As AI technology continues to accelerate, many professionals are grappling with how to adapt without losing their edge. Shopify’s CEO, Tobi Lütke, recently put it bluntly in a company memo released to the public: “Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify.”
In a series of blog posts, I’ll explore why we hesitate to work with AI, starting with the obvious: the need for things to be just right. In a world demanding faster, smarter output, some cling to control, wary of tools that promise help but may well falter. But that tug-of-war between perfection and progress will inevitably stall careers.
Let’s start with the coworkers who are perfectionistic in nature.
I call them Guardians of Integrity (GOIs). For them, quality is deeply personal. They’ll squint at screens for hours, cross-referencing spreadsheets like they’re decoding the Rosetta Stone, all to avoid letting an AI solution handle it. Why? Because, in their minds, AI can’t be trusted. “It’s not perfect,” they insist. And they’re right. AI can make mistakes large and small, hallucinate facts, or spit out a chart that misses the mark entirely.
But accuracy isn’t the true reason GOIs are resisting AI. It’s fear. I witness this regularly while consulting executive leaders and helping teams grapple with technology’s collision with the human psyche. Companies today are obsessed with efficiency even more than growth. “Do more with less!” they proclaim, as workforces shrink and optimization reigns supreme. For employees, this is deeply unsettling. Incentives for downsizing quickly align with AI’s promise of automating roles traditionally held by people.
The irony? Employees who could flourish by embracing AI dig in their heels instead, in a quiet panic about an uncertain future, a reaction that’s both completely normal and counterproductive.
Take Sarah, a mid-40s operations manager I met at a recent workshop. Sarah color-codes her Post-its and triple-checks emails before sending them. Her team was tasked with streamlining inventory when someone suggested an AI tool to predict stock needs. “I tried that once,” she said, her voice tight. “It missed a shipment deadline by two days. I had to fix it myself.” Her colleagues nodded sagely, as if she’d just exposed AI as a fraud. But later, over coffee, she revealed the truth: those two days didn’t derail the company. They bruised her pride. Sarah had spent years building her reputation as someone who never missed a beat, and the AI glitch felt like a spotlight on her limits.
Sound familiar? Rejecting AI because it’s imperfect taps into a deeper impulse. When your self-worth is bound up in precision, a stumbling machine feels like a personal insult. In a world accelerating faster than we can keep up with, that’s a recipe for paralysis. Companies rely increasingly on AI to stretch shrinking teams, yet the Sarahs among us resist — not because they despise tech, but because they fear it will reveal their own imperfections.
The hidden thought: If AI can’t be trusted, maybe they don’t have to face their own vulnerabilities.
But perfection is a myth. Always has been. It’s an unhealthy invention of the human psyche, not a reflection of reality. How many mistakes, misjudgments, and bad ideas did it take for you to arrive at where you are today? My personal list is hilariously long — and boring to most. Who cares? We all mess up. AI is no different. It’s not here to be infallible; it’s here to accelerate progress.
Sarah’s AI didn’t sabotage her inventory; it actually highlighted a trend she’d missed, even if it hiccupped on timing. Her real missed opportunity was in not tweaking it, learning from it, making it hers. Curiosity is the secret sauce to navigating this rapidly changing workplace. It’s also Sarah’s ticket to both professional survival and yes, untapped excellence.
Protecting Quality in an Evolving AI World
Adopting AI isn’t scaling Everest; it’s a stroll along a canal. Start small with tiny, safe steps that won’t jeopardize much of anything.
Next time you’re drafting a report, let AI produce a rough draft. Sure, it might butcher a sentence (mine once transformed “strategic alignment” into “strategic albatross” — nice), but the trick is simple: fix it. You’re still the boss, not the bot. Smooth out the clunky bits, keep what’s helpful, and suddenly you’ve shaved an hour off your day.
Or let AI summarize your inbox. It might miss nuances, but you’ll spot the big wins quicker. The goal here isn’t perfection, it’s momentum.
One small success, and that “not perfect” excuse begins to sound hollow. It’s not about surrendering to machines, it’s about stealing their best tricks. For the 20-something hustling through their first job, it’s a chance to stand out without burning out. For the 50-something veteran, it’s a path to staying sharp without constantly reinventing the wheel.
Today, Sarah is cautiously using AI to spot inventory quirks, conducting deep research on topics she’s interested in but are time consuming, and improving on the outputs with her experience and skills. She’s saving time and getting exposure to new workflows—and that’s a great place to start.
The future is hurtling toward us, flaws and all, and curiosity is the only way to ride the wave.
So, what’s your first move? Embrace AI, play with it, and laugh when it stumbles. You’re not perfect, either — and if you can laugh with yourself more, your quality of life will significantly improve.
