The Management Whisperers - Chapter 9: Looking beyond 'best practice'

Best practice is another of those ‘things’ inherited from previous generations.?It’s the default, go-to phrase employed by business folk from all disciplines when discussing the most efficient and effective way of carrying out a particular business activity.?

But there’s a problem with it.?Paradoxically, perhaps, ‘best practice’ isn’t good enough.?We appreciate that may sound nuts.?What could be better than best??By definition nothing could – but that’s not the point.?The real question is why some (often unknown) person or group has decided to stick that label on their latest way of doing things.?

What was the method by which they came up with this best practice??How rigorous was that method??Can you see it??Can you interrogate it??Or are you expected simply to take their word for it, because they’ve taken it upon themselves to label it ‘best practice’?

And if they want you to follow this latest best practice, what was wrong with the old best practice??If that old best practice really was best, how come it’s now been bettered??Clearly it never was as good as it could have been, so why should anyone believe this latest best is best, and won’t be bettered in its turn??Is it any wonder many people don’t always take best practice that seriously (dare we even say ‘seriously enough’)??Why should they?

Of course people are always making new discoveries which can improve on older ways of doing things.?But the problem with best practice as a concept is its oftentimes lack of transparency – which demands a leap of faith: hardly a sound basis for justifiable confidence.?

A credible alternative

These concerns nagged away at us for years until, in 2015, we finally came up with a new concept which eats best practice for breakfast.?It answers all the problems of best practice, and can give your IC Specialists a way of establishing working practices which have justifiable confidence hard wired in.??

This concept may have a bit of clunky title, but it is crucial (and not necessarily just for your IC).?What you need are practices which are DFVP: Demonstrably Fit for Valid Purposes.?At first glance it may not sound like something to write home about.?But wait ‘til you see what it can do for you.?

Firstly we’ll look at what makes DFVP practice different from ‘best practice’.?Then we’ll explore how it creates the conditions for everyone to have justifiable confidence in their internal communicating.

What makes an IC practice DFVP?

To qualify as DFVP, each of your organisation’s IC practices (eg, the language standards, briefing process, approvals process, feedback systems etc) must fulfil three criteria: clearly defined purposes; explicit validation and complete transparency.?Let’s delve into these.

1.?They have clearly defined purposes

This may sometimes happen with best practice, but it’s not an explicit requirement.?And even if the purpose of a particular best practice is defined when it’s being developed, that purpose is rarely shared with all the folk who are expected to follow it.

?With IC practices, such as the briefing process, there are two purposes that need defining:

• The purpose of IC itself
• The purpose of the specific practice in question.

2.?Those purposes have been explicitly validated

In the first episode of the BBC comedy show ‘Yes Minister’, one of the characters made a pithy observation:

“Dispose of the difficult bit in the title.?It does less harm there than in the text.”?

This can be so true when people talk about communications that happen in any workplace.?Just because someone uses the word ‘purpose’ there’s no guarantee that what they’re describing actually is one.?

For example, imagine asking someone “What is the purpose of this communication?”?

They might say something along the lines of:

“The purpose of this communication is to inform employees about the product launch.”

So, they’ve used the word ‘purpose’, but is it valid??Whenever people talk about purposes, we always find it useful follow up in our own mind with the question: “What’s the purpose of that purpose?”?

In this instance: “What’s the purpose of informing employees about the product launch?”?

At the moment, that information hasn’t been articulated.?And if a communicator charges ahead anyway (and isn’t consciously aware of this omission) how can they know – with justifiable confidence – what information about the product launch will be relevant, or which employees will need to know it??(Email overload, anyone?)?Evidently, this so-called ‘purpose’ is incomplete.?It is not yet valid.

More insidiously, if someone follows best practice to deliver an invalid purpose, they risk using the most efficient and effective ways of producing the wrong result.?As we said: the very concept of best practice simply isn’t good enough.

Clearly, then, with each of your organisation’s IC practices, your IC Specialists need to include this additional validation step when defining its purpose. ?Only then can everyone have justifiable confidence in the purposes of every practice they’re being asked to follow.?Or can they?

3.?Everyone can see the ‘workings out’

When it comes to setting the rules of the game for budget management, the Finance Specialists have several advantages over their IC counterparts.?

The first is historical.?They’ve been setting the rules for decades.?It’s pretty much inconceivable there will be anyone in the workplace who can remember a time when the Finance Team weren’t defining how to manage budgets.?Accountants also have the advantage of universally respected qualifications to back them up.?And there’s plenty of legislation that covers corporate fiscal responsibility.?

None of these is currently in place when it comes to Internal Communication.?And on top of that, lest we forget, IC is something which, it's widely believed ‘anyone can do’.?So, even when the IC Specialists have done their due diligence in defining and validating their practices’ purposes, this is unlikely always to be enough.??

To convince your managers to play ball (many of whom may long have been telling themselves they already know how to do IC, coz anybody can) the IC team will need to be able to demonstrate why the practices need to be followed.?In short, they have to show their workings out, in two key ways:

• What makes the purpose of each practice valid?
• What makes their recommended way of doing things fit for those demonstrably valid purposes?

?Again, best practice has no explicit requirement for anyone to be able to see the workings out.?DFVP is, demonstrably, a far more robust approach.?The due diligence is there for everyone to see.?However, some people might view it as ‘a bit of a faff’.?They might even suggest it’s “undue diligence”.?Would it really be worth the effort??

That's a vital question which needs careful thought. So we'll explore it, diligently, in the next chapter.

About the author

We are Russell+Olivia Brooklands (ROB) - and we've been working in the field of Internal Communication for over 25 years.?Through our consultancy work and training programmes we've helped IC Specialists to up their game on four continents, in blue chip companies like GSK and Airbus, and major national and international bodies, including the European Central Bank and the UN. We were one of the founding Directors of the Institute of Internal Communication.?And we're leading the IC Practice Governance initiative, to help IC Teams better support line managers in becoming increasingly effective communicators.

You can find out more about our work, and how we can help you to easily make your life better, at commgame.co.uk