Waiting for Perfect Means Not Starting

Many of you will have read Seth Godin's seminal books Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Idea Virus, along with his thought-provoking daily blog posts. Written primarily through a marketing lens, his insights seamlessly translate to the day-to-day operational challenges school leaders face when trying to drive change with a SGB, a finance committee, or a facility team.
On October 2, 2017, Seth wrote a short post that totally related to me and i am sure speaks directly to the reality of others:
You're doing it wrong.
But at least you're doing it.
Once you're doing it, you have a chance to do it better.
Waiting for perfect means not starting…

The Anatomy of Paralysis in School Management
When looking at compounding electricity and water tariffs, school administrators often struggle to see the forest for the trees. In the face of tight budgets and complex municipal invoices, there is always a plausible reason to defer action:

• We understand our school has utility waste, but we have no budget to fix it.
• We know there’s a problem, but we don’t know where to start.
• We have municipal data, but we don't trust the accuracy.
• We submitted a utility proposal to the SGB, but it wasn’t approved.

The list of reasons to not start is endless—and understandable. Principals, bursars, and SGB members are educators and financial stewards, not electrical engineers, municipal lawyers, or plumbing specialists.
Ideal would be if departmental custodians (the DBE, DPW, or provincial infrastructure bodies) provided a standardised manual for every schools—complete with clear rules, technical assistance, dispute mechanisms, dedicated grant funding, or even clear legislative pathways enabling SGBs to secure bank financing for Solar PV installations.
That would be perfect. But as Seth reminds us: waiting for perfect means not starting.

Taking the First Step for 2027
Taking control of your school's energy and water future begins with a single, simple action: understand your current consumption baseline; to which I would also add: It’s a marathon not a sprint.
You do not need a multi-million-rand capital budget, complex smart sensors, or solar arrays to begin. Establishing daily visibility over your meter readings and auditing your monthly municipal bills is a solid start. Gather all possible data to get to understanding priorities.
Taking that first step is often the hardest part of governance.
Whether by auditing historical municipal billing anomalies or establishing a zero-hardware, twice-daily What’sApp Water Monitoring routine, we can assist with the direction, structure, and empirical data your SGB will need to move to a better place.