Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Best practice is the enemy of common sense

I hear this "best practice" term so much that I can't resist to ask "says who?" LOL.

When we look at any great discovery of human kind, the common denominator was actually "common sense" and in fact the so considered "best practice" at the time was actually holding further discoveries from being achieved.

With "best practice" you are guaranteed to become one more, to integrate more. With "common sense" you are guaranteed to become a different one, to differentiate more. And it is precisely there, in differentiation, where you get a competitive edge.

"Common practice" leads to a a perfect competition, stagnant, rigid and dogmatic environment. But "common sense" leads us to constant adaptation and survival that are key to achieve competitive advantage (even though such advantage is really ephemeral, unless of course everybody looks at such advantage as a "common practice" ;-)

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal) apparently wrote more than 2100 years ago that "Rarus enim ferme sensus communis", meaning "Common sense is generally rare". This is the bad news for business because it is only "common sense" to expect that in the modern world of instant gratification, thinking is a hard thing to do. It is easier to go after "best practices", unfortunately.

I would go forever but I think Albert Einstein puts it in short, beautifully with "common sense": "Don't stop questioning"

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