Florence Nightingale
Deaths Drawn as a Rose
For people who will not read tables, draw the data as a picture they grasp at a glance
Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1859); her army mortality statistics with William Farr (1857-1858)
You have solid data, and the people you must persuade will not read tables. How did Nightingale make officials see where soldiers died?
What actually happened?
Back from the Crimea, Nightingale worked through the army's death figures with the statistician William Farr. Most soldiers in the war hospitals had died of preventable disease. To persuade officials and MPs who would not read tables, she drew each month's deaths as wedges in a wheel: the blue of disease dwarfed the red of wounds. It became known as her rose diagram. In 1858 she became the first woman member of the Statistical Society.
Count first, then speak
She did not accuse from impressions of the wards. With Farr she counted the death registers entry by entry: how many from wounds, how many from disease, which months worst. Once the numbers stood, the argument carried weight.
You think your team works too much overtime. Pull three months of timesheets and count before you raise it.
Draw it for people who will not read tables
She knew officials would never read a book of tables, so she drew twelve months as a wheel of wedges, each sized by deaths. The disease wedge was so large that anyone could see at a glance where the money had to go.
Reporting to your boss, do not send a thirty-column sheet; draw one chart that says one thing.
The chart is for change, not decoration
The diagrams went with reports to a royal commission and to MPs, and pushed reforms in barracks and military hospitals: ventilation, drainage, an army medical school. She wanted fewer deaths in the next war, not a pretty picture.
After the churn analysis, do not stop at the report; pick the biggest slice and change one thing next week.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you have solid data, and the people you must persuade have no patience for it, or do not want to look.
Ask first: have I counted it properly myself? Can it be drawn as one picture understood at a glance? After seeing it, what one thing do I want them to do?
Where it goes wrong: distorting the picture to make it striking. The rose diagram was powerful because every wedge matched the real deaths.
Lines to keep
The most important lesson: teach nurses what to observe, and how.
Nursing ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet.
Same situation, other people are asking
Do I push, or do I take the no?They turned my proposal down. Do I bring it back, and with what?Their reason changes every time and the answer never does.The no came back. I can't tell what shape it was.They said no to my plan · all 8 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.