 |
| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2, and by Pixlr AI image editor |
My Data Analyst would like to change his title to Data Synthesist. I was
surprised when he came to me with that title, because that’s precisely what I
wanted to call it in the beginning, but I was overruled at the time. You see,
there’s a difference between analysis and synthesis. An analyst will take
data, and break it apart into its smallest parts. They will examine each one,
and figure out how it works; how it contributes to whatever it’s there to do.
But a system is more than simply the sum of its parts. You, for instance, are
not just a collection of organs, bones, blood, nerves, and muscles. You are a
full person, and you cannot be rightly defined simply by listing every aspect
of your self. What a synthesist does is take the system as a whole, and looks
at how those parts work together to form that whole, in all dimensions.
There’s an old parable in the systems thinking field that asks whether you
would have the best car if you researched the best individual parts in the
market, and tried to put them together. The answer is no, you wouldn’t; you
wouldn’t even have a car! They wouldn’t fit together correctly, and would not
add up to functionality. There is a time and place for analysis, but that time
is not now, and that place is not here. I’m all in favor of my team member
changing his title, but it’s a lot more complicated than just making the
declaration, and printing new business cards. It has to go through human
resources, and executives in our company. Our client has to approve it too,
because they have the right to decide who they contract with. Compliance and
legal have to be involved, as do departments that you might not immediately
think of, like payroll and benefits. We don’t need their approval, but they
still need to know that it’s happening so they can adjust their systems
accordingly. And with all this comes the paperwork. Oh, the paperwork. We went
through all this when the process was just getting started, and I was
pleasantly surprised at how fast it went, but they might not be interested in
undoing their work, and starting over from scratch, even if we’re just talking
about one title. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m confident that
we’ll figure this out. It’s the right move to make, even if it may sound small
and inconsequential. It’s important that we state our intentions in all
relevant ways, so our clients understand what kind of value we add to their
businesses.
