Don’t remember when I read it first. May be some 6 -7 years back. But I do remember where I read it. From the pages of The Hindu. Especially the phrase! “That was Best, could have been better.”
That wonderful article is still green in my memory. Maybe the gene I had inherited has a Soccer chromosome. Or is it the wonderful and enviable prose in which Nirmal Shekhar wordsmiths his poetry on sports in the pages of The Hindu. It was an obituary on George Best, the football legend. A well-deserved one.
The trigger that made this memory stream, to pop out of the depths of my rather greying neuron web was a conversation I had with a friend of mine. On what else, but the “Practise of best practices”. I had to strain my sinews to convey the message that “what worked wonders somewhere else may end up as cropper at her place”.
Nature understands it. Sadly we don’t.
Giant redwood sequoia trees are good for the shores of California, but for the sand dunes of Arabia cactus is more suitable.
Though it is in Professional services this hackneyed phrase of best practice used to death, I would rather blame it on the way our civilization has evolved.
I would not be totally off the mark in saying that the “Practise of best practices” and survival of mankind has gone hand in hand. [Literally paraphrasing Aswath Damodaran’s quote on Risk from his classic book on RISK. IMV the best book on RISK].
The average life span of our ancestors was less than 40. They seemed to have lived short and unforgiving lives. Instant decisions they had to make on a moment to moment basis had to be from their reptilian parts of their brain. The moments of truth such as “Get your supper or be one” never affords one, the luxury of strategic decision making. There was always one best way of getting away from a preying animal. Do you remember the South African comedy movie “the Gods must be crazy” in which an African bushman travels to the end of the earth to get rid of trouble making coca cola bottle. Now remember the little boy and the hyena scene. The way the young African bushman boy tried to appear bigger was / is a best practice. I would recommend one of my favorite books, The Cry of the Kalahari, in which Mark and Delia Owens have documented their own time with the Lions of Kalahari. It is said “If you see a lion, do not try to run away or turn your back on the animal. Try to make and hold eye-contact with the lion. With many cat species, prolonged eye-contact is a sign of dominance. Try to appear larger, in any way possible. If you have a child with you, try to put them on your shoulders, to make you appear even bigger.”
Travelling further ahead, Lions have made ways to modern buildings. Incidentally most of the Best Practices has originated from 4 human endeavors. Construction, Farming, Shipping and War.
In Ancient Rome, where giant arches were built as a way of showing off, they had one quirky way of ensuring quality. When they removed scaffolding, it was always warranted that the builder stood underneath. That was quite an incentive to ensure a good job. And some of those arches did last for a very long time. The ones that did not were the ones in which the architect was buried alive, half dead or dead. (I really wish one of my good friend, who makes his millions from Clinical research of medicines, adopts this practice.)
The point is there was always one best way to survive for our ancestors. Either one used to learn from the wisdom of the way from the ‘One fortunate One’ who survived to tell his story. Or Perish. The choice was that simple. Now this is a cursor to how the affinity of best practice seeped into our own subconscious mind similar to “fight or flight”.
Times had changed but acquired habits did not.
Even though the corporate jungles are no different thematically, in a way we are more fortunate than our ancestors and don’t have to imprison ourselves in the prison of mindless mechanical way of doing things. We can always use the thinking part of our brain and “Apply thought”.
As a Consultant, it is vital for us to get rid of the mantra “What is good for Peter is good for Paul”.
One Best practice which will always do good, is ADAPT [to the new Context (culture, environment, constraints and possibilities), become ADEPT before ADOPTing a best practice to your situation.
Or we may end up hearing again “That was BEST, but could have been better”.
kokoroZendo 
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