Best Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Remember massive newspapers?

In 1712 the UK government introduced a tax on newspapers.

This incredibly dubious tax was designed primarily to price poor people out of sources of information and news.

The tax was charged on each page printed.

One crafty publisher spotted a loophole.

They realised that if they printed the same amount of news on fewer, larger pages, they could provide the same quality product with half the tax.

Others quickly copied the idea, until everyone was using the new ‘broadsheet’ format.

It was the era of the industrial revolution and Great Britain was leading the way.

People around the world were watching what was happening in the UK and embracing the new best practices.

And as the world adopted the brilliant innovations of mechanisation, steam power and factories, they also adopted the broadsheet newspaper format.

Despite there being no local newspaper taxes, they believed that if the British Empire was printing massive newspapers, it must be the way to go.

So the broadsheet became the global best practice.

The newspaper tax was eventually abolished in 1855, removing the incentive for printing huge papers.

But a century of use had fully engrained the best practice, so universal use of the broadsheet continued.

By the turn of the millennium, even people in the printing industry had forgotten the reason why they printed these massive newspapers.

It was just something that quality newspapers did.

It cost them more to print at that size and it was a terrible experience for their readers (and the people sitting next to them on the train).

UK broadsheets were 60 cm tall and ¾ of a meter wide when open - the size of a standard under-counter kitchen cabinet.

Reading them in busy public places involved a complex mix of origami and wrestling.

Even worse for the broadsheets, the market was shrinking as more people were now starting to get their news online.

In 2003, the Independent, which at the time was on the verge of bankruptcy, decided they had to try something to reverse their fortunes.

the Independent followed best practice when they launched as a broadsheet in 1986

They decided to test whether the broadsheet really was the best practice.

So they ran an AB test.

They started publishing their paper in two formats across London - the traditional broadsheet and a compact version half the size.

Apart from the size of the paper, the contents, the price, and where you could buy it, were kept exactly the same.

Simon Kelner, the editor-in-chief, said: "The concept of consumer choice is not a new one, but this is the first time this idea has been embraced in the newspaper market. Our readers, particularly those who commute to work, have long expressed a desire for a more convenient format for their paper.”

Their customers loved it.

The compact size outsold the broadsheet three to one.

They then expanded the test to the north west of England, and with just those two areas offering the new format, their national distribution increased by 7.5%

The Independent soon stopped the bad practice of the broadsheet and switched fully to the compact version.

Within six months, as they stole a march on their competitors, their circulation grew by 27%.

"It's one of those ideas that's so good you don't know why somebody hasn't done it before now," wrote Bill Hagerty in the British Journalism Review.

The rest of the broadsheet publishers were watching and within a couple of years the majority of the broadsheets had switched to smaller formats.

290 years after the best practice was established and 150 years after the best practice had passed its usefulness, the broadsheet was yesterday’s news.

And a new best practice was established.

(At least it was in the UK - broadsheets are still holding out as the primary newspaper format in a lot of the countries that followed the initial trend including the USA, Canada and India.)

(Also in the UK a small number of holdouts still exist, The Daily Telegraph who picked up the laggard readers that demanded the format they always used to have, the Financial Times who use it as a way to clarify what class of people buy it, and the Sunday Times which is only read by people doing the exact opposite of commuting.)

(Also the internet has almost fully superseded the newspaper market, requiring a host of new best practices to be sought by the industry.)

Best Practice

All organisations have best practices - learnings that have been created and passed along over the years.

They are either created internally, or sometimes industry standards.

Some are hard won and invaluable, like the technical specifications for the design, materials, and processes needed for civil engineering, that have been produced in part from some terrible past failures.

But best practice is always an historical artefact.

They are yesterday’s solution to yesterday’s problem.

So you always need to challenge them to ensure the principles behind them are still valid or could be improved.

“Best practices usually aren’t.” - Christopher Locke

Normal Practice - “It’s how we’ve always done it.”

Where well-researched industry standards are invaluable, often what is called best practice is just organisation or industry norms.

The broadsheet format that had started out as best practice in the newspaper industry, soon just became a cultural norm.

It was how it was always done.

