Why this history matters
Before small operating interpretations begin quietly shaping how work gets done, there’s usually a bigger story behind why the “voice” matters in the first place. This video explains how exhibitor voice was won, why precedent mattered then, and why early leadership involvement still matters today when new expectations begin to take hold.
Watch the video, then keep reading. As you watch, listen for how a “one-off” becomes precedent.
That same dynamic still shows up today, just quieter.
That’s where leaders get caught.
Most leaders assume industry rules change in obvious ways. A new policy. A public decision. A big announcement everyone hears about.
That is rarely how it happens. More often, rules change quietly. Through small interpretations. New “requirements.” A line in a service manual that no one questions. A decision made for convenience that slowly becomes the standard.
By the time it feels official, it has already been in place for a while. Most leaders never remember agreeing to it.
It isn’t about carelessness. It’s typically because they were doing what leaders are supposed to do. Running their businesses, serving customers, and solving real problems inside their own business.
While leaders are focused inward, the operating environment around them keeps moving. That gap is where small changes harden into “the way it is.” The tighter leadership attention gets on internal pressures, the wider that gap tends to grow.
When Leadership Attention Narrows, Conditions Still Change
As companies grow, leadership attention tightens around what feels urgent.
- People
- Customers
- Cash
- Delivery
Those pressures are real and deserve attention. There is a side effect most leaders do not notice until it costs them. They’re fully absorbed in running the business and they stop scanning what is shifting around the business.
Rules don’t change because they don’t care. It’s that they do not have spare bandwidth. They end up focusing on what they can directly control and assume the external conditions will stay mostly the same.
That assumption is where problems start. Rules, access, and cost drivers do not wait for a convenient time to change. They evolve while leaders are heads down.
At first, the changes feel small. Someone says, “This is how we are doing it now.” A requirement appears that was never there before. A process shifts that makes planning harder.
It does not feel urgent, so it gets absorbed and worked around. The next situation, the next show or venue does it the same way. What started as an inconvenience, before long is baked into how the system works.
From the leadership chair, it feels like conditions just got tougher. From the outside, it looks like the change simply stuck.
That is how a workaround becomes standard practice. It happens in every industry. When leaders are heads down, conditions still change. The issue is not effort. It is timing and later is often too late.
How Quiet Precedent Forms Without Anyone “Deciding” It
Here’s a conversation that captures the pattern in real life. I wanted a real-world view from someone who sees these “one-off” interpretations early, before the rest of the industry feels the impact.
I asked Jim Wurm to weigh in. He is the Executive Director of the Exhibitor Appointed Contractors Association (EACA). He’s spent 35+ years in trade show marketing and management and has worked both sides of the business, show management and exhibit services. When a “one-off” interpretation shows up, he sees where it starts, how it spreads, and what it turns into when nobody challenges it early. He’s seen the same movie enough times to recognize the first scene.
Here’s the pattern Jim described.
This rarely starts with a formal announcement or a published policy change. It shows up inside the handoffs that support a show. The show organizer selects the venue. A general service contractor is hired. The venue has building rules and operating requirements, and then somewhere in the middle of that chain, a requirement starts getting applied differently.
Someone tells an exhibitor, an Exhibitor Appointed Contractor (EAC), or a supplier, “This is how it has to be done now.”
At first, it sounds like an interpretation, not a rule. A one-time clarification. A different way of applying something that already existed. Most people assume it’s specific to that show or that venue. They then adjust and move on.
The same interpretation shows up again, and then again, it starts to feel official. Once it feels official, people stop questioning it.
Where this usually starts? Jim said these kinds of new requirements or interpretations most often first appear in the show kit, or as most refer to it now, the ESM (Exhibitor Service Manual).
A requirement that almost became the new normal
Jim shared an example from The Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The CES show kit for the first time included information about a facility rule that was unfamiliar to a newer exhibitor. It included a “requirement” for an engineering stamp for a double deck exhibit that must be provided by a Nevada-based engineering firm.
Jim told me this issue first came up pre-COVID in other show kits and was resolved to only include double deck exhibits that are set up outside. The reasoning was that Nevada engineering firms would be more familiar with local wind conditions.
If no one had engaged early, Jim’s view was simple: a lot of money might have been spent unnecessarily. In this case, it was quickly resolved through collaborative efforts by EACA and ESCA.
This is how quiet precedent forms. Not through policy changes, but through unchallenged interpretations that spread faster than anyone expects.
How it spreads. When I asked Jim what happens when no one engages early, he didn’t hesitate.
