That flaw is cultural differences. Different groups of people possess different mindsets, behaviors and attitudes, and therefore work optimally under different processes and rules. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Best practices are optimized for a particular place and time and don’t necessarily transfer well between cultures. They’re like a shoe that doesn’t always fit. You can put the shoe on, and it may even look nice, but it will likely create blisters if the fit isn’t exactly right.”
And eventually, those blisters will start to hurt too badly for anyone to continue wearing the shoe. To achieve desired outcomes, leaders must be willing to alter the way they approach “best practices” to accommodate the differences their staff in different departments or facilities share.
Here are four tips when it comes to best practices, according to the Harvard Business Review.
1. Focus on the goal of the practice, not specific behaviors. If leaders focus on the intended outcomes of a best practice instead of narrowly focusing on specific behaviors or rules, they can create space for employees to adapt the practice to their cultural context. This makes it more likely for employees to carry out the practice successfully.
2. Enlist a cultural liaison to help translate the practice. A cultural liaison is someone who has a deep understanding of the practice and can help ensure it is adapted to fit a specific culture while still maintaining the spirit of the original idea, according to the report.
3. Don’t strive for replication, but prioritize compatibility. When teams operate in disparate locations or departments, it is important to allow each site to adapt the practice to their own cultural context. However, if the practice changes too much, the differences that emerge can cause confusion and strain coordination.
4. Get comfortable with experimentation. Because it often takes numerous iterations to find an adaptation of a practice that is a cultural match and achieves the original intent of the practice, leaders must be supportive of the experimentation process, which can take time.
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