You’re at work, and you want to be curious and creative.
What could possibly go wrong?
One thing that often goes wrong is called the Best Practice trap.
The plausible yet dangerous assertion that performance will improve if you just find “Best Practice” and copy it. That conformity can replace creativity.
Like rote learning in schools, “Best Practice” can be an innovation killer which rewards the wrong behaviors.
Well intentioned maybe, but a real trap.
Best practices exist, but they’re seldom easily copied. And rarely successfully imposed.
True best practice comes from you, or somebody like you. Not from a copybook.
If your practice is not the best, you should try to improve it.
Of course you might never be the best, (we can’t all be in first place) but you will get better by improving yourself, not by imitating someone else.
Improving yourself is what really matters.
Don’t stop looking for ideas, just be careful what you do with what you see.
Beware leaders who espouse “Best Practice sharing” as a “strategy”. Especially if it’s your own boss. It can be a sign that conformity and sameness are more important than performance.
A way of controlling.
Imitation has a place but it should be used sparingly. Not just because it doesn’t work, but because it makes you less smart.
That’s why it’s a trap.
When you create rather than copy you get better at creating so you need to copy less. You get smarter.
When you copy rather than create you get less smart.
You need to decide what habits you build – creating or copying,
“..Best practices exist, but they’re seldom easily copied. And rarely successfully imposed…”
Think of an issue you’re dealing with at work. Preferably a common issue that others also face.
Now the choice comes.
You can look for a way to solve it that others have already created, or start from scratch.
Do you copy it or adapt it?
Don’t copy.
Work out a way to solve that problem that nobody has done before.
Deliberately do it a different way.
It might work better or it might not, but it will be yours. If not better, try again.
That’s what explorers do.
Be the person that others copy.
You won’t be that by copying them.
Best Practice is a verb not a noun, it is something you do not something you see.
Best Practice isn’t somewhere else, it’s in You.
If it’s not Best yet, keep Practicing.
.
.
“I might be wrong, but at least I’ve thought about it…”