How Do You Solve Problems?
What are the intangibles?
Passion?
Learning a foreign language?
Being a retired football coach?
In short, what makes you a problem solver? Â What gives you the skills necessary to analyze a problem regardless of the tool?
Kevin’s Superbowl video –>
Our special guest was Kevin Lehrbass of MySpreadsheetLab.com.
In the video, you will hear several references to one of Kevin’s videos where he discusses close Superbowl Games. Â For our international audience, this is the championship of American professional football. Â Its easy to just look at a final score to gauge a close game.
But does that really gauge “closeness“?
Kevin walks you through his thought process on how he identified “closeness”. Â This is critical, as its an analytical problem solving skill most people don’t use.
So How Does an Analyst Think?
They ask questions. Â They define problems. Â They have the presence of mind of an analyst. Â They have confidence in themselves. Â They never stop thinking about how to solve a problem.
Its not just about Excel. Â Its not just about a tool.
The Grammar Book?
So this was out of left field for me. Â How does a grammar book make me a better analyst?
But Kevin explains how the breaking down of language is an analytical exercise. Â Then I was reminded of some graduate school entrance exams I took at one point when I was going to try to be smart for a living. Â And guess what? Â Several of the questions in a law school entrance exam were related to you attempting to figure out an unknown language (sentence, etc) based on a ton of unknowns. Â Basically, its logic. Â Also found in many IQ exams. Â Interesting.
So Where Does This Leave Us?
Watch the entire discussion to find out.
What do you think makes a great analyst?
Leave your comments below.