A Nickelodeon Animated Series

Why Your Analytics Efforts are Failing

Three Easy Lessons from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender was an awarding winning animated series that aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons from 2005–2008. As with most successful children’s series, toys, games, and sequels followed.

Disclaimer: Any reference made to M Night Shyamalan’s movie, supposedly inspired by this series, is completely unintended and quite unfortunate.

Three central themes resonated throughout the series. They were developed to explain, in large part, why the Avatar’s world was war torn and ravaged. I offer them here as a useful metaphor for understanding why analytic efforts in your business are failing. Or put more softly, why you are not getting the value, confidence, and output you expect from your analytic teams.

Specialization:

Analyst are rarely good or even competent at everything

The opening to Avatar: The Last Airbender paints a picture of a world divided. A world where nations and tribes have organized themselves around one of the four elements as laid out in the opening narrative of each episode:

Water. Earth. Fire. Air.

This division is expanded because each tribe has members of their society capable of “bending” these elements. Bending is the story’s version of magic, but it also drives much of the culture and lifestyle of the tribes. Water benders live in villages of ice. Earth benders live in walled kingdoms of stone. Fire benders have adapted into a Nation of fire and steel. And alas, as the story begins, only one airbender remains.

The Last Airbender as it happens, is also the Avatar. The Avatar, as we are told, is the only person capable of mastering all four elements. In modern parlance, he is the “Unicorn”. (Not to be confused with the Last Unicorn, which was a very different animated tale.) Unfortunately for the war torn lands of the story, he hasn’t learned any of the other three (more on that later).

As a setup for a fantasy world full of discovery and adventure, this makes for great fiction.

In the world of corporate analytics, this is a reality.

Analysts, like benders, are specialists. Statistical modelers, logicians, those who run experimental design, all have distinct skill sets and cultures. Finance analyst, web analysts, and business analysts focus on very different topics and specialize their tool sets and education accordingly.

Surely there are a few “Unicorns” among us. But true analytic athletes are difficult to find, expensive to hire, and often flawed. Specialization is a good thing for driving outcomes — but it is a challenge for communication, collaboration, and understanding. This brings us to:

Integration:

Silos benefit no one except the competition

The world of Avatar is one divided. The cultures of each of the four elements are at war. At the start, the Air Nomads have already been destroyed. Their isolated cities in the clouds are now just ruins.

The Water Tribes are themselves divided with one tribe at each pole. The Earth Kingdoms have holed themselves up behind great stone walls. Each city isolated behind its massive fortifications.

The story sets the Fire Nation as the antagonist and aggressor. They are a nearly unstoppable force. They are also the only tribe that is united.

When your analytic teams are decentralized, they are left isolated and vulnerable as well

In corporate analytics, isolated camps quickly find themselves at odds. It may stem from differing numbers or analyses, it may come from competition for resources or acclaim, but as long as your teams remain divided — bad things will happen.

This is not a call for centralization — although that is certainly one solution. You may choose to pursue a course more in line with the series. Throughout the course of each season, Aang (our Avatar) works steadily to bring the tribes and kingdoms together.

Communication, collaboration, and coordination can go a long way toward bringing things together. A united front is more capable and can handle many types of common adversity. Though you will definitely need to include:

Training:

Practice and mentoring matter greatly for your success.

No theme is more present than this one. Nearly every episode of the series included some type of training or training montage. Aang is on a near perpetual quest for teachers and mentors.

…my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world.

Aside from the frequency of references, training is also covered with great variety. Nearly every character on the show spends time as both a student and a teacher. The Avatar seeks out teachers, mentors, gurus, and even mystical creatures and spirit ancestors for help and advice.

Analytic teams should show equal dedication to training

Analysts should train often and across many disciplines. They should train to intensify their specializations but also to broaden their reach. They should acquire trainers, mentors, and coaches.

Analyst should also teach. They should teach each other as well as their clients. True understanding is only confirmed once you can teach a subject and teaching provides unique perspective.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was an excellent series. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to share it’s lessons, not only with my children, but with many colleagues who also enjoyed this entertaining and enlightening show.