Hi and welcome to data futurology the podcast where we speak with leaders in the data science space. We hear their stories their lessons learned and how they got to where they are with them with disgust leadership strategy team building and much much more. My name is Felipe Flores. I am your host. Thank you so much for being here. And today we have a gem of an episode. I think we're speaking with Olivia par Rod Jesus. Extremely accomplished that a science leader. In fact, he was writing books about data science before that is high in suppose a term. So you tells us about the books that she's written in the first one was in data mining. So it's called the data mining cookbook. She is also a certified holacracy practitioner. We speak a fair bit about that. She's been director of database marketing director of pricing optimization director of predictive modeling vice president of analytical Services. She's also Had her own radio talk show about business insights. She's had her own business for a couple of decades. She's an advisor to companies and just has such an incredible and Rich story to share with us today. I had a lot of fun speaking with her. I hope that you enjoy the episode. Here's a conversation with Olivia. Hi, this is Felipe today and speaking with Olivia Olivia. Thank you so much for making the time. It is great to have you on the show. Well, thank you, please smile. My pleasure. Thank you so much at the beginning of the interviews. I always like to ask the guest. How did you get started in the data space? What was it about the field that Drew you in? Well, it's really kind of interesting because I will share later how I'm doing a lot more writing and as a child I was very add and I just enjoyed math. So I ended up studying in college and then decided after I had kids and I want to get back into the career I went. To graduate school in a math based course and ended up majoring in statistics when I got my degree, which was in 1991. There wasn't really a field called Data analysis or I guess right now be data science, but back then the first term that sort of came about is data mining. And so I ended up that credit card Banks were just starting to use data driven models to find their best customers and I came in and had studied categorical data analysis in my graduate work and really just started building models not knowing that it was then going to birth this huge field. So it's really comfortable of incredible. How did you pick statistics as the field for your graduate degree? That's a good question because when I was in undergrad I had to take the statistics class and the professor was awful just say it so I hate it statistics. I loved math, so I got to I was living in Arizona Tempe Arizona, which is right outside of Phoenix and Arizona State University is there and I went into the college of business. I actually wanted to study social work but a friend of mine said no, it's really hard to find a job and I thought okay, I you know, I had children I want to be practical so my husband was starting his own business. So I knew I should probably get something where I can make money, right? So I and I did like business because I had worked in business for a few years right out of college out of credit company, but I knew I didn't want to study. Statistics is so they had three choices. They had computer science statistics and operations research. These were all within this decision and information system master's degree. So I thought okay. I don't want to just be a period of computer scientists that just sounded really boring actually two linear. I think was my thought that I might think differently so I decided to do operations research because that was the last choice and I really didn't even know what it was but I got into it and it was fascinating and Probably familiar with it it optimization models, but given that I still had to start with a statistics class and I had a really great professor and I really got to enjoy it and he liked me so he invited me to switch and he said if you change your major just I'll get you assistantships and help you with your research all that stuff. So that's why I changed and I also was thinking at the time that it's probably a lot more practical than operations research is just something small businesses can basically use statistic where they probably couldn't really leverage operations research to really make sense. How interesting and once they did that degree. How did your career evolved since then? Well, I was actually in my last semester on my husband's company went they went to Funk and my husband said to me and I really want to start my own business. Can you see if he could get a job and so I went into my professor and he said oh, yeah, there was this little credit card Bank in San Francisco that's looking for people did. Understand how to build statistical model. So I went up there interviewed. They hired me and it was funny. They gave me a data set that was perfectly clean that another analyst had done at Rhema another analyst had built a tree model. So he'd already done all those sampling because back then you had to sample everything because the computer space was so small and so I didn't even know what 90% of the work is which is preparing the data, but I built this model using logistic. A progression and even on top of a chaid tree model, it saves the company because they were doing so much snail mail. This was before email really started. It saved the company 17 million dollars a year in male expense for the same Alpha profit. So I was instantly a hero as you can imagine, but the funny thing was I had a I don't even know if this is something people listening could even imagine but I had a desktop computer with a 500 megabyte hard drive and I had SAS on the computer when I was running SAS. I couldn't get into anything else. It was basically locked up and I had no server nothing like that. It was just all right on this little PC. And so I had to sample as I mentioned and then I needed to prepare the variable. So I would spend the week usually during the week I would work on getting the variables in a linear form and that was something I really mastered. Because I couldn't run the model till Friday night. I would start it and it would run for 27 hours. And this was just a sample of 45,000 Records Was it but it was just because computers were so slow that same model could probably now it'd take three or four seconds. It's crazy. That's how I had to do it and then after a year, we got a server and it had one gig on it and we just thought as the whole Bank we're never going to run out of space. It was funny actually that Still don't have access to that to do modeling. I still have two models of the PC. It wasn't until I went to the next position which was I transferred I wanted to get back. He's with my family because I