In partnership with

hy This Issue Matters

• 89% of analytics hiring failures are character issues, not technical gaps. But you're still screening for SQL.

• Intellectual honesty, curiosity, comfort with ambiguity, accountability without excuses, generosity with knowledge - these determine who leads.

• Technical skills have a shrinking half-life. Character compounds over time. You're investing in the wrong one.

This newsletter is free. Hosting it isn’t.

Clicking this link is how you tip the writer, keep the ladder strong, and help more analysts break through.

[Click here, feel heroic.]

Find out why 100K+ engineers read The Code twice a week

Staying behind on tech trends can be a career killer.

But let’s face it, no one has hours to spare every week trying to stay updated.

That’s why over 100,000 engineers at companies like Google, Meta, and Apple read The Code twice a week.

Here’s why it works:

• No fluff, just signal – Learn the most important tech news delivered in just two short emails.

• Supercharge your skills – Get access to top research papers and resources that give you an edge in the industry.

• See the future first – Discover what’s next before it hits the mainstream, so you can lead, not follow.

Join 100,000+ engineers who read The Code to stay ahead of the curve.

In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain tells the story of working for a restaurateur he called "Bigfoot" The guy had one rule about being late to work:

Call him beforehand and tell the truth, you keep your job. Show up late with an excuse, even a legitimate one, you're fired.

Bourdain writes: "It's okay to call Bigfoot and say, 'Bigfoot, I was up all night smoking crack, sticking up liquor stores drinking blood and worshipping Satan.. I'm going to be a little late' That's acceptable, once in a very great while".

But show up late and try explaining, even if true: "Uh, Bigfoot, I was on the way to work and the President's limo crashed right next to me.. and I had to pull him out of the car, give him mouth to mouth... and like I saved the leader of the free world, man!"

You're fired.

Bourdain watched Bigfoot fire a longtime waitress who returned from vacation and claimed her flight was fifteen minutes late. Bigfoot called the airport to verify. She'd lied. She was gone.

The lesson Bourdain learned: "Bigfoot understood, as I came to understand, that character is far more important than skills or employment history".

If you didn't know something, Bigfoot preferred "I dunno" over elaborate speculation and half-truths. Show up on time. Tell the truth. Own your mistakes. No excuses.

Those weren't teachable skills. They were character traits. And Bigfoot knew the difference.

Most analytics teams hire backwards. They screen for Python proficiency and SQL certifications while missing the character traits that actually determine success.

This week’s midweek playbook is inspired by Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential. I picked up this book from a thrift store three weeks ago - for $2.. What a bargain.

The parallels in this book with your Data & Analytics career about skill and character are super clear to me and worth sharing.

But first .. The 89% Problem

Here's the stat that should change how every analytics leader thinks about hiring: 89% of new hire failures happen because of attitude and character issues, not lack of technical skills.

Yet analytics hiring focuses almost exclusively on the 11%.

Break down what this looks like in most analytics hiring processes.

• Hour long technical assessments testing nested SQL queries.

• Take home case studies evaluating modeling techniques.

• Portfolio reviews of past dashboard work.

• Maybe 15 minutes on "tell me about a time you dealt with conflict."

The problem?

SQL syntax is searchable. Python libraries update every quarter. The DAX formula someone memorized becomes obsolete when the tool changes.

Technical skills have a shrinking half-life. Character compounds over time.

Read that again, I LOVE that line. 30 years in data and I think that line is so important.

Real scenario: Two candidates. One has five years of experience with your exact tech stack, perfect technical interview, weak culture fit. The other has adjacent skills, strong technical foundation, but when you ask about their last project failure they light up talking about what they learned and how they changed their approach.

Who has a higher ceiling?

The technical hire might produce faster dashboards in month one. But the character hire will be leading the team in year two.

The Five Character Traits Analytics Can't Teach

So, transforming the character traits that Anthony wrote about took a little thinking, because some don’t translate super well from a kitchen .. well one did, the rest are mine. The premise holds.

But, regardless, I don’t want you to think about these as soft skills. They're the hardest skills to find because they can't be trained.

