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Building a Leadership Institute (from the Ground Up)

1 March 2018 2,031 views No Comment
Steering committee members of the ASA Leadership Institute hold their first in-person meeting at NCSU’s Institute for Advanced Analytics. From left: Gary Sullivan, Bob Rodriguez, Donna LaLonde, Lisa LaVange, Erica Groshen, Michael Rappa, Debbie Hughes, Ron Wasserstein, (not pictured: Aarti Shah)

Steering committee members of the ASA Leadership Institute hold their first in-person meeting at NCSU’s Institute for Advanced Analytics. From left: Gary Sullivan, Bob Rodriguez, Donna LaLonde, Lisa LaVange, Erica Groshen, Michael Rappa, Debbie Hughes, Ron Wasserstein, (not pictured: Aarti Shah)

 

Having made the case in last month’s Amstat News for an ASA Leadership Institute and introducing you to the distinguished members of the steering committee, I thought I would spend more time with two of those members in this month’s column. But first, a little about our face-to-face meeting.

The steering committee met on January 23 to brainstorm what the institute might undertake in this first year and how its programs could be built to last. We were hosted by the Institute for Advanced Analytics of North Carolina State University (NCSU) and had a productive meeting.

Lisa LaVange

Lisa LaVange

Gary Sullivan, current chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Leadership, led with a summary of the professional development activities offered through the ASA based on a survey of 15 committees, sections, and chapters. More than 75 references to workshops, webinars/webcasts, courses, articles, and other documents were collected. The Committee on Career Development, Committee on Applied Statistics, and Conference on Statistical Practice Steering Committee are the most active in terms of event offerings related to leadership and professional development. Common topics include collaboration, communication, mentoring, managing conflict, and influence.

The JSM leadership professional development short course has been offered since 2014 and has evolved into a course on leadership awareness, featuring career stories from several prominent statistical leaders at each offering. The JSM course is going on the road this year—the travel version will be offered to the North Carolina Chapter on March 16.

Recognizing that leadership learning is a life-long enterprise, the goal of the JSM workshop is to let attendees know what they need to learn to be strong leaders, recognizing we cannot teach it all in a one- or two-day event.

Steering committee members were pleasantly surprised to learn just how interested our members are in leadership and what a broad range of webinars and other activities were already taking place. As an immediate initiative, we developed a catalog for easy access to training opportunities.

Following Gary’s report, we discussed ideas for providing opportunities at three times in a statistician’s career: pre-career, early career, and senior career. The two steering committee members reporting on ideas for the pre-career stage are experts in higher education leadership training. Debbie Hughes is vice president for higher education and workforce development at the Business and Higher Education Forum, and Michael Rappa is Goodnight director and distinguished university professor at NCSU’s Institute for Advanced Analytics. Both are involved in determining training needs for a fast-moving marketplace in data science and analytics. They bring unique perspectives to the leadership institute in terms of how best to reach statisticians during their college and graduate education to prepare them for leadership careers, should they choose that path at some point.

Debbie and Michael shared their vision for an ASA Future Leaders Program that would promote and facilitate development of leadership skills in the pre-career stage of statistical education. Such a program would require identifying opportunities for engaging with higher educational institutions to share best practices and curriculum road maps.

Statisticians working in academia know how difficult it is to add courses to established degree programs, so innovative thinking will be needed to launch such a program, but the pay-off could be substantial. As Michael points out, “The ASA Leadership Institute should map out the leadership journey—what goes on at the later stage of a career should relate to the early stage.”

Expanding on the Big Tent vision for the ASA that was a past presidential initiative and key component of the ASA’s strategic plan, the committee noted the future leaders program could be open to anyone working with data, not just statistics majors.

Michael described his experience building the Institute for Advanced Analytics (IAA) at NCSU over the past 10 years. With roughly 650 graduates now employed in an array of companies ranging from the financial industry to health care, NFL teams, and art institutes, the IAA is considered successful by almost any measure.

Students earn a Master of Science (MS) degree following successful completion of a 10-month program. Course modules cover mathematical, computational, statistical, and business topics, and the students’ day resembles a 9-to-5 job more than your typical graduate school experience. Students form teams to work on a practicum that lasts the entire program and ensures a real-life work experience as part of their graduate school training.

Reflecting on what an ASA Leadership Institute might mean for undergraduate and graduate students, Michael had the following to say:

In all my experience placing hundreds of MS in analytics graduates in the profession, one fact hits home again and again: The shortage of technical talent is actually a shortage of technical talent with leadership potential. It’s the added leadership qualities that are highly prized and hardest to find. Employers want most to recruit and retain data-savvy individuals, who are fluent in data science and capable of engaging in their business and providing the leadership needed to move it forward.

That’s why the new leadership institute initiative is both timely and important. As the effective utilization of data becomes the driving force behind the business models of so many organizations, the ASA can play a major role in cultivating leadership potential in its members. Beginning with the growing number of students now positioning themselves to become data scientists, to early career professionals stepping into their first opportunities to lead, to those who are rapidly rising through the ranks of their organization, the ASA has an opportunity—some might say a responsibility—to actively prepare its members for leadership. By drawing on the talent and resources of the ASA community, it can help shape a future where leaders in every corner of society have the requisite knowledge and skill to make data-driven decisions.

Debbie has this to say about her position at BHEF and her vision for the leadership institute:

As vice president of higher education and workforce, I have a strategic visioning role focused on prioritizing the organization’s resources; an implementation role focused on overseeing the execution of our programmatic strategy; and a research and thought leadership role focused on capturing and disseminating learning and broader impacts among employers, talent, and higher education. In sum, I play the role of strategist, translator, convener, researcher, and disseminator.

I authored a publication with PwC, Investing in America’s Data Science and Analytics Talent, that clearly showed a gap between employers and higher education institutions, with 69% of employers preferring candidates with data science and analytics skills and only 23% of higher education institutions producing graduates with those skills. As the PwC report concludes, industry is not looking for data scientists, but rather ‘data-driven decision-makers.’ The ASA and the leadership institute could have a tremendous role in shaping students to become those thought leaders.

We are thrilled to have two leaders with such insight into the current educational and work environments as members of our steering committee.

Statisticians are not supposed to be superstitious, but there are times when a sign seems to speak directly to me, and one of those moments occurred during a recent UNC basketball game. Those of you who know me know I am a big sports fan, and Carolina basketball is right up there at the top. During a time-out, I glanced at the jumbotron to see images of three of our star basketball players who were leading the game in points scored, assists, and rebounds. And written across the top of the screen was the title: Statistical Leaders.

The Jumbotron screen from The University of North Carolina basketball game that surprised LaVange.

 

From the Big Tent to basketball, the need for strong leadership is everywhere—Lead On!

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