was committing an hour and a half from San Francisco Bay. Area was really tough the bank I work for was also who's owned by a holding company that had an insurance company back East so they transferred me back there and then I got to work on mainframes, which was another interesting cop nightmare. Everything looks so different and fun because we were Pioneers. That's right. Those were the early days of what now has become data science. How did you find it going into Financial Services as your sort of first industry into your statistical career? Well, it's an interesting question because I didn't know how good I had it until I went into other Industries. One of the things that is so great in financial services is just a volume of data use although I will say with when Jada I mean that wasn't even available back then what even when a bank would have it seems small compared to what you know can track When people's web traffic but it was a very rich climate in which to model because the behavioral data was so strong and I've always looked at different kinds of data, but I just think behavioral data is always the most powerful because people will even say things that they they will do and they won't do it. But if they thought before it's a much more likely we'll do it again or you know, someone like that that make sense. Yes, exactly put some adjusting and could you give us an overview of your career since those early days? What are some of the main stages and problems that you worked on until now sure so the first bank I went to was pretty small but my role was fairly narrow. I did get promoted to head of acquisition. So I Doing broader stuff, but I really love the analytics when I moved back East I was working in insurance and I really missed the credit data. So I eventually after a couple of years. I went to work for another bank in the Philadelphia area, which was Advanta bank and they were the pioneers of balance transfer and what they didn't do which I think is something everybody should hear is they didn't keep their data private. So the first bank I work for. Look who's Providian Bank, okay. They aren't around anymore their portfolio. I think is now somewhere in Bank of America but back then they didn't share their data with anybody. They didn't share it with their Isaac's they were really really private and I didn't know anything else but I was there but when I got to Advanta bag and I heard that they were sending their quarter file every quarter to Fair Isaac and then tries it was using advantages data to build models to sell their competitors and I was horrified eyes. Really, so I encourage companies and people working in these companies to keep your secrets if you want to maintain your competitive Advantage. So yeah after a few years Advanta, they lost their Edge and eventually they sold to Fleet. This was interesting. I was at Advanta and things are starting to go downhill. So I took an offer at Fleet Bank in Boston, but they had an office in Delaware which was pretty close to where I live at. And one of the things that was also really true then was that those of us that did this kind of analysis we all knew each other and we might have worked in one place together and then go on to different places, but everybody knew where everybody else was. So I would get calls, you know, do you want to come and work here? We need your skills. So that's kind of how I ended up at Fleet Bank friend of mine was there he worked with me before he said yeah, you know come on down and what I loved about fleet was they were mainly a regular bank, but they have this Tiny little credit card division. So we got to do all kinds of things and I really like that. I like the variety and I could get into campaign management and all kinds of other analyses then then Advanta a sea Fleet bought Advanta bank, but Advanta got absorbed into credit card system and that's when I started seeing how the human factor was so critical which really informs my work today, which I'll share a little bit later, but I saw how when People weren't informed about what was happening. There was a merger and acquisition the best people would leave and everybody else was so stressed that it really hurt the business and I didn't quite have the context back then but I could see that this was really not good for profits and it was hard on people as well. So I really got that very clearly and after bleep God Advanta. They wanted to put me in a role and I could see that I would just Stuck there just doing the same thing every day. So that's when I decided to just go off on my own and so I just formed my own business and started doing Project work, which was really fun because I could work for all different kinds of Industries. And that is something that I think data science has this really rich advantage in that tools and the processes are pretty set and there's new things coming in with machine learning at all of that, but they are really solving simple problems. The beauty is that you can do something in one industry and when you get into a different industry, you'll see a way or I would see ways when I was because I work for a Sprint and a couple of insurance companies and Energy company and I would be able to apply what I was doing for the banking and other Industries into this new industry and Retail was another example where they were pretty big especially catalogs used rfm, you know frequency. See a monetary value, but we could take back to take what I have been doing with much more precise modeling and blow those models away. So that's a really rich aspect. I think of data science is moving around in different Industries. You can really see things and make a difference. That's right. You can learn so much by seeing the different Industries is in applying the data science knowledge across multiple use cases and applications different gives you such a rich background and toolkit. Tell me how did you find it starting your own business going into Consulting for yourself? It was challenging at first. What I decided I was actually working for another company doing sales for about a year before I went on my own and during that time. I would go to trade shows and be in the vendor Hall trying to sell analytics which is very hard to do because it's not tangible and back then a lot of people didn't really know what it was and then They said oh, well I heard about so that wrote a book and then they had all the business they wanted so I thought okay, maybe that's what I should do. So I looked around actually SAS had asked me to write a book, but I I knew I didn't want to write estas book. I wanted to write more of a marketing book that would be applicable to several any kind of software. So I contacted Wiley because I saw that they published a couple of books on Data Mining and I got through to an editor and he goes, yeah, we