One of my reasons for attending business school is to improve my decision making skills. I typically apply the mantra “follow your gut,” when making decisions, but have quickly found that this doesn’t fly in the business world.  Colleagues want evidence based recommendations, which in my mind means I have to work with numbers (not my favorite).  Fortunately, incorporating both data and intuition can result in good decisions and compelling storytelling.

In this article by Andrew McAfee, we learn from specific examples that human judgment alone does not trump algorithms. So is the sum of our experiences and beliefs worthless? No! It’s all about using judgment or opinions as inputs to data models. Unfortunately, many people get this process turned around and disregard data that doesn’t align with their opinions.

From there, you can use data to tell compelling stories and build persuasive business cases. In this HBR blog, Walter Frick interviews Jim Takersly on how data and stories enhance each other. At one point, data is referred to as “medicine” and the story as something that helps you consume that medicine. I’d have to agree with that metaphor, but I also understand how data can give a story shock value or credibility. There are many different kinds of stories to tell with data. Here are ten.