What Teaching Taught Me About Presenting Data

Before I started learning SQL, Power BI or Python, I spent years teaching English.

At first glance, those two worlds don't seem to have much in common.

But the longer I spend working with data, the more I notice something interesting.

Sometimes, jobs that initially seem completely unrelated to a new career turn out to have more in common than we realise.

Not because teaching grammar is the same as analysing data.

But because some of the problems we're trying to solve are surprisingly similar.

The tools change.

The context changes.

The audience changes.

But sometimes you realise you've been doing something very similar for years - just for completely different people.

And teaching gave me one lesson that I now find particularly relevant to data:

Understanding something and being able to explain it are two completely different skills.

Just because I understand it doesn't mean someone else will

As a teacher, you can understand a grammar rule perfectly.

You can know every exception, use all the correct terminology and understand exactly why a sentence works the way it does.

But if you've been explaining it for ten minutes and your student is still looking at you as though you're trying to teach them quantum physics...

repeating exactly the same explanation probably isn't going to help.

You have to try something else.

Use a simpler example.

Compare it with something they already understand.

Draw it.

Find a different analogy.

Remove the unnecessary terminology.

Or sometimes, simply say less.

I remember those moments when, after trying several different ways to explain something, I'd suddenly see that little spark in a student's eyes.

Oh. Now I get it.

I always found that incredibly satisfying.

Not because I'd finally proved that I understood the grammar.

I already knew that.

I was proud because I'd found the explanation that worked for that particular person.

The first explanation hadn't worked.

The second might not have worked either.

But eventually, something clicked.

And I think exactly the same principle can apply to presenting data.

More information doesn't always mean a better explanation

Imagine I've spent several hours analysing a decline in sales.

I've looked at different time periods, products, regions, sales channels and customer behaviour.

By the end of it, I know the dataset inside out.

The person I'm presenting it to doesn't.

And it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking:

"I've analysed all of this, so I should show all of it."

But the person receiving the analysis probably doesn't need to know everything I know.

Perhaps what they need to know first is simply:

Sales have fallen primarily in one region, and most of the decline is coming from two product categories.

If they then ask why?, we can go a level deeper.

That isn't about hiding the analysis.

It's about matching the amount of information to the person who needs to use it.

"I understand" doesn't always mean "I understand"

There's something else that years of teaching make you realise very quickly.

People don't always like admitting that they don't know something.

Or that they haven't understood.

Sometimes they're embarrassed.

Sometimes they don't want to look silly.

Sometimes they think it's something they should already know.

And sometimes they just want you to stop explaining the Present Perfect so they can go home.

A teacher quickly learns not to treat: "Yes, I understand." as definitive proof that everything is actually clear.

After a while, you can spot these situations from a mile away.

You ask:

"Do you understand?"

The student says:

"Yes."

Their face says:

"I have absolutely no idea what this woman is talking about."

And the point isn't to catch them out.

Quite the opposite.

You want to create an environment where someone can not know something without feeling uncomfortable about it.

Ask the question differently.

Ask for an example.

Give them a small task.

Say, "Okay, let's try it another way."

And see whether the communication has actually worked.

I think something similar can happen in business.

Not everyone is going to say in the middle of a meeting:

"Sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what this chart means."

Especially when everyone else around the table is nodding.

The presentation can finish.

Everyone can agree that everything is clear.

The dashboard can look great.

But the real question is:

Does the person actually understand what the information means and what they can do with it?

Sometimes the problem isn't the audience

This is probably one of the most useful things teaching taught me.

When a student didn't understand something, it would have been very easy to think:

"But I've just explained it."

Well, yes.

Clearly my explanation didn't work.

I could repeat exactly the same thing three more times, or I could find another way to explain it.

I think data can work in much the same way.

If someone doesn't understand my chart, my first reaction shouldn't automatically be:

"The stakeholder doesn't understand data."

Maybe the chart is too complicated.

Maybe I've used terminology that feels obvious to me but isn't obvious to them.

Maybe I've shown six metrics when they needed two.

Maybe I've answered a question they weren't actually asking.

That doesn't necessarily mean the analysis is wrong.

Sometimes the way it's being presented simply isn't working.

Different people need different explanations

I could teach exactly the same concept very differently to different students.

One person needed the rule.

Another needed an example.

Someone else wanted to understand why.

And another would basically say: "Don't explain it. Show me three examples and I'll work it out myself."

None of those approaches was automatically better.

Different people simply needed different things to reach the same point.

Business isn't that different.

A senior manager may need three numbers and a recommendation.

Someone responsible for the process may want to see exactly where the problem occurs.

Another analyst may want to examine the methodology and source data.

They're all looking at the same analysis, but they need different things from it.

And perhaps this is where two parts of my professional experience that once seemed completely unrelated start to connect.

I used to ask:

How do I explain this to this particular student?

Now I can ask a very similar question:

How do I present this to this particular person so the information is useful to them?

Different subject.

Different tools.

Different audience.

But the thinking behind it isn't as different as I once assumed.

Simplifying doesn't mean oversimplifying

I think this is something I struggled with for a while as a teacher too.

When you know a lot about something, you want to be precise.

You want to include the exceptions.

You want to say:

"Yes, but technically..."

The problem is that sometimes precision can get in the way of understanding.

A good explanation isn't about demonstrating everything I know.

It's about choosing what the other person needs in order to understand the problem.

And I think that's exactly how I want to approach presenting data.

The goal isn't to make the analysis look complicated.

It's to take something complicated and make it understandable.

Final thought

When I started changing careers, teaching and data analysis felt like two completely separate parts of my professional life.

I'm not so sure anymore.

And I don't think this applies only to teachers.

Sometimes we look at previous experience and assume that because it came from another industry or had a completely different job title, it has little to do with what we're doing now.

Then, later, we realise that we've been solving surprisingly similar problems for years.

Just with different tools.

For different people.

In a different context.

Teaching taught me to notice when someone genuinely understands, to recognise when "yes" doesn't necessarily mean yes, to change my explanation when something isn't working, and to adapt information to the person receiving it.

And it taught me something else:

If I understand something, my job isn't finished yet.

I used to wait for that little spark in a student's eyes that meant:

"Okay. Now I get it."

The context may be completely different now.

But I think that's still what I'm looking for.