Wednesday 25 June 2014

Best Practice Sucks. Here's Why.

A comment a colleague of mine made today inspired me.  He inspired to rethink an article I wrote for Employment Today back in the pre-twitter age..  I was wondering if I still believed what I wrote way back in 2006.

I am pleased to say that I not only still believe, I believe more than ever.

Best practice.  The phrase irritates me.  In fact, it more than irritates me, it infuriates me.

It's not that I don't believe in best practice.  On the contrary I do.  But it's the context in which it seems most often used that gets on my nerve.

When someone wants to adhere to 'best practice' they are seeking to attain to a level of compliance.  But with what?  Something some external party is imposing on you.  Something that will make you uniform.  That's all well and good if you want compliance.  Compliance with a regulation, a process, or the so called optimal way of doing things.

The problem is that apart from complying with a legislative requirement, or some other process imposed by an external force, best practice can only inhibit an organisation's ability to innovate, evolve, grow and stay relevant.

When the phrase "we are doing it because it is best practice" is trotted out in a meeting where people are discussing customer engagement, stakeholder management, organisational development or any other aspect of business, it does one thing, and one thing only.  And it does it instantly.  It shuts down conversation.

If you want to foster an environment of innovation, creative development and competitive advantage, any talk of adopting best practice for anything other than legislative compliance, will be a cancer to that environment.  People will shut down, stop thinking and simply follow process.  I mean, who are they to argue with best practice?  They will nod, smile and agree.  But they won't align or engage.  You will end up with people complying, but not buying in.

Best practice is about uniformity.  Insight, competitive advantage and growth come from the unique, from trying new things, from going beyond the current accepted norm, from stretching beyond the accepted best practice (or from throwing it out altogether).

Ditch your talk of best practice and get on with innovating.

Thanks Alex.  You have certainly fired me up.

Cheers!