want to do it. I think I sent him a white paper. So they knew I could write and they gave me a contract and that's when I wrote data mining cookbook that book became a best-seller really quickly because there wasn't anything else out there the other reason I wrote it was because back if you remember I was saying how I would do all this work to get variables to be linear and I also figured out other ways to make the models better using waiting and all these things and I was using a lot of creativity in my model building and I remember Speak at these little conferences and people would push back like, oh, you can't do that. I'd say well, you know, once the data gets large enough, all the rules are gone, and it makes my client money. So they don't really care by breaking any rules statistical rule. So that's one of the beauties of Big Data may as well. Yeah. It's like this is you always hear that institutions caution us about multicollinearity. That's actually more critical maybe in a medical model where you're trying to say. Separate all the factors want to predict just always gonna have a heart attack or something like that. It's important. But the way I develop models I use selection criteria that just mitigates any kind of multicollinearity anyway, so and today I mean most people don't even know what's going in the models. I just know that they work and they're the black box or quite messy if you try to look at them, so that's all right. Do you feel bad that people are taking no I like it. It also speak. To what I feel is the other really critical skill that people have to have today and that is when we develop analysis the models nobody really knows if they were so we have to think of ourselves as leaders and we have to make people feel comfortable with it. And when I develop a model I will always do sort of an out-of-time sample to try to prove it works they on a different time period so that I'm comfortable that it will hold up but being able to explain Lane that and also sell people on the benefits I always say don't tell people what the R square is or any other statistical stuff just say if you use this here's how much money it will make or here's how much money will save you or, you know, talk about it into dollars and the dollars themselves and make people feel comfortable with it and lead them as though we're leaders here. We are thought leaders in this field, right? We are I really like that approach to help people essentially non-technical. Business people to see the value and the benefits of data science by putting into the benefits into the dollars. But also I assume that you are quite careful about putting things in plain language or being able to explain things clearly to non-technical people. Do you have any tips that you use or any approaches that you could share on that relationship building or explaining data science to non-technical people? I think just perhaps listen to what their goals are. And what their concerns are and try to speak and show the results in a way that alleviates those fears or addresses those concerns and I think data visualization helps some graphs are usually easier for people to absorb, if you know gains chart or something that is very clear that if you're going to use a model or machine learning more statistical model that they can study the gap between that and maybe not using it. What is that equate to in dollars? I do think dollars or if you're cutting say a model might be cutting risk, then that can also translate into dollars, but it might be a little bit different conversation. That's really good and tell me what happened after you wrote your first book. I think you came out in 2000. Is that right? Yeah, I think it was 2001 when it was published. That's the publication year. It might have been out the fall of 2000. Yeah. Well, so it immediately put me on this. International stage and it was fun. I was traveling and speaking and I really enjoyed it because it was so new for people and then after a while so there were these conferences like the DNA and CDM or national Center for database marketing. I don't know the reason around anymore. The dma was a direct marketing Association. I think it's combined with something else. Now. I was always on the shortlist. I could put in a proposal for analysis of doing them. Modeling talk let's say and it would get to accept it and I started at the around that same time was when I was feeling the pain of the human skills being so needed and so I started pitching topics to these conferences on the value of good communication for managing change or the importance of creativity and analytics things like that and they would often take all of them and maybe some couple times. They asked me to do half day workshops. So I put something together. It was really fun, but I wasn't able to really monetize it and they tell you a little bit but I couldn't really make a career out of it. So I did that for a few years and then I sort of just cut back and started doing more research into the human factor around this fast changing global economy. And that was the birth of the second book. I wrote I did a keynote actually at the SAS conference called business intelligence success factors and had a publishing asked me to write a book and by then they were partnering with why? Really good published my first book so I wrote cat that came out in 2009. And how was that process of writing a second book compared to the first one great question. First book was a complete brain dump. I did not have one reference in the whole book was just what I did the second book the business intelligence success factors book was a lot of research is very academic and it was designed to take someone who has a critical thinking model. Mind into an argument for treating people. Well, so I went into evolutionary biology and quantum physics and all the things that we can actually see that we're this big energy field and as we work together that affects us either negatively or positively so that was really fun. And I remember a specific thing. I love dry. Read this book by Kevin Kelly who started Wired Magazine. I think the book is called out out of control and he Those chapter in their called Hive mine, which was about this event that took place at a gaming conference where they had a whole audience working together to affect the paddles on the screen. I think they were playing ping-pong on the screen where each person had a paddle and they could flip it to be either better black. I think it was and then these cameras would pick it up and adjust and they became this field kind of like we see birds and fish that swim in a pattern that you know, they're connected somehow even No, they're not physically and so we can do that as humans. And I thought that was so interesting and I see that now there's models for business. But holacracy is