Best practices are for the lazy and risk-averse leaders.
Yes, I said it.
Every time a CEO or executive tells me they want to implement “best practices,” I know exactly what’s coming next: A safe, predictable, and utterly forgettable company that will be disrupted in five years if not sooner.
If you’re copying what others have done, you’re already behind. And if you believe best practices will future-proof your business, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
“If you have to remind people, you’re the leader, you’re not leading. You’re just in charge”
Anon Tweet
The CEO’s dilemma: The illusion of safety
I was consulting for a mid-sized financial institution that wanted to “benchmark against industry best practices.” They were under pressure to grow, but instead of thinking about bold moves, they were obsessed with what their competitors were doing.
They hired consultants to conduct endless studies, analyzing what top banks were implementing AI chatbots, digital onboarding, and open banking APIs. But instead of making strategic bets, they copied features without understanding why they worked.
Result? No differentiation. No competitive advantage. Just another faceless player in the market, bleeding relevance.
And this is not just a banking problem. I see it in every industry:
- Manufacturers clinging to Six Sigma as if efficiency alone will save them.
- Retailers blindly implementing e-commerce strategies that worked for Amazon, ignoring their own strengths.
- Tech companies using the same agile frameworks but still struggling to innovate.
When you follow best practices, you let others dictate your strategy.
Best practices are just past practices
Here’s Mr Strategy’s take: Best practices are based on yesterday’s success, not tomorrow’s opportunity. They are about compliance and box-ticking, not disruption.
“Best Practices” are optimized for what worked under a specific context, in a specific market, at a specific time. But markets change. Technology evolves. Customer behavior shifts. By the time a practice is labeled “best,” it’s already losing its edge.
The unicorns, rule breakers, and leading companies didn’t follow best practices. They rewrote them:
- Apple didn’t benchmark Nokia’s “best practices.” They reinvented the phone.
- Tesla didn’t copy Toyota’s lean manufacturing. They built a direct-to-consumer model and made electric cars desirable.
- Netflix didn’t follow Blockbuster’s rental strategy. They killed it and created streaming.
What do these companies have in common? They didn’t settle for “best.” They built something different.
Stop following, start experimenting
If you want to future-proof your business, kill your obsession with best practices and start doing the following:
- Ask the right question: Instead of “What are others doing?” ask “What is our unique advantage?” and “What would disrupt us?”
- Fire the best-practice brigade: If your team’s first instinct is to copy competitors, you need new thinkers. Hire people who challenge assumptions.
- Pilot, don’t copy-paste: Experiment with small bets instead of blindly rolling out industry trends. Test, adapt, and refine based on what works for your company.
- Make decisions based on first principles: Instead of following industry norms, break problems down to their fundamental truths. What do your customers truly need? What technology will redefine your industry?
- Be uncomfortable: Growth happens in discomfort, not in the comfort zone of best practices. If a decision feels risky but exciting, you’re probably on the right path.
Be the case study, not the follower
Your company’s biggest threat isn’t missing out on best practices. It’s thinking best practices will save you.
If you’re playing by the same rules as everyone else, you’re not leading you’re following. And followers don’t make history.
So stop benchmarking. Start building something worth copying.
