expectations. One sentence per seat that describes the output you will hold them to.

3. Where a seat is weak, add a power partner. Example: if the builder lacks data modelling depth, pair them with an architect one hour a week through delivery.

Visibility move
Share the seat map as a one-pager with your manager and the project sponsor. Title it “Right people, right seats.” You look like the adult in the room.

3) The Stockdale Paradox, analytics edition

Confront the brutal facts, keep unshakeable faith. In analytics, this means naming uncomfortable truths quickly while protecting belief in the destination.

Do this in 30 minutes

1. Run a pre-mortem. Ask, “It is 90 days later and this failed. What happened.” List five brutal facts.

2. Label each fact as structural or tactical.

3. For each item, propose one action you will take this week. End the document with a single line: “We will still hit the outcome because we will do X, Y, Z.”

How to present it
Book a 15-minute “brutal facts check-in” with the sponsor. Open with the outcome you still believe in, then walk the list. You are calm, specific, and committed. That is what leaders look like.

4) Hedgehog focus for analytics

Collins’ Hedgehog sits at the intersection of three circles: what you can be best at, what drives your economic engine, and what you are deeply passionate about. Most analytics groups spray effort across 20 ideas. Pick one hedgehog.

Run this 45-minute workshop
Draw three circles on a page.

• Best at: write the one analysis type your team routinely nails with low variance.
• Economic engine: choose the metric that pays for analytics in your company. Revenue protected, churn avoided, cycle time cut, cost per transaction. Pick one.
• Passion: name the domain your team loves solving for. Supply chain, pricing, workforce planning.

Where the three overlap, write a single sentence offer. Example: “We cut quote-to-cash cycle time by 20 percent in 90 days by removing hidden approval friction.”

Publish it
Add the sentence to your team’s intake form and every deck title. Your work becomes legible to the business.

5) Culture of discipline beats tool sprawl

Great firms build a culture that does the right things without being policed. In analytics that means a stop-doing list, a simple operating cadence, and non-negotiable quality gates.

Install these three non-negotiables

1. Stop-doing list: kill any recurring report with no named decision owner. Announce the list and a two-week grace period.

2. Definition of done: an insight is not done until it names the decision, the action owner, the time horizon, and the measured effect.

3. Quality gates: every chart must pass the five-second rule. One message per visual, labeled in plain language, with an explicit recommendation.

Cadence to run it
• Weekly 30 minutes: triage intake against the hedgehog.
• Fortnightly 45 minutes: demo to stakeholders. No slides unless they show before and after.
• Quarterly 60 minutes: stop-doing review. Remove work that drifted from the economic engine.

6) Technology as accelerator, not saviour

Collins saw that technology does not create greatness. It accelerates what already works. Your job is to use tools to double down on clarity and speed, not to paper over weak thinking.

Ship three accelerators in 10 days

1. Decision diary: add a lightweight form to every analysis that captures the decision taken and the expected impact. Automate a 30-day follow-up to check the effect.

2. Golden queries: create a repo of validated SQL or metrics definitions with a one-paragraph business explanation. Link it in every doc.

3. One automation per week: pick the ugliest recurring manual step. Record it. Script it. Free one hour. Repeat next week.

Communicate the win
Report hours returned to the business. Tie each to the economic engine metric. Now your tech work reads like profit, not tinkering.

7) Build the flywheel, avoid the doom loop

The flywheel turns when small, consistent wins compound. The doom loop appears when you jump strategy every quarter, chase new tools, or bet on hero projects.

Design your own 6-step flywheel

1. Intake framed by the hedgehog.

2. 72-hour insight draft with a recommended decision.

3. Demo to the decision owner with the five-second rule charts.

4. Log the decision in the diary with expected impact.

5. 30-day follow-up to verify effect.

6. Publish one internal “win card” per week: the decision, the impact, the team.

Run this cycle for 12 weeks. Measure three things only: decisions influenced, measured impact, hours returned. Share a one-page scoreboard with leadership each month. That visibility is your career accelerant.

First 48 hours checklist

• Write and send one credit note.
• Publish the project seat map.
• Book a 15-minute brutal facts check-in.
• Draft your hedgehog sentence and add it to your intake form.
• Kill one report with no owner.
• Add the decision diary to your next deliverable.
• Ship your first win card on Friday.

Greatness is not a tool choice. It is a rhythm.

Pick the right people, confront reality, focus the work, and install a flywheel that converts analysis into decisions into measured impact.

Do this for 90 days and you will feel, and be seen as, the leader who moves the business.

Best,

Tom.