one of them where you're invited to show up in service to this base that's created by the Gathering of the people that it's bigger than the sum of the parts. That's what quantum physics is saying. So I love that and I also feel like everything linear is being bought. Native if you think about just the power of models now and how what you can do and really if you get the data in properly and you know what's going on and you can interpret the results. You don't need to know that much in the middle anymore. So it sort of speaks to the earlier discussion about making sure people feel comfortable but it's also then makes those other skills even more important because the actual development being commoditized and it also makes the data piece more Important so I remember surveys 15 20 years ago where they would ask people developing models. How much time do you spend actually building your model and how much time do you spend getting the data ready? And it's like 75 to 90% of the time is spent preparing the data and I would say that's probably even a higher percentage now because modeling is so on dated exactly. That's true. And you said that data helps in organizations that are decentralized like using Percy could you tell me a little bit more about that how does data assist in that Temple management style? Well, I wasn't necessarily saying that data was assisting it's more of a concept of seeing a group that shows up to work together. The holacracy is a model for doing business and I think too that goes is using it now. Yeah, we're people take on a roll. So it's more of a model and a style of meetings and things that's very agile and in that Context I would say data being fed back as to the efficiencies of any of these processes could be useful for improving that the way holacracy works. But the point about holacracy is that it invites people to show up in service to a greater cause than just themselves, which I think is what we all should be doing more of these. Yeah completely great and that's in Zappos or the about suppose. That's the first time I heard about holacracy in the sense that they're having. Decentralized management where people fluid with their roles and then they choose to work wherever they feel that they can add the most value and I think they had a transition period where the CEO said if you don't want to work like this this way that we have coming up. We will pay you to leave and and know essentially but I think I first heard about that when I think the Zappos do the transition and maybe 2014 know something around there. I probably heard about it 15 your book is from 2009 and you have a chapter on micro see how How did you how did you come across its early on well had to remember because I was in the Philadelphia area and Brian Robertson developer of it lives there. I guess I was at some kind of Workshop but it wasn't database. It was more. I love personal growth stuff and I think someone mentioned it and it just intrigued me and so I sought it out and met Brian. I went to a little gathering at his house probably in around 2008 and decided I wanted to get certified. I'm actually certified in holacracy. I think it was the 30th person to get certification. I haven't used it a lot. So if I really wanted to start using it and I may do this I would probably need to go get a refresher but I was so impressed with the efficiency. It really allows one to manage a meeting and deal with things that are often difficult like side conversations things like that in a very respectful but efficient way and then of course like you were saying that people show up they might have a few of their own accountabilities and what role are they playing today? And Brian would often show up as CEO, but he'd have a bunch of other roles as well. And I was on the team for a little bit helping them get their marketing out as well. And I'm just so happy with how well they're doing. So, I think it's a nice model for where I think few business is going to go in the future. Why do you say that that it's a good model for where business is going to go into the future and it's a great question. Thought about it. So because with the speed of change companies have to be much more agile. And what holacracy allows is knowledge and wisdom to come from everyone. So think about 75 years ago, maybe farther back the companies could be very top down the CEO would make every decision everybody that worked under him if it was manufacturing chances are he could go and take over any job in the company and do it. It today we have all these different pressures. So first of all, everybody needs to know how to use a computer and I would argue almost everybody and every company is on the computer at one point or another during the day. So everybody's a little more skilled, which makes them more valuable and less replaceable. But the other thing is the markets being Global and just changing so quickly companies need to be able to adapt much more quickly. It's not command and control anymore. It's sense and And the way you can see that the way it's worked was well one example, I think people can relate to is after World War II Deming was one of the scientists that really understood this kind of quantum system and he wanted to come to the u.s. And help redo Revitalize manufacturing and the u.s. Didn't want him. So he went to Japan and help with the car companies and what he did was he set up all these small teams where people could make decisions really quickly and improve things. As without having to go all the way up to the top and back down and that's why their cars were so good for a while. They were just outperforming everything in the u.s. Right? So the US has taken on more of that but the companies of the future are going to have to be so adaptable and be able to turn on a dime and it really speaks to why smaller companies can grow and be successful quickly where a lot of the bigger more Legacy based companies have such a hard time. I've talked to people in the insurance industry. I won't name. Games, but there's a futurist companies that just cannot get out of their own way and they're very siloed and it's just really hard to be agile. And I've had it when you're siloed when you have internal competition. It's a really redesign of the whole company. So the what I love about holacracy is that it's very agile and it can make adjustments quickly to how the company operates to really keep it current for. Whatever is the latest competitive threat to any business. That's exactly right. And what do you think about the balance or I guess is there a need for balance between complete autonomy from everyone in their own work and the command and control style where the strategy of the priorities are being centrally worked on and maybe centrally dictated. Do you see that there is a need for balance or do you think that