The Promotion Playbook: Turning Your Data Analysis Into Executive Action (And Your Next Pay Raise)

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WHY THIS ISSUE MATTERS:

• You're stuck proving you can code when the real game is about people.

• Every week you spend fixing SQL queries instead of helping your team grow is another week someone less technical but better with people gets picked for the leadership job.

• This issue shows you how to use proven research from 80,000 managers to become the kind of leader who builds great teams, not just great dashboards.

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Here's what keeps you up at night: AI is getting faster at the stuff you're good at.

What's your edge?

Meanwhile, people who can barely write SQL are getting team lead roles because they know how to work with people.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman studied 80,000 managers and found four things that separate the great ones from everyone else. For analytics folks who want to lead, this isn't theory. It's your map to becoming someone AI can't replace.

Whether you are a current leader, aspiring to leadership or just want to gauge how good your current leader is (!!!) … this one is for you.

Lets go.

Great managers hire for talent, not just skills..

.. because the way someone naturally thinks can't be taught in a class but it's what turns good analysts into great ones.

Executives want faster insights and AI handles the routine stuff. The leaders who know how to spot talent, use it right, and help it grow become the ones nobody can do without.

You probably think the path to analytics leadership is more certs, another degree, or learning the newest tool. Nope. Dont do that.

The research from over a million employees shows something you might not like.

Technical skills get you in the room. They won't get you the leadership seat. I’ve been saying this for issue after issue of this newsletter.

The analytics managers who win do something totally different. They stop trying to make everyone the same.

Here's what it costs when you get this wrong. You promote your best analyst to team lead and watch them struggle. You write process docs nobody reads. You make your quiet data engineer present to executives and wonder why they start job hunting. Every time you put someone in the wrong spot, you create problems. Your best people leave because they never felt seen for what makes them special.

So. Here's your framework, straight from the research that talked to 80,000 managers and figured out what the best ones do differently.

Four keys. Each one breaks what most people think.

Each one backed by data showing real lifts in productivity, profit, customer happiness, and keeping good people.

The Manager's Master Framework: Four Keys to Unleashing Team Performance

Key 1 | Hire for Talent Not Just Experience

Stop hiring for what's on paper. Start looking for patterns of behavior that predict great work.

Talent isn't rare. It's a pattern of how someone thinks, feels, or acts that gets results. The best storyteller on your team didn't learn that in a course. They have a natural gift for making complex things clear. Your best troubleshooter doesn't just know more tricks. They have a gift for thinking through problems under pressure.

When you're building your team or trying to lead, look past the resume. Ask open questions that show how people naturally work. Listen for specific examples, not general claims. Someone who says "I'm good at SQL" tells you nothing. Someone who describes staying up late to fix a data problem because they couldn't let it go? That's drive. Someone who breaks problems into parts before diving in? That's thinking talent.

Key 2 | Set the Right Goals Not the Right Steps

This is where most analytics managers kill results without knowing it. They control the how instead of being clear about the what.

You tell your analyst exactly how to run the analysis instead of saying what business question needs answering and letting them figure out their path. You create rigid templates nobody likes. You mix up activity with results.

Great managers flip this. They get super clear about what matters to customers and the business, then get out of the way. Instead of "run this A/B test using this method," it's "figure out if the new checkout increases purchases without hurting customer satisfaction, and give me confidence in your answer." The first makes people follow rules. The second makes them own it.

For analytics folks stepping into leadership, this is gold. Set three goals for each person that match company strategy, customer value, and their strengths. Track those goals hard. Let them figure out how. You'll find your team has ten different ways to be great, and forcing them all down one path was what held everyone back.

Key 3 | Build on Strengths Not Weaknesses

Here's where it gets uncomfortable. Your best analyst can't manage time. Your best presenter struggles with stats. Your systems person can't write an exec summary to save their life.

Old-school management says fix these problems. Great management says work around them and double down on strengths.

This doesn't mean ignore big problems. But it means you'll get way more value from making someone's strength stronger than trying to drag a weakness up to okay. Your poor presenter with incredible stats skills? Pair them with your natural communicator for exec meetings. Your messy analyst who sees patterns nobody else catches? Give them a project coordinator and let them do their magic.

The analytics folks who position themselves for leadership do this with themselves first. They figure out their natural talents, find roles and projects that let them use those talents every day, and build support systems around their weaker spots. They don't waste time becoming okay at everything. They become exceptional at their unique strengths and let others shine in theirs.

Key 4 | Find the Right Fit Not Just the Next Step Up

The corporate ladder is a trap for analytics talent. You promote your best analyst to manager and lose a great analyst while gaining an okay manager. Why? Because being great at one job takes totally different talents than being great at the next job up. Management takes talent for motivating others, setting up outcomes, and handling org politics. Not everyone has those talents. Not everyone wants them.

Great analytics teams create heroes at every level. They build different paths to respect, pay, and growth that don't force everyone into management. They celebrate the senior data scientist who leads through technical skill as much as the analytics director who leads through people. They create levels within roles so someone can grow their skill, impact, and pay without becoming something they're not built to be.

For analytics folks figuring out their careers, this is freeing. You don't have to become a manager to grow. If your talents are in deep technical work, influencing through insights, or driving strategy through analysis, find places that create paths for that. If you do have natural talent for management—if you light up helping others win, if you naturally think in systems and outcomes, if you get energy from growing people—then go after leadership on purpose, knowing the role takes different talents than the analyst work you've mastered.

Your Next Move

Here's your challenge: Pick one team member or colleague this week and have a talent conversation.

Ask them

• What parts of your work do you learn fastest

• Where do you feel most engaged and energized

• What do people consistently come to you for help with

Listen for the patterns that show their natural talents. Then ask yourself: How could I help create more chances for them to use these talents?

If you're positioning yourself for leadership, do this on yourself first. Map your own patterns of thought and behavior. Figure out where you create big value with what feels like little effort. Then look at the analytics leadership roles around you and ask: Which of these roles would let me use my natural talents every day, and which would make me fight my nature?

Hit reply and tell me what you found. Which key hits closest to your current career challenge?

Quick Pulse

Whats your next move? Build that momentum. Reach out for support. Get better every day.

Best,

Tom.

PS. Interested in some coaching? I am launching a new range of micro services. Check them out, see if there is something you resonate with which will help you get to the next level in your career. Check it out on this link below.

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