The Imperfection Advantage
The Change Signal with Charles Conn
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Could it be that your strategic planning is actually paralyzing you, your biggest critics hold the keys to breakthrough innovation, and the military metaphors you're using to lead change are fundamentally broken?
Charles Conn, former McKinsey partner, former Head of Rhodes House, and current chair of Patagonia's board, brings a provocative challenge to how we think about transformation. He argues that our obsession with perfect planning is the enemy of progress in uncertain times.
Instead of waiting for clarity, Conn advocates for small, reversible experiments that build capability while you learn.
But here's also what’s true: you need to actively seek out the people who aren't impressed by you — the unhappy customers, the skeptical colleagues, the ones giving you one-star reviews.
Conn shares a powerful framework for breaking overwhelming problems into manageable parts, focusing on high-impact, low-difficulty components. He also reveals why Amazon never bought a bank to enter financial services, and how two Stanford students disrupted orthodontics by seeing through their customers' eyes rather than the industry's.
This isn't theoretical change management — it's battle-tested wisdom from someone who's led transformation at scale and lived to tell the tale.
ABOUT CHARLES:
Charles Conn is an investor, entrepreneur, and author. He is co-founder of Monograph Capital, Chair of the Board at Patagonia, and was previously CEO of the Rhodes Trust. He’s the former founding CEO of Ticketmaster-Citysearch, a former McKinsey partner, and author of The Imperfectionists and Bulletproof Problem Solving.
Charles’s books and thinking: bulletproofproblemsolving.com