the more autonomous models like collector C is what's needed into the future because I really do think it's a balance. What holacracy does is it creates teens so there is a place for a decision to be made just individually, you know with autonomy, but it's a very specific situation and then you are held accountable for it and you have to have reasons that make sense and you know you it's okay to make a mistake, but that's something you want to be smart about and then the balance I think comes from the fact that people can create teams to get something done. They don't have to go. To the top. Let's just say a company is in some industry like a technology industry. They see a threat coming from a competitor. Maybe there's a new type of product. They could just create a really create a team find people that have the time and interest and talents to address that threat come together create a solution. Maybe it gets handed off eventually to a broader production team, but those kinds of things have to be balanced. So I don't think it's even predominantly autonomous. I think it's more. This self-organizing quick changing agile teams that deliver a result and then maybe revise them sell for this band and move on to something else. All right, instead of having a fixed role and fix title where you can have some varying demands on your work. It's more flexible teams around projects and and outcomes that make sense. That's really good. And I'm so curious. I have to ask about the transition between your two books your first worked the data mining. Cookbook I love how it was very clear very well structured and went through all the stages required in data mining in order with great very clear explanations and excellent applications including Chris the End and You Begin applications for the web and before that you look at churn risk making sure that your models are accurate and valid. So it was a technical book and then on your skin you cover communication collaboration innovation. An adaptability leadership. So my question is how was that transition for you between the first book and the second book and before you did that keynote at the sales conference about the success factors for business intelligence what led you to to focus on these topics. So then you cover it in your genome and book. So I mentioned earlier how I was seeing this damage to companies when people were in fear right with all these positions and mergers. Sirs, I just saw how people suffered and I knew how I suffered and I was in fear sometimes so I just felt like that spoke to me. I also mentioned earlier that I wanted to go into social work. So I always had this fascination with human psychology. I continued to study that on my own and I've been into personal growth and all that all my life and it was funny when I first got into the corporate setting in San Francisco that very first credit card bank. I love the work but the culture was very feared. And I really felt almost traumatized like I didn't feel safe to share who I was and what I did then as I sort of separated that side of myself that is Two Worlds. I felt like I lived in and then right before I started right when I started doing the talks at conferences on these human skills. And then when SAS invited me to do keynote I said, I'd love to put all these together and just do an overview and they said great and then I got invited to write the book. It was like I started seeing how my two worlds came together and how the data and the Technologies was driving this rapid change that was creating the need for the humans bills. And the more things get automated the more the human factor matters. So I said, wow, I can now start really writing about stuff that I enjoy and that's much more interesting to me. Actually it's funny. And so that was the birth of that book and I really Of doing the research and the writing and I kept it very academic. So then that's kind of how that came together. It's fantastic and why do you say that as more things are get automated the need for human factors is more prominent. It takes away time from being just in the analytics for one thing and then it's also making things so much more complicated that trust really needs to be built, you know job good deep trust you need to be able to communicate. You need to care about people there's a lot of research on Compassion or care for people your mirror neurons actually sink off in your brains. So all these things become more important as our that's the work we do get some more sort of cryptic and siloed or not necessarily silent but harder to understand maybe it's it is kept to a few people who have the skills to do data science. So in that way it's silent, but it's also more and more driving everything in the business. Bunnies that are leveraging analytics in many many areas. Now if people are even using it in Human Resources, this is really changing the nature of business. And with all this power being put into these pockets of modeling and data-driven actions. It really speaks to people being able to communicate and trust and understand what's going on and a lot of times. I remember years ago. I would listen to people in marketing and IT try to talk to each other and they spoke So completely different languages and they didn't have the same goals either and that still goes on in a lot of companies that I've noticed but they have to be brought together. And this is where companies that can coordinate kind of like holacracy allows for a common goal for the company. So everybody can buy in and then do their part is really speaks to that need for the human skills. And what are some ways that you were Commando that you have seen to bring the Two Worlds together if we think about same marketing and IT or more And data science, how can we get people speaking the same language and come together? Well, that's sort of my work now and just to fill in a little bit. I did the Consulting from say 19 2001 respect 2003. I guess I went on my own and then wrote that book in 2009 and decided to kind of sink back in and just do research more research and work for I just got a nice Contracting. A job with a big client so that I could focus on my writing as well. And I knew that something more heart-based was what I wanted to write in there, but I did have this fear like if I come out with something really soft people would discount me, you know as some like or whatever. So what happened is she coming. Six months background. Alright. Yeah, I think it was around 2013 maybe SAS reached out to me and said would you write a book around date of Enterprise guide Enterprise Miner and I knew I didn't want to write it but I knew that if I wrote about it, if it would make me more relevant my credentials would be updated. Let's say so I wrote that book but one thing that I insisted on was having a section at the end of each