Time for a small rant…….. being in business is hard; running a social enterprise is hard; running a charity is hard. If you are going to do any of those you need to be robust. I think that part of developing that robustness is gathering data and evidence which gives you an independent view on what you are doing. We see lots of people who don’t do this.

Not knowing what is working in your organisation isn’t smart – we all know that. But, aside from making it more difficult to make the right decisions, lack of data has another corrosive effect. When there is no data about what works and what doesn’t, too many of us will assume that the thing that is broken is us.

At Ruby Star we know we are part of an army of consultants, meddlers and know-alls who give other people advice; but our meddling always comes with the same proviso – the only data that counts is yours. If you find yourself repeatedly doing the things that you have been advised to, and still not getting the results you want, please, please don’t assume that you are the problem. Treat business as science – create a hypothesis, test it rigorously, analyse the data and then draw your conclusions. If you get in the habit of testing approaches, rather than testing yourself, you may find it easier to keep going when the going gets tough.

We love to hear about the weird and wonderful things that shouldn’t, but do, work for your business – so let us know about them!