There’s a sickness that is running rampant like an uncontrolled virus in many of today’s businesses. It’s called silverbulletitis, which I define as:
A condition in which the sufferer expects easy answers and solutions to difficult problems.
I’m currently attending a financial services conference, and it’s easy to pick out the people who are suffering from this affliction. When they ask a question of a speaker, they ask about best practices. Or they furiously scribble down notes of what some other firm is successfully doing in its market with the expectation (hope?) that the practice will just as well for their own firms.
Let me make my opinion here very clear: There is no such thing as a best practice. A best practice is a fallacious concept. What works for a particular firm is dependent upon its:
1) Strategy. A firm that competes on cost (not necessarily price) will succeed by implementing practices designed to make its processes as cost efficient as possible — even if some level of service is compromised. But a firm that competes on providing superior levels of that particular service will fail miserably if it implements that practice.
2) Infrastructure. It never ceases to amaze me that someone will claim that a firm’s practice is a best practice without an assessment of the underlying technology assessment that supports that practice. A firm with a tightly integrated suite of ERP tools will be able to implement processes that a firm with a set of standalone, 30 year old apps could only dream of implementing.
3) Culture. Business practices don’t operate in a vacuum. A company’s culture and it’s reward/incentive mechanisms all impact the effectiveness of a business practice.
And this list goes on — the composition of the customer base, the current economic condition, the current financial condition of the firm, and so on.
To think that one firm’s practice is a best practice that can just be plopped in somewhere else — and succeed to the same level — is wishful thinking.
What’s sad here is the underlying mindset of silverbulletitis sufferers, who seem to think that there’s an easy answer to the tough problems their firms face. “If Net Promoter Score worked for them, then it it will work for us.” “The Young and Free Alberta campaign attracted many new members for Commonwealth CU, so I’m sure it will work for us.”
The reality is that there are no easy management answers in today’s complicated organizations and difficult business environment. And I said so in my presentation at the CUES Experience conference this week. I don’t think the message was well received.
Technorati Tags: Best Practices, CUES, Silverbulletitis
Thanks, Ron, for showing us yet another business trap that otherwise smart people fall into all the time.
Bruce
Aside from the basic point you are making here, the “best practices” mentality is a cancer to organizations that sorely need to find a way to differentiate them from the competition. Implementing the same programs, procedures, and initiatives of sister companies does nothing but commoditize an industry.
Certainly share with one another what works and what doesn’t….but when you decide to implement a program, make sure it meets the unique needs of your end-users. Make sure it positively contributes to your brand equity. And, for crying out loud, make sure it’s distinguishable from everyone else’s program – competitors or otherwise.
Oh goodie, one of my favourite soap boxes, so excuse the long reply:
I have had a long running battle with a few people that ‘best practice’ is the great NORMALIZER. That is, it destroys any differentation that any organisation has within its market.
I had a chat to an associate about how Accenture – and similar – work, my interpretation was they sell best practice. Moving from one organisation to the next flogging the same things.
It is a never ending cycle (read: gravy train) they get to the end of their rounds with the various orgs they work with, and modify the “process” with what they have learned and go back to the begining. Now I don’t begrudge them for this, it is a common human failing – I mean if we didn’t have this yearn for betterment all those self help books would never have been written and sold.
Now evolution, is a better approach. Or as Clint Eastwood said in Heartbreak Ridge – Adapt, Improvise, Overcome. If you can maintain a relevant difference in your market, but still provide a needed product/service that is a better way.
Heck I would even prefer Worst Practice. In that we learn from everyones mistakes, and apply an idea/concept to your own.
Rather than a silver bullet, it is like taking medicine, over time you get better and stay healthy.
Awesome post Ron. This is one of the things I’ve been struggling with as I’ve been putting together a project for Maine State CU. There are lots of great examples of programs and campaigns that have worked for OTHER credit unions, but what is it that will work for OUR credit union. Its hard not to just think, “oh well if it worked for them, it can work for us!” Its a million times more difficult to find something that works for our members, our culture, and our geographic location rather than hope a plug and play campaign and best practices will work just as well here as someplace else.
@Fred: Good to hear from you again.
Perhaps because I’ve been a consultant (still am?), I’m inclined to cut the Accentures of the world some slack.
It’s generally the client side that says “you guys have worked for a gazillion firms in our industry, come in here and tell us what the best practices are.”
The consultants face a dilemma. They’re reacting to demand, not necessarily creating it. Do you look a prospective client in the face and say “you’re asking the wrong question. there are no best practices.”
That’s a tough thing to do. After all, do you tell your kids that there is no Santa Claus?
Don’t those terms “best practices” and “sound business practices” and “industry standard benchmarks” and”enterprise risk management” we hear so often give us such a warm and fuzzy feeling? It seems they are just pablum. Just a beginning, not as some would suggest, an end unto themselves.
Good managers are aware of the pitfalls and risks in their organizations. That’s what keeps us up and awake at night. To take some pre-fabricated template and push it onto an organization as the panacea is not good management. I’ve referred to it as “MBA-itis”.
Management is a science and also an art. You take what you have to build what you need and what you want. You are the ‘conduit’ to move what is necessary to where it is needed. The tough part is synthesizing, reformulating, creating and building that which is good for your business. Ron of course your message would not be well received, there is too much of a herd mentality not willing to do things differently.
@Gene: What prompted this post goes beyond the “herd mentality not willing to do things differently.”
At the risk of offending the conference attendees, I have to admit to getting this impression that some (many?) were there simply looking for “answers”.
There was a line in Tim’s presentation (which I also got to hear over lunch on Tuesday) that I will never ever forget.
In the period leading up to the launch of the Y&F campaign, Commonwealth CU’s CEO and another CWCU exec flew out to Tim’s office, looked him in the eye and asked “will this work?” Tim said “I don’t know.” The CU execs said “ok, well, let’s do it then.”
That’s like a line out of a movie.
The prevailing attitude that I was sensing at the conference — and hey, I could be really wrong here — was completely opposite that of the Y&F/CWCU situation.
The irony of it all is that we Americans pride ourselves on our independence, free thinking, entrepreneurial spirit. I’m not seeing it in the financial services industry down here.
@Ron Significant growth takes significant risk. Too many CUers expect the former without taking the latter. That’s why “best practices” have become such a handcuffing factor in decision-making. How do we expect to be significant to our audience if we don’t do anything significantly different?
The credit unions that survive 200 years from now will be the ones that work together to lower operating expenses, but come up with unique messages and deliverables for their members. Unfortunately, many CUs right now are doing the opposite.
Who’s copying Young and Free?
@jpilcher: http://www.cutomorrow.org/?p=63
@cuwarrior: don’t get mad at me, but it was ironic to see you (mr. “Gen Yers are so individualistic”) leave a comment right after mine. There were plenty of Gen Yers at the conference, furiously scribbling away trying to capture all the best practices.
@Ron Proves my point quite well, doesn’t it. I, just like every other person my age, am not a “typical Gen Yer”. I don’t think such a person exists.
Maybe at some point, these folks become age-independent “typical CUers”.
[...] is like what Ron Shevlin recently referred to as Silverbulletitis. I’d coin a similar term and attribute this to Bandwagonitis—the idea that because a [...]