Listening First: Leading Data and Digital Services for Regional Impact

Amanda Graor, Director of Data and Digital Services, Mid-America Regional Council

Amanda Graor, Director of Data and Digital Services, Mid-America Regional Council

As Director of Data and Digital Services at the Mid-America Regional Council, Amanda Graor brings deep experience in public-sector data leadership, digital strategy, and regional collaboration, applying a people-first, insight-driven approach to transforming complex data into meaningful tools that support policy, planning, and community outcomes.

In an exclusive interview with Govt CIO Outlook, Amanda Graor shared perspectives from her leadership journey, the evolving role of data and digital services in regional governance, and how intentional listening, collaboration, and clarity-driven innovation strengthen transparency, public accountability, and decision-making across jurisdictions.

Listening as a Leadership Skill

The most important core skill in leading data and digital services across a regional organization is ironically not technical – it is all about listening. Listening to the team’s new ideas, listening between the lines for signs of overload or burnout, listening to the external partner requests, and understanding emerging needs in the community. In order to strategically align our work with community interest and need, we need to constantly be listening and absorbing and shape our workplans accordingly.

Prioritizing High-Value Digital Initiatives

Deciding which digital initiatives deliver the greatest value to public-sector stakeholders has elements of timing, of priority, and of highest impact. It goes back to the first question about listening, at some level – it’s not necessarily about the loudest voices but about connecting disparate thoughts and ideas to create a whole-picture view of what is useful. We get a lot of requests for dashboards and tools, but understanding who the audience is and how these products help people understand their communities and make more informed decisions is something that takes a lot of practice and willingness to pause and reflect before diving into every project.

"The most important core skill in leading data and digital services across a regional organization is ironically not technical – it is all about listening."

Turning Data into Policy Insights

One primary principle of this is to remember that data is not policy by itself. Data helps inform, enlighten, and uncover – but it does not make policy. It is not uncommon to enter into a mode of paralysis by being convinced that one or two more pieces of data will make decisions clearer, and to take far too long to get there. By being strategic about what data exists, what data is too messy to be useful, what transformations are possible, and what is different once we have the data, we can then make better decisions on the approach to collection and analysis that actually inform policy and planning decisions and not just add to the noise of the decision-making process for our communities.

Innovation, Governance, and Accountability

I think innovation is necessary in governance, transparency, and public accountability – new processes and products should always be done with an eye toward increasing awareness of what is happening inside public agencies. Documentation is so important when developing analysis – what data did we use, what research did we reference – all of this helps anyone not inside the process understand how we got there. Innovation is not all about technology – it’s about people. The most important starting point in innovation is being clear about what problem you’re trying to solve, not about identifying a technology solution first. Technology solutions are tools, not outcomes.

Power of Cross-Agency Collaboration

Cross-agency collaboration is the cornerstone of what we do in regional agencies. By helping our individual jurisdictions see the bigger picture of the region they are part of, we can create better, more holistic outcomes for the residents of our region. A vast majority of the people in our region cross city, county, and/or state lines on a daily basis to live, work, and play. Cross-agency collaboration helps the residents of all of our jurisdictions experience a more seamless way to enjoy all of the opportunities our region has to offer.

Developing Public-Sector Data Leaders

Having technical skills and understanding of data and coding is a great skill to have, but to really be able to lead teams, you also need to understand how teams work (and don’t work!) and what motivates people to do good work. Keep the technical skills sharp, but don’t neglect lifelong learning on facilitation, team-building, strategic planning, and ethics – you’ll need to draw from all of these skills, no matter what your area of expertise is. This approach will help with those ever-important cross-agency collaborations and help you get ahead of problems before they derail a hard-working team.