It’s better to do the right things poorly than the wrong things well
Management thinker Russell Ackoff made a crucial distinction that applies equally for life and business: success depends more on choosing the right actions than on perfecting the wrong ones. You can always recover from imperfect execution. But if your strategy is off, no amount of polish will save it.
This has become particularly germane as many companies delegate all research to AI. The unthinking trust and lack of scrutiny that tends to go in to AI-generated information can often lead organisations in the wrong direction, an error that is then compounded if you hand over the initial strategy development to the AI as well. You can’t replace human expertise and this process, and should only use it as a tool in your arsenal.
That’s why good research is so important, particularly in the initial planning and discovery phases. If you’ve got the best information, you can make better decisions and will start moving in the right direction. Then you can focus all your efforts on doing it well.
