The ‘best’ mediocre practices

Tom Breur

19 January 2014

“We need more best practices!” Whenever I hear a call for “best practices”, this makes me wonder what people are actually trying to improve. For the most part, I have found (managers…) asking this question really trying to evade their responsibility.

After all, as Deming so aptly pointed out, many years ago, management owns 80-90% of quality problems (they are systemic by nature, hence “owned” by management). What they are really asking for, when looking to implement “best practices”, is a childlike wish: “please don’t make me think/work (so hard)!”, “Why can’t success be easy?”, etc.

Of course, “best practices” are all about the context. For many years, companies around the world have tried to emulate Toyota’s practices, mostly with very little success. Mike Rother gives an excellent account of this quest, in his book Toyota Kata. When you choose to ignore the context, as Dilbert’s boss so eagerly does, you might find yourself in awkward situations, as this funny blogpost illustrates.

None of this is new, of course. My friend and esteemed colleague Michael Mahlberg pointed me to the phallacy of best practices years ago. But then, for many companies, being mediocre, may well be a vast improvement J. Why not –by means of a New Year’s resolution– abandon “best practices” and be better?