I was intrigued by the title of the Forbes article, "Best Practices - Aren't." The author, Mike Myatt, makes some excellent points about why it is so important for leaders to not limit their teams or thoughts to industry standards (AKA best practices), and even more importantly, for leaders to make sure that they are setting the stage for true innovation and disruptive products or technologies.
Several years ago I began using the term next practices in an effort to focus people forward in their thinking. Why would you want to do business in the same fashion as your competitors? Don’t utilize your competition’s practices, but rather innovate around them and improve upon them to create an advantage that can be leveraged in the market. Be disruptive in your approach and don’t fall into the trap of doing something in a particular fashion just because others do it that way – think “next” practices not best practices. Here’s the thing – best practices maintain the status quo and next practices shatter it.
At wHolistic ChangeSM we drive transformational change by establishing consistent and repeatable methods that will ensure all the stakeholders have the tools they need to successfully perform their jobs in the future world with changed people, processes, technology, and services. Since the wHolistic ChangeSM approach utilizes business value to ensure we meet or exceed our customers' expectations, I think Mr. Myatt has given us a better way of describing what we do: we help clients develop "next practices" as opposed to "best practices."