Understanding data helps break down silos and align talent across your organization

Many of you have gone through your organization’s periodic cybersecurity and data privacy training program. It may be a headache for some or a learning opportunity for others, but for the employer, it’s part of their overall data protection and data literacy program. The training ensures employees have a basic grasp of data security and data privacy to better protect the organization, maintain the trust of those whose personal information we handle, and remain compliant with data protection laws. Good data protection strengthens a brand’s image and can serve as a competitive differentiator. But employing data literacy can strengthen your data protection efforts even further. Gartner® defines data literacy as the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use-case application and resulting value.^[1] Here we’ll discuss why a data literate culture is a cornerstone of digital transformation and data compliance, and how your organization can get started.

Becoming a data literate organization

Given the growing volume of data collected, stored and processed, data literacy across an entire organization, not just in IT and similar lines of the business, can be helpful. Data literacy facilitates compliance efforts with data privacy regulations and data ethics standards by helping employees understand and consider the broader context when reading, working with or analyzing data.

Becoming a data literate organization can help the flow of communication and knowledge sharing, allow talent to understand the needs of the business and how they affect it, break down silos to help reveal hidden risk, address redundancies that become costly and confusing, and put diverse teams in sync with the greater organization’s mission.

A data literate organization starts at the top

Creating a data literate culture in an organization should come from the top down. Providing employees with guidance, materials, education and tools may not be enough. An extensive learning and development program should also have senior leadership support. For a compliance focus to become an overriding principle, data literacy should be an integral part of the culture and fabric of the organization from the CEO level down. The organization that can make data literacy the ultimate north star can help empower teams to break down data silos and unlock insights from data across the organization.

An advisory committee supports the strategy

Many data-literate organizations are forming strategic advisory committees or boards that are tasked with setting the tone on critical issues like data privacy and ethics. At IBM, we have an AI Ethics Board that provides a centralized governance, review and decision-making process for IBM AI ethics policies, practices, communications, research, products and services. The Board consists of leaders from across business units and geographies and facilitates two-way conversations on critical issues and education. The Board is overseen by a committee of senior leaders which provides the group with the ability to validate their strategy regularly and proliferate data-driven influence across the business. To help advance a culture  of data literacy, an organization should be aligned on their approach to data. 

A holistic strategy drives results

A centralized data policy is a gamechanger for enhanced data protection and general awareness around data use. First, key leadership roles, such as the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Data Officer (CDO), should be unified on an approach to compliance and privacy so that it is centralized across the business. While each has a distinct mission concerning the organization as a whole, an alignment of strategy between these offices can help advance an overall goal of data literacy and a unified data strategy that enhances data protection.

Creating a unified education program that is supported by senior leadership and aligned around common principles and practices can help achieve data literacy in an organization. Consolidating practical guidance, materials and education into a data-first educational program that is supported and enforced by senior leadership can give service lines information to help keep data protected.

When data literacy is at the heart of an organization, employees are better prepared to execute data-driven decisions. To help protect data and address data protection laws, put data literacy at the core of the business.

[1]  How to Create a Balanced Data and Analytics Organizational Model, Gartner, 10 May 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.