Needed: Governance by Data

This item from Reuters caught my attention a week or so ago--see "America: The Anecdotal Nation," by Neal Gabler. Putting aside the sociological commentary, accurate though it may be, what the article describes is the irresistible lure of anecdote as a basis for attention. This is something we see almost every week with a different board. Strategy, not to mention entire board meetings, become hijacked by the anecdote of the moment, usually something that a trustee has heard from a fellow parent in the school or has experienced herself.Governance by anecdote is something we caution trustees to avoid, but this article remind me how powerful anecdote is as a galvanizing mechanism for attention. Maybe the only way to counter this tendency is to be aware of its allure, and for someone on the board to be in charge of monitoring for the emergence of anecdote in board discourse. What we need are better board conversations based on valid sets of data.