Struggling with data trust issues, dashboard drama, or constant pipeline firefighting? In this deep‑dive interview, Lior Barak shows you how to shift from a reactive “fix‑it” culture to a mindful, impact‑driven practice rooted in Zen/Wabi‑Sabi principles. You’ll learn: Why 97 % of CEOs say they use data, but only 24 % call themselves data‑driven The traffic‑light dashboard pattern (green / yellow / red) that instantly tells execs whether numbers are safe to use A practical rule for balancing maintenance, rollout, and innovation—and avoiding team burnout How to quantify ROI on data products, kill failing legacy systems, and handle ad‑hoc exec requests without derailing roadmaps Turning “imperfect” data into business value with mindful communication, root‑cause logs, and automated incident review loops

🕒 TIMECODES 00:00 Community and mindful data strategy 04:06 Career journey and product management insights 08:03 Wabi-sabi data and the trust crisis 11:47 AI, data imperfection, and trust challenges 20:05 Trust crisis examples and root cause analysis 25:06 Regaining trust through mindful data management 30:47 Traffic light system and effective communication 37:41 Communication gaps and team workload balance 39:58 Maintenance stress and embracing Zen mindset 49:29 Accepting imperfection and measuring impact 56:19 Legacy systems and managing executive requests 01:00:23 Role guidance and closing reflections

🔗 Connect with Lior LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorbarak Website - https://cookingdata.substack.com/ Cooking Data newsletter: https://cookingdata.substack.com/ Product product lifecycle manager: https://app--data-product-lifecycle-manager-c81b10bb.base44.app/

🔗 Connect with DataTalks.Club Join the community - https://datatalks.club/slack.html Subscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r?cid=ZjhxaWRqbnEwamhzY3A4ODA5azFlZ2hzNjBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ Check other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-events GitHub: https://github.com/DataTalksClub LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datatalks-club/ Twitter - https://x.com/DataTalksClub Website - https://datatalks.club/

🔗 Connect with Alexey Twitter - https://x.com/Al_Grigor Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/agrigorev/

We talked about:

DataTalks.Club intro Lior’s background Who is a data strategist? Improving communication between business and tech Building trust Putting data and business people together Dealing with pushbacks Building things in the lean way (and growing tomatoes) Starting with ugly code Convincing others to take our code MVP vs development and Hummus Talking to people who can’t code Break down the silos Hummus Hummus places in Berlin Lior’s book: Data is Like a Plate of Hummus Data chaos

Links:

Book: https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Sarah-Mayor/dp/B086L277LZ (can be found on any amazon store) Company: https://www.taleaboutdata.com/ Podcast: https://podcast.whatthedatapodcast.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorbarak/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/liorb

Hummus places in Berlin:

Azzam: https://goo.gl/maps/uCkb3ATc5CVKapDa6 Akkawy: https://g.page/akkawy The Eatery Berlin: https://g.page/theeateryberlin

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html