In high school, I competed in track and field. I sprinted, hurdled and jumped. I didn’t throw things. During my junior year, near the end of the season, I was goofing around during practice. I had wandered over to where the throwers were training. Curious about the discus, I decided to give it a try.

Thinking it would be a joke, and not even sure how to hold it, I spun around and hucked it as far as I could.

It landed one foot short of the school record. That’s no joke.

In my senior year, the coach turned me into a part-time thrower. I ran three days a week, threw two.

I could generally throw far enough to score a few points for the team in meets. But I never threw that far again. In fact, I never had an impressive throw again.

It was an outlier. An anomaly.

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Understanding Outliers

One of the great challenges in leadership is being able to read things accurately. Outliers or anomalous events make that difficult. Particularly when they are unexpected and significant in some way.

What do they mean? Are they the start of a new pattern? Is this an indication of the future?

While that great throw was a one-off event, I was a solid 300-meter hurdler. I had competed in the hurdles my entire track and field career.

In my senior year, I beat my PR every time I ran by an average of two-tenths of a second. I ended my senior year winning regions in the 300 hurdles. At State, I broke my PR again but finished just two-tenths of a second short of the school record.

I’ve always wondered: If I hadn’t diverted my training attention by throwing discus my senior year, would I have broken the 300-meter hurdle record?

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Three Kinds of Outliers

Not all outliers are the same. They can be broken into three different types, useful for identifying and understanding them.

Global:  A global outlier is when something happens that is truly unique and unlikely to ever happen again. In many companies, the founder has a unique combination of personality, drive, skills, and relationships that allow him or her to force something into existence that previously wasn’t there.

Many of these founders view their own experience as the norm and don’t understand why it is so hard to hire people just like them. They are their own outlier.

A negative example is that one time when senior leadership delegated (trusted) a new level of authority to an employee – and that employee not only dropped the ball but was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Contextual: Contextual outliers are unique events that happen out of context. So, you may experience seasonal patterns in your business – but an experience of highs when things are typically low or lows when things are usually high are contextual outliers.

It’s not that they don’t occur – but they don’t usually occur in this context.

Collective: Collective outliers are when normal (but often infrequent) events happen all at once. For example, a mass departure of employees.  There is always turnover, but usually, everyone doesn’t turnover at the same time.

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Outliers Are Attractive (or Scary)

We notice outlier events because they are often very attractive or very scary.

There might be a huge, unexpected contract that comes through. (Is it always going to be this awesome? Let’s spend some money!)

Or there might be that one time when the bottom seemed to drop out of the economy. (Is it always going to be this awful? Let’s never take a risk again!)

But outliers are just that. Events that happen that are outside of the norm. Outside of the trends. Outside of what is actually likely to happen.

In spite of this, many leaders make strategic or policy decisions based on outlier events. And specifically, based on the assumption that the outlier will be the norm.

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How to Recognize an Outlier

In the scatterplot below, it’s relatively easy to identify the outliers. In part, because I circled them in red. But also because they “lie outside of the norm.”

We can see them in the context of all the other data points. They clearly don’t fit the trend.

But in life, it’s often harder to identify outliers. This is for two reasons:

• Emotions: Outlier experiences (or the ones we tend to notice) come with a strong emotional impact. They may trigger strong feelings of hope or fear, for example. This can dominate our perspective.
• The Fallacy of “The Now”: Life is a series of events that we can map out on a timeline. But when you are in the timeline, each event can seem all-encompassing. All that exists. All that ever will be.

Outlier events, especially if they are unexpected and have a significant impact, often have an outsized influence on leadership decisions and perceptions. Which is dangerous as it means we are leading:

• In reaction to what is unlikely to happen and
• Not being intentional about what is likely to happen

To recognize an outlier, we need to step back. In a sense, we need to stop staring down the barrel of our personal timeline. We need to step back and objectively examine the timeline of our lives or our organizations.

“Is this event typical?” “Do we tend to experience this?” “How likely has it been in the past?” “How likely is it in the future?”

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Outliers are Useful

“Do you have an issue with women?”

As someone who speaks publicly, I often receive feedback. Frequently it is positive. That’s the norm. But everyone now and then it is sharply critical.

This particular feedback was an outlier. I was surprised and, at first, felt a little defensive. Fortunately, I decided to stay curious and asked what prompted the question.

“You never faced us or looked at us the entire time you spoke. You only talked to the men.”

I knew this wasn’t true. I was definitely not focusing my comments towards men. And there were women all over the room.

But in this scenario, I realized there was a group of women who sat to my immediate right.

As I reflected, I realized what happened. When learning to speak publicly, I was taught to scan the crowd. Back and forth. Like a sprinkler. I do that habitually now. I don’t think about it.

But, for reasons I don’t understand, I tend not to turn all the way to my right. As a result, I didn’t face them. I would turn toward them and just as I was about to face in their direction, I turned away. Again and again.

Not on purpose. My sprinkler settings just didn’t go that far to the right.

But they took it personally.

It was good for me to know. I have since adjusted the way I stand when I speak, and I pay extra attention to the right side of the audience.

It’s worth being aware of outliers. But it is important to interpret them accurately.

It’s good to know that I’ve impacted some people in a very meaningful way. It can also be educational to know how I missed or offended others.

When your organization experiences strong positive (or negative) outlier events, it is often worth exploring them.

“What were we doing (if anything) that made that happen?” “How likely or possible is it that this experience will be repeated?” “Can we repeat/avoid it in the future?”

But don’t relate to them as if they represent a new norm or the whole picture.

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How to Relate to Outliers

When I first threw that discus, I actually did almost match the school record. It was a physical possibility for me. Something to pay attention to. But I didn’t have the skills or experience to repeat that throw. It was a fluke.

Because of that fluke, I diverted training time away from sprints and hurdles. Even though that is where the trends showed I had the greatest amount of repeatable promise.

Looking back, it’s not a big deal. But at the time, it meant something to me.

In the process of trying to understand your outliers – don’t neglect your trends. The areas that you are most likely and able to repeat – for good or for bad. That’s where your effort should be focused.

Learn to recognize outliers. Learn from your outliers. But be very thoughtful about how you use them to set direction.

Take good care,

Christian

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