For reasons that can’t be explained by logic, common sense, or empiricism, we still hear references to best practices and read articles about them with disarming frequency. That frequency is disarming because it reflects stasis — a kind of settling for inactivity or unimaginativeness, rather than a relentless search for active improvement or creative betterment.
EDITOR’S NOTE: SEE PART ONE BELOW ⤵︎
Perhaps the point is more effectively made if we liken best practices to paradigms — and pull the concept out of a business context and put it into a scientific one.
In his 1961 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn wrote this, which, one could argue, introduced paradigm, the term that became a buzzword, into the vernacular:
Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has recognized as acute.
In that one sentence, we find a precursor to the notion of best practices; that is, we recognize that one paradigm or set of paradigms may be adopted to solve one particular problem or one particular set of problems. But the shortcoming in that notion is revealed in its verb tense, which happens to be the present perfect tense; although, it refers to the past.
This present perfect tense indicates an action has been completed or is in a state of having ended but not at any definite time in the past. Has recognized. That tells us the success of the paradigm has been perceived and accepted in hindsight. Accordingly and similarly, we perceive a set of activities to be a best practice only in retrospect.
But there’s an alternative. Later in the book, Kuhn writes this, indicating that — rather than looking to the past to derive practices in the present — we might look to the future; that is, we can choose to pursue, rather than to make do:
If we can learn to substitute evolution-from-what-we-do-know for evolution-toward-what-we-wish-to-know, a number of vexing problems may vanish in the process.
To translate Kuhn’s notion back from a scientific context into our business one, if we substitute what we’re doing for what we want, need, or aspire to be doing, best practices will have their own obsolescence built-in. The good news is we’ll always be improving, and one of the vexing problems of business jargon will vanish. The bad news is we’ll no longer be able to tout best practices as a good thing.
If we do tout them, we’ll simply be advertising the complacency for which we’ve settled.
Mark, this is the nugget I’m taking with me today: “…if we substitute what we’re doing for what we want, need, or aspire to be doing, best practices will have their own obsolescence built-in. The good news is we’ll always be improving, and one of the vexing problems of business jargon will vanish. The bad news is we’ll no longer be able to tout best practices as a good thing.” It’s so true… we get so complacent on doing things the way we’ve always done them.
Maybe they’ve worked in the past, but today may be a different day with new challenges, different circumstances. Maybe we stick with them because they are within the comfort zone. It’s what we know but maybe not what we want.
I just watched a TED Talk this weekend about the importance of conducting a pre-mortem. We often conduct post-mortems to try to dissect why something didn’t work. I found myself contemplating the thought process involved in a pre-mortem. “What do I want, need, or aspire to be and how do I visualize myself getting that?”
This piece succinctly captures why that is so important. Thank you!
Melissa, at the very least, your notion of the pre-mortem would help to create a reasonable set of expectations for outcomes, a meaningful way of assessing the practices that might precipitate those outcomes, and opportunities for improving practices — or creating new ones — that would ensure those outcomes.
I like it. There’s reason #3,467,821 that I’m glad you’re here. 😆
Thank you.
There is no doubt that the step from “best practices” to resistance expressed by maintaining the status quo is short.
So the road is a slow but constant and unstoppable improvement that does not place itself in a position of rupture with the past, but feeds on the past to improve the present and the future.
Wow. Wonderful choices of words here, Aldo.
Given the number of people in my work who continue to tout best practices, I wonder how many of them are inclined to resist — or to understand that maintaining the status quo necessarily begets stagnation, if not resistance. My sense is the folks who trumpet best practices don’t much care.
And I wonder if, to rupture with the past, we have to get over our rapture with the past. The very notion of best practices invokes the past (and rapture for it) because “best” is a judgment that can only be made in retrospect. “Better”, on the other hand, necessarily looks to the future.
As always, I’m grateful for your comments, your contributions, and your insight. Thank you.
Well written and well said, Mark. Without context, there’s nothing. “Benchmarking” is another corporate fad that eats up costs of subscriptions, time and talent to collect data, and nothing on actually trying to understand the context, where the real key is located. If you haven’t read Edwin Friedman’s “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix,” you might want to pick it up.
The “anonymous” comment is me too – couldn’t figure out how to log in and thought it went away.
Carol, thank you for joining the conversation and for letting me know about A Failure of Nerve. I haven’t read it. But I will now.
What you said about benchmarking and context is exactly right. To that I’d add that once you’ve benchmarked — and especially in the absence of context — how do you constructively and positively operationalize anything? All you end up with is feel-good wheel-spinning at the expense of progress. And people wonder why I’m beauracracy-averse. 🙄
I’m grateful to you for sharing your thoughts.
You are singing my song, Mark! I have similar issues with “benchmarking” which healthcare spends overwhelming dollars for consulting and subscriptions, time and talent on collecting data, and zero time on actually trying to understand the context. Have you read Edwin Friedman’s “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix?” If not, you might find it fascinating.
Hi Mark,
As I said in my post to Part One, I agree with you about being future-oriented. We must continue to look at what is ahead rather than wallow to what has become. The past is done? As I have said many times, it serves only two purposes: Savoring those delicious memories and what we have learned. Thank you for this!💖
I thank you for being here, Darlene. Some of us believe if we’re not creating, we’re giving up. Even if we’re only creating better ways to do the simplest things, we’re still creating. And creating is always better than giving up or settling.
Here’s to becoming and to very full lives.
This is brilliant Mark, just brilliant!
“If we can learn to substitute evolution-from-what-we-do-know for evolution-toward-what-we-wish-to-know, a number of vexing problems may vanish in the process.” – You helped me put into words my internal challenge with ‘evidenced-based decision making.”
I would appreciate your thoughts on my internally challenge around the evidence to validate (post experimentation, iteration or new idea) which I fully support and feel is more humane and exploratory vs evidence to justify (prove, ROI, after 6 months of doing X you may get a promotion etc) upfront which for me is based on fear and power.
I may be way off the mark, but this internal conflict has been going on for some time and whilst I cannot fully articulate it, your wonderful writing is clarifying, in apr,t my thinking – thank you.
Garry, I’d characterize your internal challenge as evidence of sound thinking and objectivity. Post-experimentation, evidence is just that — empirical evidence. Pre-experimentation, evidence (to justify) is only evidence of do-as-I-say thinking, the subjective pre-judging of outcomes, and a disregard for empiricism. That’s one of the two million reasons for which I say common sense and empiricism are dying arts.
Thank you for your thoughts and for contributing to this conversation. And thank you for making me think about this topic even more.