(I somewhat HATE the term ‘soft’ skills - because mostly these are skills that matter more than what we give credit for)

Intellectual Honesty

When the model shows results the stakeholder doesn't want to see, do they present it anyway or quietly adjust assumptions until the numbers cooperate?

This isn't about courage training. It's about whether someone values truth over approval. You either have it or you spend your career as a number massager.

Genuine Curiosity

The analyst who sees an outlier and needs to know why versus the one who flags it as "data quality issue" and moves on.

Curiosity can't be mandated. It's intrinsic.

It's what separates analysts who execute requests from those who uncover insights nobody explicitly asked for.

Comfort with Ambiguity

Most analytics work happens in the messy middle where the question isn't clear, the data is incomplete, and the stakeholder doesn't actually know what they need.

Some people operate beautifully in that chaos. Others need clear requirements and structured environments.

Neither is wrong, but only one thrives in analytics leadership.

Accountability Without Excuses

Bourdain's mentor taught him: Don't lie about mistakes. Admit it and move on. Just don't do it again.

The analyst who blames the data warehouse team, the unclear requirements, the changing scope versus the one who says "I should have validated that assumption earlier"

Ownership isn't taught in SQL bootcamp.

Generosity with Knowledge

The senior analyst who hoards tribal knowledge to stay indispensable versus the one who documents everything and actively develops others.

The evidence in the book suggests that Bourdain always led from the front and taught obsessively.

For us? Security through expertise -and- security through generosity. One builds careers, the other builds teams.

These aren't personality preferences. They're predictive of whether someone becomes a trusted advisor or remains a report generator.

How to Hire for Character

Flip the interview process. Spend 70% of interview time on behavioral questions, scenarios, and character assessment. Spend 30% validating technical threshold.

Specific questions that reveal character:

• Walk me through a project where your analysis contradicted what leadership wanted to hear. What happened?

• Tell me about a time you realized your model was wrong after it went into production.

• Describe a situation where you didn't have enough data to answer the question. How did you proceed?

• What's something you learned from a junior team member recently?

Look for the shape of answers, not just content.

Do they own mistakes or explain them away? Do they credit others or claim solo credit? Do they show excitement about learning or frustration about ambiguity?

Reference checks focused on character, not competence. Ask former managers: "How did they handle being wrong?" "Did they make others better?" "Would you hire them again?"

The technical bar still matters, but it's a threshold, not a competition.

Once someone clears "can learn what we need them to learn", character becomes a large differentiator.

What This Means for Your Career

If you are not hiring, but wondering how you can apply this to yourself? Stop obsessing over the next certification and start examining the harder questions:

• Do stakeholders trust what you tell them even when it's uncomfortable

• Do you make your teammates better or just your own work better

• When you don't know something, do you fake it or admit it

• Do you need clear instructions or can you operate in uncertainty

The technical gaps are fixable with focused effort. The character gaps require genuine self-examination and behavior change over years.

Analytics professionals spend hundreds of hours learning new tools and almost zero hours developing intellectual honesty or comfort with ambiguity.

Yet .. i’m betting that the second set determines who leads and who plateaus.

The Bottom Line

Bourdain didn't become one of the most respected voices in food because he had better knife skills.

His book shows that he built a career on showing up and being authentic, telling scary uncomfortable truths, and very obviously caring deeply about the work and the people.

Analytics needs more of that and fewer people who can recite the syntax for window functions.

Skills get you the interview. Character gets you the career.

Best,

Tom.

Disclaimer: Some of the articles and excerpts referenced in this issue may be copyrighted material. They are included here strictly for review, commentary and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes fair use (or “fair dealing” in some jurisdictions) under applicable copyright laws. If you wish to use any copyrighted material from this newsletter for purposes beyond your personal use, please obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The information in this newsletter is provided for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute professional, financial, or legal advice. You use this material entirely at your own risk. No guarantees, warranties, or representations are made about accuracy, completeness, or fitness for purpose. Always observe all laws, statutory obligations, and regulatory requirements in your jurisdiction. Neither the author nor EchelonIQ Pty Ltd accepts any liability for loss, damage, or consequences arising from reliance on this content.