EOS for a Better Business, Better Life
Sep 14, 2026 · 39 min · 12 segments
In this episode of Better Business, Better Life, Debra Chantry-Taylor explores why leaders flying blind can put an entire business at risk, and how the right data can give leadership teams the…
Deborah Chantry TaylorHostI have been rereading the book Data: Harness Your Numbers to Go from Uncertain to Unstoppable by Mark O'Donnell, Angela Kalemus, and Mark Stanley.
And one of the ideas explored in this book is that a strong data component means running the business using a handful of numbers that give you a genuine pulse, help predict future results, and allow you to make faster, better decisions.
Not 87, not a dashboard resembling the cockpit of a Boeing 747, not every piece of information your software can produce because somebody got excited about Power BI.
Just a handful of numbers that tell you whether the business is really healthy.
You don't need the dashboard to explain every mechanical function taking place underneath the bonnet.
You need to know your speed, how much fuel or battery you have, whether the engine is overheating, whether the tires are losing pressure, whether a warning light has come on.
The warning light doesn't necessarily diagnose the entire problem, but it tells you that something needs attention, and that is what a scorecard should do.
What it does is it tells you where to start looking before the issue becomes a large, expensive surprise.
They say, "But that number doesn't explain why." And it's not supposed to.
Let's find out what's really going on." And then the leadership team investigates, identifies the real issue, discusses it properly, and solves it quickly and permanently.
Because really good leadership teams solve issues quickly and permanently.
They don't stare at a red number for 13 consecutive weeks while telling themselves they're monitoring it or know what's going on, because monitoring is not solving.
I have been rereading the book Data: Harness Your Numbers to Go from Uncertain to Unstoppable by Mark O'Donnell, Angela Kalemus, and Mark Stanley.
And one of the ideas explored in this book is that a strong data component means running the business using a handful of numbers that give you a genuine pulse, help predict future results, and allow you to make faster, better decisions.
Not 87, not a dashboard resembling the cockpit of a Boeing 747, not every piece of information your software can produce because somebody got excited about Power BI.
Just a handful of numbers that tell you whether the business is really healthy.
You don't need the dashboard to explain every mechanical function taking place underneath the bonnet.
You need to know your speed, how much fuel or battery you have, whether the engine is overheating, whether the tires are losing pressure, whether a warning light has come on.
The warning light doesn't necessarily diagnose the entire problem, but it tells you that something needs attention, and that is what a scorecard should do.
What it does is it tells you where to start looking before the issue becomes a large, expensive surprise.
They say, "But that number doesn't explain why." And it's not supposed to.
Let's find out what's really going on." And then the leadership team investigates, identifies the real issue, discusses it properly, and solves it quickly and permanently.
Because really good leadership teams solve issues quickly and permanently.
They don't stare at a red number for 13 consecutive weeks while telling themselves they're monitoring it or know what's going on, because monitoring is not solving.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.