chapter called notes from the field where I talked about the importance of Leadership and the human skills and all these things to look out for and to be knowledgeable. Well that book ended up winning best of show at the Carolina technical book competition and they said it was because I am I anticipated the needs of the readers. I have to believe it's for it because of that part of the book so that really validated to me too that there was a yearning out there and you know this kind of personal growth spiritual seeker, and I was getting in my meditations that there is a yearning it's like what What I was going through 25 years ago or whatever early 90s this want wanting to connect with people and wanting to have more of the human factor being nourished in the organization. I didn't know back then that would actually help the company but I do think it does. So I spent seven years working on an outline for what I just published last fall which is called love at work and it's taking compassion and caring which is one of the definitions of love in Wikipedia. Showing and there's all this great data on companies that use compassion and caring and how it helps profits. So I approached it from the data science aspect. There's many books out there conscious capitalism, you know, all these great things that speak to the choir. I'm trying to reach CEO's that may just turn their back on the concept of being loving but I'm saying well, if you do this, if you can hold your nose and just treat people better you will make more money and then Ni My Hope Is that it'll help them perhaps either value in it and maybe over their own lives if there's a chance of that so that's kind of where I am now, so I published love at work and then I just published the workbook couple of weeks ago called the love of work method and in that book. It's much different. It's not as academic the first chapters a bit academic with the then I go into research of evolutionary models and how really people are changing and wanting more of this just in general. I see Millennials and younger people For wanting more part in their work, I think and then I go into my personal story a bit of what I'm sharing today and how that all informed what I'm doing and how I feel like all of us want to show up and be seen and heard for who we are not just what we do and connect with people deeply and how that helps to company. And do you find that that's I harder sell been the outcomes organization like holacracy. Do you find that I said she being nice to employees. Hello. Many people do or encouraging people to bring their whole self at work and be accepted for that. Is that a more typical? So as a message out there for CEOs and leaders today. I think it's a little bit challenging as a to sell because it's a different conversation than people are used to but what I have found and on my website, I have an invitation which kind of speaks to this yearning to be seen and heard at all this stuff when people read that that it resonates a lot and I think That threw a little survey I did on LinkedIn where I was asking people to comment on whether they felt of course on deep Connection in the workplace would be valuable or how to manage change or what does any leadership look like and people I find are interested and I get a lot of great responses. So I don't have anything that I can show statistically but I am going to start launching these courses in a couple weeks and at that point, I'll get a better idea. I'd be able to answer that more succinctly. Lee it's great work and thank you. Thank you for noticing for putting it together for getting it out there because it's definitely what we need out there in the world today. They're saying the business world and in your book, how did you make the case for Love at work? There's a lot of research out there that shows how companies to do sort of specific things for their employees and how profits so there was a Cough firms of endearment that has some great research in it. I encourage people to read that and a few other books. There was also I did a radio show on Vice America for a year and a half called Quantum business insights where I interview people who are doing interesting things with new business models and I had a foul on who talked about Campbell's Soup and how their stock was just their stock was crashing and so they hired to some consultant to come in and he took about six months. And he did all this research and he did an employee satisfaction survey. He did that in the beginning and I think the actively engaged number was about 13 percent which is really bad. So I think somewhat engaged was for you 45% So it was really bad. Most of them are not engaged and after all the research he did he came back with his simple stead of Justin that each manager would speak to each of their direct reports. Least once a day and just say to them. How are you doing? There's what's going on with the business or me or you know the team or whatever and then is there anything you need to get your job done that's it and within nine months the satisfaction rate went up into lid 80s and their stock started to reverse and there was no other expenses related to it. It was just such proof to me that at a certain point people don't want more money. They want to feel good. You know, they want to Be appreciated, right so it's so simple and yet it's white powerful. That's one of the things I love about it that it needs simple and so powerful and I think that what is sometimes seen as polite dealings or taking care of people sort of outside of work that doesn't always translate into the way that businesses are building and organizations are rent. So having this is I think fantastic. Yes. I'm so happy and so grateful and so excited. You're doing this. This is your mission. Well, thank you and I will also say that the research shows that people who have these better experiences at work go home happier and it actually improves family life as well and you know community and maybe the World At Large so interesting so interesting and where would you like to see this going? I had one person that reviewed my book that said, this should be a course in every MBA program. I would love to To see this kind of thing taught and I think a lot of people are wounded they bring their Wills in especially as a leader, you know, it doesn't serve them well, and we could get much more out of people is they were valued and encouraged to take risks. So I want to have courses available online and I also think portions like this taught perhaps differently different cities could really benefit companies perhaps organizations companies could bring courses like this. Into their actual location and do whole groups of people training around each communication and Trust of all that stuff. Wow, and what drives you to be doing? Not only this work, but