Business Innovation + Biblical Insight
August 17th, 2006
Chasing Best Practices (Part 1)
The Unintended Impact of Best Practices
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 what practices to pursue and how should we pursue them.
Next issue: Chasing Best Practices – The Dangers of Mindless Imitation
From Headers to Head-Butts
The Legacy of Zinedine Zidane
In the end, the recent World Cup of soccer will be most remembered for Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt. Zidane is a player of legendary ability, winner of the 1998 World Cup, three times world player of the year, and selected as one of the top 125 greatest living players. His own performance in this World Cup was extraordinary; almost single handedly (“foot”edly?) taking the French team to the final. Then in a moment, it all changed, accompanied by gasps from the world’s largest viewing audience.
My brother, Dave, reflecting on the Zidane head-butt (and ejection) in the World Cup Final, writes,
“It occurs to me that probably all of us have had "head-butt" moments in our life ... though thankfully they aren't caught on TV and replayed thousands of times all over the world. In one infamous moment of time, he was you and me and everyone else who has ever lost our cool in the heat of an emotional moment. Be it husbands and wives, parents and kids, teachers and students, or employees and bosses ... heated moments all too often result in our own head-butt moments. "I quit!" "You're fired" "You'll hear from my lawyer!"”
In all honesty we can probably all remember things we've said and done in a heated moment that we wished we could take back a minute later. Stuff happens. Perhaps the better measure of a man is not that he erred in the heat of battle, but how he handles his failures in life.
What should you do when you have a “head-butt” moment? The Scriptures are full of such examples, far more serious examples. Think of David’s adultery and murder or Peter’s denials. The biblical response is not to focus on repairing the damage to our image or restoring some shine to our legacy, but to take responsibility for the action…no excuses…and to admit the wrong. Zidane should go beyond paying the fines and doing the few days of community service. And he should probably reach out in forgiveness and reconciliation to the offending Italian player. Don’t overcome evil with evil, but with good.
Similarly, if you are a teammate or coach (think supervisor or employer), what do you do when someone has such a moment? With mercy and compassion, hold them responsible, but also give them a safe place where they know they are still valued and accepted. We all have such moments. They just aren’t viewed by a billion people in real time.
In the end, the real legacy that matters is the mark of our character and life on those around us.
From the Archives
Big In Japan: J.S. Bach + The Meaning of Work
I was stunned to the verge of tears, as I read the richly illustrated piece in Civilization magazine, The Gospel According to J.S. Bach. “Two hundred fifty years ago, he was known as a civil servant, a coffee drinker, and a second-rate composer,” the teaser read. “Today, his music is Christianity incarnate.” Christianity incarnate…You don’t see that every day.
I ventured into the text by Uwe Siemon-Netto, chronicling his return to Liepzig, Germany for the first time since the Red Army occupied his boyhood home in World War II.
Three paragraphs later my curiosity turned to astonishment:
Now, 250 years after his death, at the birth of a new century, an enormous Bach resurgence is underway – particularly in Japan. There, in one of the most unreligious countries in the world, thousands of people are converting to Christianity after listening to Bach’s cantatas. On a recent visit to Tokyo, I was astounded at the enthusiasm there for music that seems to me to have such a specific, and alien, genesis.
My Japanese interpreter came to me one morning and said, ‘Let’s hear some Bach to start the day.’ She pulled out a CD of the cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seeleenlust, whose lyrics say that God’s name is Love. ‘This has taught me what these two words mean to Christians,’ she said. ‘And I like it very much.’
Around the turn of the century, the Lutheran archbishop of Uppsala, in Sweden, called Bach’s cantatas the ‘fifth gospel’; today, such religious terms are just as likely to be applied to Bach by the founder of the Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki, who has said, ‘Bach is teaching us the Christian concept of hope,’ and Yoshikazu Tokuzen, of Japan’s National Christian Council, who has called Bach ‘a vehicle of the Holy Spirit.’
Read more…
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