Five Reasons to Say No to Best Practices!

Posted by Admin on Apr 13, 2012 in Blog

Best practice is the darling of business strategists and consultants. Google the phrase “best practice” and you will be presented with 109,000,000 results. Ask for a definition and the list narrows to a mere 69 million options. So there are lots of definitions, many opinions and little agreement on what best practice means. Let me add my voice to the conversation. I’ll make it short and direct.

Here are five reasons to say no to blindly implementing best practices:

1. All businesses are not exactly alike. I don’t mean all businesses are special or all children are gifted, but they are different.
2. What’s good for one is not necessarily good for all. Did I mention that each business has unique features … is different?
3. Best practice is an excuse not to think about your business and its unique features. It is also an excuse not to listen to your employees. By the way, they are the ones with the real solutions to real problems. They know your business better than you do.
4. Who decides what is best practice? Your competitors? Consultants? Government? I don’t think I need to explain this one.
5. Best practices are easy to package, communicate and sell. They sound too good to be true …