Perfection is the enemy of Progress

This week I came across this line that stopped me in my tracks:

“The desire for theoretical purity strikes me as a critical failure of both mainstream and alternative economics”

Later that same day I met up with a start-up founder and we talked about uncertainty and opportunity. I shared the line:

“Perfection is the enemy of progress”

Confucious said:

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without”.

So what else made me think of these phrases today?

“More” and Scaling Impact

Some time ago I wrote a post called: The power of the word “more”.

Next month I will go to the annual Meaning Conference, an event to “connect and inspire the people who believe in better business.” I love this event, my one concern is that now that the conference has reached a certain level of maturity and momentum, I would love to see the organisers move beyond focussing on the outliers and, well, theoretical purists, to also include those who operate at scale and recognise that their quest is to be more, to do more, to operate more and more as a “better” business.

The line at the top of this article comes from a wonderful long read on one of the largest worker co-operatives globally, Mondragon, that I came across this week. The author also highlights some key gaps around areas such as sustainability and gender equity, yet overall they are absolutely doing more, being more in terms of advancing business models in such areas as social impact, democracy, stakeholder parity.

I am passionate about supporting brave and transformative leaders and organisations looking to scale their impact. At the heart of this is to be ok with always looking to grow, learn, advance, improve and at the same time be accepting of the reality that it is a journey, to treasure the word “more” on that path.

My core post on this thinking is: “Purpose, People, Planet. The new triple bottom line.” and at the core of that is the following simple diagramme, showing how such leaders and businesses can spin that flywheel to scale their impact.

Do you want to scale your impact more? Do more? Be More?

Start by booking a call with me, I’d love to hear from you.