We get very stuck sometimes on making sure we are right. Or at least, the most right we can be. We spend weeks, months, or even years locked in meeting rooms, drawing up complex roadmaps, and trying to predict every possible variable before making a single move.
But as the legendary Charlie Munger loosely said, sometimes it’s more important just not to be wrong than it is to be perfectly right.
I had a stark reminder of this recently. I was sitting in a lead meeting with a medium-sized education client. Like many businesses right now, they were starting to explore implementing automation and AI into their operations to drive growth and cut costs.
And bloody hell, did they need it.
The 7-Figure Problem Sitting in Plain Sight
This business was operating like it was stuck in 2010. They currently use seven different software systems across their delivery, sales, and customer service departments.
Here is the kicker: none of them talk to each other.
Every single thing is being done manually. From document creation, to internal comms, to exporting and importing data between systems via endless spreadsheets; everything to do with a customer is a slow, manual grind. The team was working incredibly hard, but they were working on the wrong things.
There were literally 7-figure savings and efficiencies just sitting there on the table, waiting to be claimed.
But they couldn’t start. They were completely paralysed by opportunity. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and the sheer volume of things they could fix stopped them from fixing anything.
Paralysis by Too Much Opportunity
After several hours of walking through their processes, mapping out their systems, and looking at the bottlenecks, I threw out an idea to break the deadlock.
“Why don’t we start with this,” I suggested. “Let’s use AI for lead capture and qualification, and pipe that straight into your CRM?”
Their reply? “Actually, connecting our education software directly with Salesforce would do wonders for our data accuracy.”
“Okay, let’s go with that one,” I said, happy to just get a stake in the ground.
Then someone else in the room chimed in: “Well, Dorothy is spending most of her day just co-ordinating dates on email with facilitators. It’s a huge drain on her time.”
“Sure, that sounds like a great one too,” I replied.
Then the CEO leaned forward, looking stressed: “I can’t even get Tim in a room to discuss strategy because he is too busy manually following up on resources.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s do that one.”
The truth was, any of those projects would have delivered a great outcome. Any of them would have saved time, reduced frustration, and improved their bottom line. But they were faced with simply too much opportunity and too many options.
When you have ten massive problems that all have high-impact solutions, trying to rank them perfectly leads to complete paralysis. You become so afraid of choosing the second best option that you choose nothing at all.
Just Don’t Be Wrong
This is exactly where Munger’s wisdom shines. When you are staring down a massive digital transformation, or looking at overhauling your marketing strategy, you don’t need to find the absolute perfect, most optimal, 100% “right” starting line.
In this case, just choosing a path that isn’t wrong will produce tremendous advantages.
Stop trying to boil the ocean. Stop trying to plan the perfect 5-year AI integration strategy when your team is currently drowning in manual data entry.
Choose just one small project. Take one step. Get one win.
Why? Because starting small and keeping it simple does wonders for a business:
- It’s motivating: Getting a quick win on the board energises the whole team. It shows them that change is possible and that technology is there to help them, not replace them.
- It funds the next step: The time and money saved from that first automation pays for the second one. You create a self-funding cycle of improvement.
- It proves you can do it: It breaks the paralysis and builds internal belief. Once you successfully automate Dorothy’s email scheduling, the team will start actively looking for the next bottleneck to fix.
- It starts the compounding process: As we know, compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world. Getting just 1% better every day, fixing one small process at a time, adds up to massive, outstanding results over months and years.
If your business is drowning in manual tasks and disconnected systems, don’t let the sheer size of the opportunity stop you from taking the first step. Complexity is your enemy.
Pick a problem. Fix it. Move on to the next one. Keep it simple.
