This week’s featured video with Brett Johnson is a thought provoking look at the whole notion of best practices. To stimulate further thinking on best practices, here’s the first in a series of five posts from Dan Wooldridge.

Earlier in my career in an international non-profit organization, I remember my mind racing as my manager said, “We have to do that. It’s a best practice.” It was the first I’d heard the term, and I agreed we had to do that! We were eager to learn from our more effective “for profit” friends who really had things figured out. Our antiquated processes were ineffective. There was much room for improvement. I loved learning and had a great desire to innovate and improve. This seemed like a great way to do that quickly, learning from the example of others. And in subsequent leadership roles I always searched for examples of best practices to imitate.

Now fast forward some years. I entered into the world of professional consulting on leadership and organizational development. The phrase saturates the conversations of consultants. I remember a senior consultant pointing out something he had come across and passionately saying, “That’s a best practice. We need to teach that. There’s a huge market for this.” The organizational machinery began to grind out articles, PowerPoint presentations, sales pitches, and the outlines for consulting engagements based on this “best practice.” Clients were told that this was the best practice in (you fill in the blank), that they didn’t have it, and needed our services to get it. They dutifully engaged us because who wants to be less than the best?

All this made me uneasy. Who decided this was a best practice? And why did the client need this particular best practice? Was it this easy for a consulting firm to decide what a best practice is and to create a line of business? And it may be a best practice now, but what are the long range and unintended consequences of this practice?

I have three observations based on watching this from the inside of business and the inside of the consulting industry.

First, earnest executives chasing performance and consultants chasing clients via best practices eventually cause “average-ness” in an industry … at best. Best practices are outstanding by definition, outside of or at the top end of the bell curve of performance. Once everyone adopts the best practice, it now becomes common practice. Rather than strategic advantage, you eventually have strategic sameness. Many leaders don’t see this, and rather than building unique advantage begin chasing the next “best practice”.

Second, some companies are really helped, but many see no significant impact on their performance, and at times, even a decline. Chasing best practices is not necessarily the path to success.

Third, this bell curve shift in an industry can be for the good. Take safety for example. We want every airline to be perfectly on the same page in terms of safety performance.

The questions we need to consider are how we decide which practices to pursue and how we should pursue them.

Next Up: Chasing Best Practices – The Dangers of Mindless Imitation