The thinking behind the best practice was lost, but the process remained.

Because it had become a best practice people followed it without challenging the idea for an incredible length of time.

It became so ingrained in the culture that the very idea of doing something else cowed even the most powerful publishers into inaction.

Rupert Murdoch, the publisher of The Times said during the transition of his newspaper that,”If I had done it [first] I'd have been ridiculed for debasing the Times. But I'm glad the Independent has gone ahead because now we can try to do it without any problems.

The unchallenged adherence to best practice something you see frequently in business, organisations and all around us.

Comfortable Practice

The best practice of broadsheet worked for the newspapers in one nation at a specific moment in time.

Other nations copied the leaders of the industrial revolution even when it made no real sense, because it gave them a false sense of borrowed confidence.

The people adopting the best practice didn’t know the principles, just the practice.

Wrong Practice

In a rapidly changing world, more and more people are seeking the best practice like the global newspaper publishers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

You can track the phrase through Google Books.

But what works best in one sector or once business may not work best in another.

That bump in the popularity of best practice between 1910 and 1930 was the peak of Taylorism and scientific management.

Frederick Winslow Taylor was an early management consultant.

He focused on maximising productivity by analysing and optimising workflows, breaking tasks into simple, repetitive steps, and using time-motion studies to find the "one best way" to perform each job.

His methods could significantly boost output in factories, but it also tended to produce monotonous low-skilled work which damaged morale.

It was the one big management idea in the market, so everyone was adopting it, even when they shouldn’t have.

When it was outside of factories it was often hugely damaging.

Even the best practices fail when transplanted without context.

Complex Practice

Systems are complex and best practice often needs to be too.

But a lot of best practice is shared in the simple form of charts, formulas, checklists or templates.

And when you reduce complexity to templates they often become too simplistic to work.

Even brilliant ideas fail if they are poorly understood or implemented.

“People who learn things based on guides, rules or best practice, don’t know the principles. If you learn the foundation, the ability to grow is open. One of my advertising heroes, Bill Bernbach, said, “Principles endure, formulas don’t.” Lessons that you work out for yourself are more powerful than rules you memorise parrot fashion.” - Dave Trott (Predatory Thinking)

They fail because of contingency theory.

There is no simple and singular best way to organise a corporation, lead a company, or make decisions.

You have to account for the contingency factors - situational variables like the economy, technology, culture, workforce skills, and external factors like laws or market demands.

And every best practice has to be assessed, tested and used flexibly to succeed.

Bad Practice

Along with the great ideas, and potentially useful ideas, come the bad ideas.

Best practice can often just be bad practices masquerading as good practice.

They feel credible because they’ve been codified.

But often the work needed to determine that a practice is "best" is rarely done.

When you choose to adopt a best practice you have to challenge the principles they are based on.

“The process of constant renewal: creating new products, processes, and services: and bucking the status quo can create a potent antidote to inertia, which is what bad practices thrive on.” - Freek Vermeulen

Challenging Practice

Best practice is a starting point, not a destination.

“If you don’t challenge the status quo, and either validate that what you're doing is still right, given the way the world has evolved, or determine that it isn’t right and figure out where it’s all going, then eventually you’re going to fall back.” - Jonathan Kraft, President of the New England Patriots *

You need to use critical thinking and experimentation to interrogate any best practice.

It’s best to think of them as ‘good’ practice or ‘promising’ practice rather than best practice.

"The only best practice in which I have complete confidence is avoiding the label 'best practice'" - Michael Quinn Patton

“In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is that once we’ve declared a routine best, it becomes frozen in time. We preach about its virtues and stop questioning its vices, no longer curious about where it’s imperfect and where it could improve. Organizational learning should be an ongoing activity but best practices imply it has reached an endpoint. We might be better off looking for better practices.” - Adam Grant (Think Again)

Could your best practice be better practice?

---

Claire Cozens, “Times to scrap broadsheet from Monday”, The Guardian (2004)

“'The Independent' announces launch of 'compact' version in North-west”, The Independent (2003)

* Nigel Travis, "The Challenge Culture", PublicAffairs (2018)