“Good is the enemy of great” is an insight that a lot of people have stumbled upon, though I can’t trace the origin of the phrase. It might be Jim Collins’ Good to Great, but I am not sure. A hint about the dynamics are in that book (again, an insight I’ve heard elsewhere): good people with a bad process will always beat incompetent people working with a good process.
The clue is in the word process. Process is how good becomes the enemy of great. And I mean process in its most general form, not just the rigid bureaucratic stereotype. So a specific portfolio analysis technique for picking stocks to maximize some risk/returns function, or any sort of “methodology” is a process. A 12-step program is a process. A “Maximize Your Creativity” book that deals in colorful balls and right-brained art exercises is still a process. “Be agile and improvise” is also a process. If it can be defined and written down as a prescription, with any kind of promise attached, it is a process.
Here’s why this happens. Processes (and systems) of any sort first emerge when a spectacular and undisciplined success occurs. Like a startup — XYZ Corp. say, getting wildly successful. Or the PQR basketball team racking up a string of victories. Or an actor making it big in Hollywood. First, there’s a success that attracts imitative greed. Then something very predictable happens. A “great” story is retold in ways that only capture the “good” part.