He said it spreads “like wildfire.” The trade show information network moves concerns like this very quickly. Once people believe something is “the rule,” it gets repeated as fact, planning assumptions shift, budgets get built around it, and it becomes harder to unwind because the system has already adjusted.
Where the pressure hits first. Jim said the pain or concern usually hits first with the EDPA and EACA communities as exhibitors look for guidance and direction. Once it hits there, it turns into operating pressure fast.
The early warning sign. Jim also gave a clear indicator that tells him it’s about to go viral.
He said the early signal is the tone of the communication received at EACA. When that tone shifts, it’s an indicator that the “hair on fire” reactions are teed up to spread.
What early engagement prevents. Early engagement does not require conflict. It often starts with a question, asked early enough to matter.
Once the system absorbs a new “normal,” it’s no longer a one-off. It’s precedent. Once it becomes precedent, leaders stop debating whether it’s real and start paying for it.
Why This Is a Leadership Problem, Not Just an Industry Problem
This doesn’t happen because leaders are making bad decisions. It happens because no one is assigned to watch for these shifts while everyone else is focused on execution.
Leaders are doing what growth demands of them. They are inside their business.
- Solving problems.
- Serving customers.
- Protecting cash.
- Keeping commitments.
As companies grow, leaders need one additional habit. Here is an early-warning habit.
- Strong operators solve what is in front of them.
- Strong leaders also notice what is forming around them.
When new requirements surface, many leaders do what good operators do.
- They work around them.
- They absorb the cost.
- They adjust the plan.
That feels responsible in the moment.
Over time, those workarounds become permanent. What started as an adjustment turns into a structural disadvantage.
- More complexity.
- More unpredictability.
- More cost no one planned for.
From the leadership chair, it feels like the business is just getting harder. From the system’s point of view, it looks like the change stuck.
This is the trap. The more pressure leaders feel to deliver, the less time they have to notice what is quietly changing outside the day-to-day.
This keeps them reactive longer than they should be. This doesn’t happen because they don’t care. It’s that they don’t have time and space to see what’s forming.
At some point, leaders must ask different questions.
- What assumptions are changing around us?
- Where are new constraints forming?
- What are we tolerating today that will be baked in tomorrow?
Those are strategic business questions. When operating conditions shift, business models shift with them. Once those shifts are built into contracts, budgets, and customer expectations, they are hard to reverse.
What Actually Changes Outcomes
Quiet precedent becomes permanent when it goes unchallenged long enough. The answer is not to fight everything. That is not realistic or effective.
What changes outcomes is early engagement, before confusion hardens into standard practice. This is where coordination matters.
- When leaders compare notes early, patterns show up faster.
- When they raise questions together, clarity comes sooner.
- When they engage before a requirement spreads, it can often be corrected before it becomes the norm.
The key is not volume of action. It is timing. Influence is highest when issues are still being interpreted, not after they are enforced. Once something is widely accepted as “the rule,” the conversation shifts from clarification to confrontation.
Early engagement keeps problems in the category of conversation instead of conflict. It’s where leaders still have leverage. This is also where associations matter, not as fixers, but as coordination platforms.
- They connect leaders who are seeing pieces of the same issue.
- They surface patterns faster than any one company can.
- They create a place where early questions can turn into early clarity.
None of it works if leaders stay on the sidelines.
No association can shape conditions on its own. It can only amplify the attention and voice of the leaders who engage early.
That brings this back to leadership responsibility. It’s not to fight the industry. It’s to notice when the ground is shifting and engage before the shift becomes permanent.
Running the Business and Protecting the Playing Field
Every leader reaches a point where running their business successfully is no longer the whole job. The company may be growing. Customers may be satisfied. Teams may be working hard.
Still, the environment around the business becomes more complex, more constrained, and more expensive to navigate. That is not failure, it is growth.
It is also the point where leaders need to widen their field of view. I’m not suggesting chasing every issue. The key is to keep the playing field from narrowing without them noticing.
Quiet precedent is not inevitable. It becomes durable when nobody challenges it early and everyone adjusts to it as if it is permanent.
The leaders who win long-term are not the ones who react fastest once the challenge is obvious. They are the ones who engage while a “one-off” is still a one-off.
That is how industries evolve. It is how leadership grows up with them.
Industry and business growth challenges will be part of the conversation at the EACA Leadership Conference at Exhibitor LIVE in Tampa on 3/29/26, where EAC leaders come together to compare notes, share perspective, and discuss the changes shaping how work gets done on the show floor.
