Management Best Practices: How do you know they are the best?
August 28, 2008 by David Zinger
Filed under management
Best Practices: Do we need more practice?
by David Zinger
There is the old question that was asked by someone in New York City. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The New Yorker replied: practice, practice, practice.
Do you practice the best practices of management? What are those best practices and how did those specific practices achieve the moniker, “best practice.”
Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. ~ Wikipedia definition
It often seems to me that best practices are merely good ideas wrapped up in fancy management rhetoric.
Almost everywhere you turn there is another article on best practices. I think it is good to practice but how often is the best really the best? Just because we are slacker managers, looking for the best and most efficient way of doing thing, does not mean we should be lazy or lax in our thinking.
Perhaps our best practice would be to be quite skeptical when someone tells us a certain management method is best practice and ask:
-
What do you mean by the term best practice?
-
How do you know that?
-
What is your evidence?
-
Was this practice determined in a scientific or controlled study?
-
Under what situations of contexts may this not be a best practice?
-
etc.
Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect. ~ Vince Lombardi
Photo Credit: Practice Mute by http://flickr.com/photos/refractedmoments/543209365/
Very intriguing David. For me best practices come from people with a lot of experience and expertise with proven excellence. That combined with consensus from that group of excellent people and voila, I have a set of best practices based on what they do, say and teach.
After all, you’ve got to base best practices on something, and the collective wisdom and group consensus is a very powerful determiner. Of course you could question that as well…
Mike:
You know I would question this. Those are darn good practices and great places to start from and they could be very helpful.
I would like to see best practices reserved for practices that have more scientific validation or we are just re-inventing the Hawthorne effect all over again with new lingo.
By the way, I am not say scientific management is the answer I just get peeved when people use the term when they may have better practices but they are not the best.
David
True about the use of scientific management. Best is pretty much impossible to claim without being omniscient I guess so it has to be within one’s perspective/knowledge no matter what.