Why Great Analysts Stay Stuck, and What to Do About It.

Have you thought much about why some analytics people get promoted and others don't?

It's not the technical stuff. I know plenty of brilliant analysts who are still in the same role after three years. Their code is clean, their models are solid, their insights are sharp.

Meanwhile, the person who got the team lead position? Their SQL is decent at best.

The difference isn't what they know. It's what they prioritise.

Most analytics pros spend their time trying to become better analysts. The ones who get promoted spend their time becoming better at making analytics work within organisations.

There's a chapter in this week’s book "Competing on Analytics" that breaks this down perfectly. Thomas Davenport basically says that analytics talent is wasted without the right organisational conditions .. and that the savvy analysts learn to create those conditions themselves.

They don't wait for leadership to figure out their value.

They make their value impossible to ignore.

Give me 4 minutes to see how i’ve mapped out 5 keys from chapter 7 in this book.

Lets go.

1. Clarify Your Value — and Make It Business-Visible

Analysts think the work speaks for itself. It doesn’t.

Chapter 7 of our book shows that high-performing analytics professionals create value only when their work is connected to real-world decisions. If the analysis lives in a dashboard no one opens, or the model runs in a vacuum, leadership doesn’t see you as part of the business engine.

What to do:
• Identify the decisions your work could inform—forecasting, pricing, customer retention
• When you deliver an analysis, write the "action" version:
“This analysis suggests we could reduce churn by 12% if we act on segment B.”
• Keep a short “impact ledger” of what changed because of your insight (decision, KPI, financial lift). We have covered this in prior issues as well.

Why it matters:
Managers and executives invest in people who move the business forward. If you don’t show that connection, you’ll be seen as overhead—even if your work is world-class.

2. Choose Your Growth Path: Technical/Consultant/People Leader

Not all promotions go up the same ladder.

Davenport highlights a key leadership blind spot: pushing great analysts into people management—even if they’re better suited to expert roles. Its helpful to think about early-on whether you want to stay technical and deepen your craft, or expand into team leadership.

What to do:
• Ask yourself weekly: Do I enjoy solving harder technical problems, interfacing with the business and communicating results, or enabling others to do great work?

• Seek mentors who’ve followed one of these paths. Someone that is doing the job you are aiming for, Ask what their day actually looks like, their problems, frustrations, how they deal with it and grow.

• If you want to go expert: build reusable assets, contribute to architecture, become a “critical path” person

• If you want to be the consultant - learn the craft of eliciting requirements, interpreting and communicating results, building the bridges between the business, tech, leadership, and the problems you are solving.

• If you want to go people-leader: shadow stakeholder meetings, mentor juniors, run a mini-project. Leadership is such a different world to an individual contributor it really pays to learn skills as early as possible.

Why it matters:
Without a declared path, you’ll be overlooked or miscast. Choosing doesn’t lock you in—it clarifies how others can invest in you.

3. Build Cross-Functional Relationships Before You Need Them

Your influence doesn’t scale through reports. It scales through relationships.

Top analytical competitors don’t just build tools—they embed themselves in the business. And the best analytics professionals? They don’t wait for an invite. They start showing up early and often.

What to do:
• Join one cross-functional project outside your domain (e.g. marketing + ops + data)
• Ask your manager to make a connection with the business outside of your comfort zone
• Learn the language of the business partner you support. Know their KPIs and pain points
• Summarise your insights in their terms, not yours. “Here’s how this model helps your retention goal.”

Why it matters:
Davenport shows that influence flows from trust. And trust comes from relevance. You can’t be relevant from the sidelines. You’ve got to get into the rhythm of how business units operate.

4. Insist on the Right Environment — Or Build It

Even elite analysts burn out in broken systems.

Davenport argues that analytics talent is fragile: it thrives under the right cultural conditions—and withers without them. Most ICs try to fix the data. Few realise they also need to take charge and fix their environment if they need to.

What to do:
• Block 1–2 hours per day for deep work—protect that time like a meeting
• Ask your manager how your insights are actually used. No shame, just signal that you care about impact
• Push for documentation, retros, and experiment tracking—analysts need long memory to create real value
• If your org undermines all of this long-term, it may not be the right place for your growth

Why it matters:
Your performance is as much a product of the environment as your skills. Leaders notice those who improve the team’s conditions—not just their output.

5. Track and Sell Your Strategic Wins

If no one knows what changed because of your work, it didn’t happen.

We have seen this one before havent we!

Managers are swamped. Execs forget. The people who rise are the ones who close the loop—and narrate the value. Davenport makes it clear: even great insights die if they’re not communicated clearly and used visibly.

What to do:
• Create a 1-slide “win tracker” for each project: problem → insight → decision → result
• Write up short retros: “What we learned from this model/report/test”
• At the end of each quarter, summarise your contributions in business terms and email your lead (or their lead)

Why it matters:
Strategic wins get remembered. And those who frame their work as leverage—not just labor—get tapped for the next opportunity.

Your Next Move

Which stage are you tackling this week, and in what leadership moment .. like a stakeholder meeting or project pitch?

Reply with your plan, and I'll feature anonymised success stories next issue.

Hope you have an awesome week.

Best,

Tom.