all the work that you've done to your career. What is the engine that moves you because I love that one of the things that you said before was that you got a contacting role with a large firm so you could focus on your right leg and I was they do what people do only one of those yeah. I really feel like we are born with a purpose and that's what drives me. I feel like I'm going to be accountable for getting this out there, you know before I make my transition and I love it. And I know it can have impact and I feel like my earlier career which was really fun and I learned a lot was to create the credibility that I need to actually speak in these terms today to say I know the way your mind works and what you're struggling with and I'm here to say this is Is going to help so that's kind of what drives me is. I feel like I'm showing up in service to the greater good and whether it gets any recognition in my lifetime is not important. It's just my by evolutionary urge to create this knowledge and get out there that is a big coal. So if it always requires self-awareness and a little self introspection, I think that's what you were saying about the spiritual side coming out. In those decisions or as you were explaining to us your decision making of know making a career in the typical sense, but chasing and forging your own path. So, how do you describe or how do you describe your mission? And or you're calling today? Well, so before I do that, let me just say that back in the 90s. I was doing I was meditating and I was really under a lot of stress in the corporate world. And I just was asking like why am I stuck here? I just hate the culture and I got this message. This is where you need to be to learn the skills through your real work and it was another 12 years before I figured out what my real work is and so, I'm sorry. What was your question again? How how did you have the patience during those 12 years to continue working extremely hard knowing that your real work would come after that. What kept you going through those time? That's a great question. I think I was too so my husband's health started to fail and I was the main Breadwinner. So I had three children. I had to keep making money for that and I as much as maybe I could have been somebody give me a million dollars. I could have had an easier life, but I know that that pushing of myself was where my growth came and so I really now can look back and see that it all made sense and that I wouldn't trade where I am now for anything even No, I've had lots of challenges. I feel like we all have those and we can learn from them. They're not failures. So that's what inspires me. I'm happy that you used the word failure there and your case. What was something that at the time might have looked like a failure. So an apparent failure of the time that then LED you to Greater success down the road once early in my career. I got promoted way over my head or am I It's been my experience level. I was older when I got into the world for her world. So I think that was one of the reasons I got promoted and then the company had no support. I want to HR and ask for some training around what I needed to do and I just didn't know you're on your own. So what I got from that was I had some fear of being promoted and when I went to my next job which was much more data Focus completely. Then they wanted to promote me after a year. I said no I didn't want it was really funny. This is you know back in the early 1990s. So then my manager said to me, well, you don't have a choice and he basically said you're going to head up this team of Alice and it really was great because I knew what they were doing and I was much more knowledgeable about the whole thing where the earlier promotion I was managing all kinds of stuff that I'd never touched before and I was also a Overwhelmed with what was going on in my personal life. I can forgive myself for the first one but first maybe failure but I also saw companies that don't support people and when they need it are losing Talent, so I might have done fine if I could have gotten a little support which speaks to this need to nurture the human in the business not just what they do, but who they are. So it all kind of made sense later incredible and how would you describe your Or calling or your mission now, I want to use data and logic to prove that nurturing and supporting human skills nurturing skills competencies in business is good for business good for people good food fantastic as well. We need to hear you say that because that just confirms it even more. So, thank you. 100% that is exactly what is needed in and you know, this isn't in my career. I've definitely felt that Duality that you spoke about before that. You're one person outside of work and at work you have to pretend to be somebody else and I think people are tired of that. I know that I definitely got tired a lot and I want to do find ways to break free from it. And so the longer you go back in time, then the more extreme those measures had to be you know the for you to break free from it but with With work like yours, it means that the situations are improving to then but then hearing that you're bringing in the evidence behind it that to say if we are nice it actually leads to better businesses and Better Business results and outcomes. That is something that's going to get the interest of the people that need the can make the change. So that's that's why I'm so excited about these companies that are doing Well at the moment and you don't necessarily need to name any names, but can you tell us a little bit about the types of things that they might be doing? Well and things that you would like to see more of in companies. Sure. I'll do this tonight. I was just thinking about this. Anyway, I'll put in a plug for my friend Steve Barber. So somebody that heard Steve Barber speak of mutual friend texted me one day. He says you have to check this guy out. So I went onto his website and he teaches this thing called Extreme leadership and he is Just coming out with a book. It's in pre-order right now called love is damn good business. So when I heard that I just thought I have to go to this conference and need him and everybody else. And so I did I went down in February and it was amazing and they had a bunch of speakers talking about how they had used. Steve's process is called Leaf. It's called love energy accountability and proof and he goes into corporations and uses this process the first that way Is love so you know, it just perfect for me. And so I'm actually going to certify with him in October. So at this conference a couple companies spoke of using it and I don't remember the smaller ones but one that was significant is American Greeting, which is big car for company, right? They do green cards and the CEO was there talking about