Perfect Is the Enemy of Progress

🕓 Read time: ~3 min

I had a conversation last week that stopped me in my tracks.

A CHRO I've been working with reached out. He wanted to talk about how I could support his team's AI journey going forward, but the conversation quickly shifted. He told me he's been wanting to build his own AI agents for the longest time.

That's great! He's walking the talk. Leading from the front. In a corporate environment, that's exactly what works best - AI initiatives that are both bottom-up and top-down. The ones that are either-or are the ones that tend to fail.

So I asked him: "What's holding you back?"

His answer? "I want it to be perfect."

Ok, we needed to talk.

Here's what I see in organizations over and over again:

Camp 1 talks endlessly about moonshot projects. They want to revolutionize everything, automate core processes, paint bold visions on whiteboards. They disappear into workshops and planning sessions, but nothing ever ships. Meanwhile, Exec Leadership takes 9 months to define their own role in the "AI Transformation" (WITH external help!!).

Camp 2 starts quietly. They build a solid foundation: that's clean data, a clear view on platform usage, quick wins stacked on quick wins stacked on quick wins. They learn. They build trust. They create momentum. They set direction and role-model from the top. And they enable to bottom to do the experiments where they actually happen.

And with every small success, competence grows. Confidence builds. The team gets bolder. The ambition scales naturally.

My CHRO client was stuck between the two camps. He had the vision and the influence, but perfectionism was keeping him in planning mode.

I challenged him with this: 1% better every day has way more impact in the mid to long run than any moonshot.

Successful AI adoption isn't about nailing it on the first try. It's about quick iterations. Small experiments. Learning what works by doing, not by planning.

And I feel like a broken record because I keep reiterating this bit all the time: with most generative AI, getting to 80% before we as humans take over is the sweet spot. Trying to push AI to 100%? That's where you waste time, energy, and momentum.

The goal isn't perfection. It's progress.

That's also how I ship all my programs. I get them to good enough, give a launch discount and off I go. The latest? The updated AI Lab. I just re-launched with the best version I had, and am now busy iterating based on participant feedback. It's messy. It's real. And it works.

Key Takeaway:

"OK now" beats "perfect later". EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. 

Your next step: Start iterating. Build something and stop at 80%. Let AI do the heavy lifting, then you step in and refine. That's where the real value lives.

Have fun experimenting,
Elena

"AI is the most powerful tool of our time.

It's not here to replace you. It's here to free you, so you can focus on high-impact work, serve your clients better, and finally get your time back."