I learn a lot from my clients. I see people who do some really dumb things. I see some who do bad things. I also see people doing things that make sense.
One of the most common questions I get from workshop attendees and folks who sit in my keynotes deal with best practices. They want to know what other companies successfully so they can copy it and use it. More than one company has asked me what I think of Google’s company culture and if I think it will work for them.
It all comes down to one question: What is it that you REALLY want to accomplish? That takes the focus off a BEST practice and puts it onto what is a GOOD practice. Then, a good practice that you adopt and adapt becomes the BEST practice that you wanted in the first place.
During my 15-year in the Navy, I saw a lot of dumb practices. Things that didn’t make a bit of sense. One was the seabag inspection. It required us to have a certain number of uniform items. Some things we never used. Everything also had to be stenciled with our names and Social Security Numbers (this was way before identity theft was an issue obviously). The purpose was to not run out of uniforms or lose stuff when aboard ship. That made sense. The problem was having a seabag inspection on shore duty, which normally was a four-year period in my rating. For me to have to write my name on my underwear as a 35-year old man was asinine. It was a good practice at sea but a dumb practice on shore duty.
The Navy also had some good practices though. One of them was morning quarters. It was a 15-minute all-hands meeting where we would go through the plan for that day and talk about any issues that were needing a solution. It was marked with the tradition of calling everyone to attention. Everyone stood. The meeting was quick. When it was over, you headed to your work area and got busy.
That good practice now works for one of my clients. When I started working with them, their meetings droned on and people dreaded them. They tuned out, looking at their Instagram feeds. Nothing got passed along and nothing was solved. It was a waste of time. When I brought up the GOOD practice of morning quarters, the client loved it. Calling people to attention got their attention. Nobody could look at their phone. Because they stood, nobody got too comfortable so they didn’t drone on and on about meaningless topics. Quick and to the point. The GOOD practice became their BEST practice.
We can learn a lot from others. By engaging with people and learning about what works for them, we can find GOOD practices that we can turn into our BEST practices. But looking for somebody’s BEST practice and adopting it blindly (like trying to mimic Google’s culture) may have a bad outcome.
This week, become clear about what you and your company want. Next, talk to as many people as you can to get ideas. Find the ideas that would fit your culture and tailor them. Make that GOOD practice your BEST practice.
