Perfect Is the Enemy of Good...But Not in the Way You Think
Yesterday, while attending a Music Sustainability Alliance webinar on concert merchandise, one of the panelists, Luke Logemann, referenced a phrase that made me stop and think: "Perfect is the enemy of good." The quote, often attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire, is frequently used to encourage action over endless refinement. At first glance, it almost sounds like permission to lower standards. But that's not what it means at all. The real lesson is that the pursuit of perfection can sometimes prevent progress.
We've all seen examples of this in our personal and professional lives. Someone spends an hour crafting a simple email, editing every sentence repeatedly in search of the perfect wording. In fact, my wife will often spend an extraordinary amount of time composing what should be a quick response to a text or email, carefully choosing and re-choosing every word. She cringes when I tell her, "It's good enough. You're not writing a book." Yet I understand where she's coming from. Most of us want to put our best foot forward. The problem arises when the desire to get everything exactly right prevents us from moving forward at all.
This is where I believe the phrase connects to Nike's iconic slogan, "Just Do It." While the slogan wasn't directly inspired by Voltaire's quote, both share a common philosophy. At some point, you must stop analyzing, stop waiting for ideal circumstances, and take action. Start the project. Make the call. Launch the initiative. Learn from the experience and improve along the way. In many areas of life and business, progress beats perfection because perfection is often unattainable.
However, the live event industry presents an interesting challenge to this philosophy. Unlike many other industries, we don't get a second draft. A trade show exhibit, conference, corporate event, product launch, or concert goes live at a specific moment in time. There is no opportunity to issue an update the next day or patch a problem after attendees have already experienced it. Clients expect excellence, and rightfully so. When something goes wrong, they rarely remember the hundreds or even thousands of details that were executed flawlessly. They remember the one thing that didn't go according to plan.
That reality is why so many event professionals are perfectionists by nature. We obsess over timelines, floor plans, shipping schedules, labor calls, electrical requirements, graphics, staffing, contingency plans, and countless other details because we know that a single oversight can create problems that affect an entire event. After more than 50 years in the live event industry, I've learned that success is often determined long before an event begins. It comes from planning, preparation, communication, and anticipating what could go wrong before it does.
For me, the real takeaway from this proverb is not that we should lower our standards. Rather, we should avoid becoming paralyzed by them. Perfection should remain the aspiration, but progress must remain the requirement. The best event professionals I've worked with don't wait until every question has been answered before they begin. They gather the information available, make informed decisions, move the project forward, and adapt as circumstances change. Most importantly, they understand that something unexpected will happen because, in live events, it always does. The difference between success and failure is rarely whether a problem occurs. It's whether you anticipated it and already had a Plan B—or even a Plan C—ready to implement.
This lesson is especially relevant in exhibit design and production. At Genesis Exhibits, "good enough" is not our standard. Our clients trust us to create environments that represent their brands, engage attendees, and generate meaningful business results. That responsibility demands creativity, attention to detail, and flawless execution wherever possible. At the same time, we face a reality that many suppliers in our industry understand all too well. Clients are often working with compressed timelines and tighter budgets than ever before. Sometimes projects begin weeks later than they should. Sometimes critical decisions are delayed. Sometimes budgets do not align with expectations.
In those situations, our responsibility is not to lower our standards. Our responsibility is to honestly evaluate whether we can still deliver the level of quality our clients deserve. Occasionally, that may mean walking away from a project if we believe the timeline or budget will not allow us to achieve the outcome being requested. Not because we don't want the business, but because accepting a project under conditions that virtually guarantee disappointment serves no one well. There is a significant difference between recognizing that perfection is impossible and knowingly accepting preventable shortcomings.
Perhaps that is the balance this proverb is really trying to teach us. Don't wait for perfect conditions before acting. Don't delay decisions because every variable isn't known. Don't allow fear of making a mistake to prevent progress. But once you've committed, pursue excellence relentlessly. In live events, perfection may be impossible, but professionalism, preparation, adaptability, and a commitment to excellence are not.
Progress gets the project started. Excellence gets it across the finish line.