using love and of course the other aspects of being accountable and things to change the culture and there were many people they're from American Greetings and they a lot of them spoke kind of totally or on stage about how everybody loved coming to work every day and just that unleashes creativity which in that kind of industry would be huge. So they launched a bunch of new green card lines that they're doing it and they're making it profitable and it's very exciting and that's in an industry that's seen as being in trouble in terms of greeting cards is not is not That you think of when you think of areas that sales are on the rise. And of course they do my line now. Yeah the big problem so that the fact that there is fantastic that is outstanding and you tell me a little bit more about the courses that you have to come here. Sure. So the first one I'm going to launch is called Deep Connection in the workplace how to create the connection at workplace and I'm finishing up a eBook that I'm going to use to just invite people to think about it and that'll probably go out and it's bleep. And so this course will have four modules and it just will help people understand the importance of connection and why it matters at work and then really how to do it in the workplace how to be safe and know how to transfer stiff occult situations where you know that you can create connection and maybe where it's good to not attempt to create connections things like that, right and where can people Find you online and find more about your upcoming courses and work. So my website is www.pevs.com a PR for Harvard dr.com. I have the courses there in general, but I'll be putting more up in the next week probably and I may even move to a different platform. But if they go there it'll eventually get them to the location of courses and please sign up for my email list to get up-to-date offerings and I know what's going on. That's incredible. I'm all include that the links in the show notes and Olivia. This has been such a pleasure. This has been truly outstanding before we go. I just have one last question for you. Yeah, and I wanted to ask a takeaway that you would like to leave the listeners with what is something that you would like to say to them about the they can think about in their career or their decision making into the future. Oh good. So one of the things I do, Didn't mention although it's kind of there is the importance of your intuition and I think when we get in touch with our deepest self, which may be what were drawn to be more human at work is really to happen to that think about how important intuition is and how you can actually use it in analytics and I've done this and I will have a section in my course on intuition. So that's just something I would encourage people to look. Into more faith and just to say a lot of top-level CEOs may not speak of being intuitive or using intuition, but they all talk about how they have a gut feeling and it's the same thing. If you have a good I feel about something learn to go with it and practice tuning in and testing it cuz it's a very powerful place and it has knowledge that our left brain can't quite grasp so that together with the critical thinking brain. It's just so powerful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Or sharing all your knowledge and insights and wisdom. Thank you for the work that you're doing. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Oh, yeah. Thank you and thank you for the work you're doing you're helping I could see by the questions you ask and your interest that you care about this stuff as well. So thank you for your work. And I've been my pleasure to be all your guests today amazing. Thank you so much Olivia that brings this episode to conclusion. Thank you so much for listening. Please find us on data futurology.com or on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn or Instagram as that of a Trilogy. Also go to data futurology.com forward sighs forecast to find the show notes for this and any other episodes. If you liked this episode, it would mean a lot to us. If you could leave us a review wherever you listen to our podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it was helpful and valuable for you. Thanks again and you next time. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it was helpful and valuable for you. Thanks again and you next time.
Olivia is an internationally known thought-leader, speaker, best-selling and award-winning author, and a data scientist who focuses on the interplay between technology, corporate leadership, and personal growth and happiness. Throughout her career, she has blended analytic tools and holistic organizational practices to deliver successful solutions for her clients. As a lifelong spiritual seeker, Olivia began to see patterns that revealed the importance of love as a driver of business success. In this episode, Olivia explains why she changed her major to statistics in grad school. Once she completed her degree, she joined a bank in San Francisco. Olivia built a model using logistic regression for the bank. It saved the company 17 million dollars a year in mail expense, making her an instant hero. Her desktop computer had a 500-megabyte hard drive when she was running SAS she couldn’t get into any other programs. Financial services had a vibrant climate for modelling because the behavioral data was so reliable. Behavioral data is so powerful because if a person has done something before, they are more likely to do it again. Enjoy the show! We speak about:   [01:40] How Olivia started in the data space    [07:50] Data in the financial services industry   [08:50] Oliva’s career history    [13:35] Starting a consulting business    [17:10] Tips for explaining data science to non-technical people   [18:30] Becoming a published author    [24:45] Learning about Holacracy     [29:00] Balancing Holacracy and teamwork    [31:40] Combing data and human skills    [40:20] The Love@Work Method   [47:15] One of Oliva’s professional fails      [51:10] Using LEAP (love, energy, audacity, and proof)   [54:30] Following our intuitions    Resources: Oliva’s Website: www.lovemakeityourbusiness.com Data Science Consulting: www.oliviagroup.com  My Big ‘Why’ - https://tinyurl.com/LOVENEWCOMPETITIVEEDGE LOVE@WORK now available at https://tinyurl.com/OLIVIAPRLOVEATWORK - A Silver Nautilus Book Award-Winner  The LOVE@WORK MethodTM now available at https://tinyurl.com/TheLOVE-WORKMethod What is your Corporate Love Quotient? Find out here www.corporatelovequotient.com   Oliva’s Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoveMakeItYourBusiness/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviagroup/ Twitter handle: #OliviaParrRud   YouTube: www.OliviaOnYouTube.com Instagram: Love.MakeItYourBusiness  Now you can support Data Futurology on Patreon! 