Why Best Practice Stifles Creativity And Is Only For The Gullible

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Clients usually want to hear about best practices in Customer Experience. It's understandable why; People want to emulate the success and skip implementing ideas that don't work. However, I don't like the term "best practices" in this context, and I don't advise this approach—at least not without caveats.

We discussed why we don't like the idea of Customer Experience best practices on a recent podcast. I will begin by putting: Best practices stifle creativity, and those that follow them (blindly) are gullible. 

Perhaps I should explain. When people ask me about best practices, they appeal to my two decades' worth of experience in the field. They figure I have seen the good and bad, as well as companies that have achieved results and those that haven't. I don't think that is wrong, nor do I want to cast that aside as false. That's all true for other experts in their respective fields and me. Moreover, experts are also excellent at coming up with hypotheses efficiently. 

However, hypotheses need testing. 

Therefore, my issue is not with asking experts for counsel. My concern is with the use of the phrase "best practice." The term indicates that the suggestion is not a hypothesis that you should test, but instead an answer, and the best one, no less! When companies hire me to improve their Customer Experience or make things more efficient, I can hypothesize there. However, we need to test my hypothesis to ensure it works in the company's setting and detect any required refinements.

For example, clients might ask for my opinion, and I would give them 75 percent common sense and 25 percent hypothesis. I might say, "To have a customer-centric culture, you need to measure the experience you provide now." Now, most people agree that understanding where you are now and what you need to change is a great way to begin the project. This part is 75 percent of common sense. The 25 percent hypothesis is how you measure the experience you provide now, and different Customer Experience experts will have various ways to do that. 

Find the Middle Ground Between Gullibility and Nihilism

There are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to accepting expert opinions. On the one hand, some would take best practices, which means expert's hypothesis, and substitute the meaning, "what you should do in this situation." At this end of the spectrum, I would encourage people to be a little skeptical of things they hear from experts. However, if we are just too unsure all the time about everything, then we get to the other end of the spectrum. This side leads to situations where people can't agree on a set of facts, let alone what one should do about them. If our skepticism leads us to the point of Nihilism where we feel there's no point to anything and nothing matters, then we are a bit extreme on this end. 

The best situation is to avoid either end of the spectrum. Skepticism should be a tool for us. It should improve the way we do things. If it leads us into a corner where we can't believe anything, then we've gone too far. On the other hand, blind faith has its problems, also. A moderate position is to challenge thinking behind best practices while at the same time listening to the facts and the opinions of experts. 

One of the first clients I ever worked for as a consultant was a water utility in the UK. Before this, I had spent the entirety of my career in corporate life. We all know that it can be difficult to voice a different opinion in a corporate position than the boss. The utility was different. They had a culture where they encouraged people to challenge things. When they had a differing opinion, the team would say, "I'd like to challenge that." Not only did that phrase take the edge off the disagreement, but also it led to more people sharing opinions, which, ultimately, resulted in better hypotheses. 

Applying that concept to the idea of a moderate position on the spectrum is essential. No one is the sum of all knowledge. Experts have an informed opinion, but you don't have to agree with everything they say or that their suggestion is a best practice. We would encourage people to avoid blindly accepting anything. But we want people to prevent automatically rejecting, too. 

I enjoy debating things with the client because you get a chance to educate them. You can see the lights of realization coming on. I've learned over the years that a little debate and challenge gets clients' brains moving. Moreover, their questions help you understand their industry's nuances and challenges and what the company's perspective is. 

We hosted Customer Experience pioneer Joe Pine, who wrote a great book with Jim Gilmore called The Experience Economy on a podcast recently. I read it in 1998 when I was still in my corporate position. We were on a webinar together when someone asked us who else was doing the things we were suggesting. Pine explained that innovation means that there's not many people doing it. 

Pine's statement is an extension of the idea that best practices stifle creativity. If you copy what other people have done, you are not innovating. Furthermore, you are not differentiating yourself. So while you must understand what works and what other organizations have done, because undoubtedly there is learning there, it doesn't mean you should do the same in a rote manner because you're going to miss out on some stuff.

That's all the first problem with best practice as a philosophy. The second is convergent thinking. It's we're not going to look for new opportunities, new better ways of doing things, we're going to do what everybody else is doing. However, there is no long-term advantage to that. So learn from what other people are doing, but then forge ahead on your own to get the benefits you can in the marketplace. 

The Best Practices for Handling Best Practices

I could rattle off many things that are best practices in Customer Experience, and I would defend those things because I've seen them work in organizations. So, I would recommend them, but there is no official blessing that they are best practices.

Don't reject best practices as you find them because best practices can be educational. Instead, leaven them with a dash of skepticism and treat them more like a hypothesis. So if somebody tells you this is the best practice, test it and make sure. You might also use the best practice as a starting point for developing further hypotheses. What if we did even more of this? Or what if we tailor this to what we know about our customers to get something better?

It's interesting to find out what other people perceive as best practices. So, ask the question, hear the answer, and consider the source. Who is providing me this information? What's the basis of them providing me this information? Does this all apply to me in my situation? In my view, 70 to 80 percent of it probably will. 

However, remember to innovate, too. If everybody's implementing best practice, understand what it is and how it would help you, but remember it would be best to differentiate yourself.

Also, use skepticism as a tool. We talked about how doubt is best used in moderation and applied appropriately. Skepticism is a good thing that makes you a scientist. Scientists learn by questioning received wisdom. The problem with suspicion involved in business (and in life) is that people burn through their skepticism. Businesspeople can be incredibly skeptical up until the point where they've rejected everything, and then they're not suspicious at all toward the thing they want to believe. This behavior is very human. 

So, question best practices from experts, but do it to understand better what's going on. Don't reject and then replace it with a wholehearted belief in something else that you blindly accept. Also, don't just take advice blindly and follow the leader without questions. It could have disastrous long-term effects, ranging from loss of innovation and creativity to loss of business. Instead, listen, question, implement and test. Who knows, you might come up with the best practice that someone else is questioning next year?

There you have it. No promotions, no gimmicks, just good information. 

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