Best practices are yesterday’s innovations
Best practices feel like the guaranteed way to succeed. Calvin Ross Carl on what they really are: yesterday’s innovations that everyone agreed to follow.
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl sets up the conversation by defining his terms. Everyone knows what best practices are: the standards, the way you’re supposed to do it, the guaranteed path to success. What people forget is where they came from. Best practices are just yesterday’s innovations.
Highlights
- Best practices are the accepted standards for how work gets done.
- They feel like a guaranteed path to success.
- They’re really just yesterday’s innovations.
Key insights
A standard is a snapshot
What counts as the right way today was set by whoever innovated last.
Guaranteed isn’t the same as new
Following the standard can get you to success, but only the kind that already exists.
Detailed analysis
This short definition reframes everything that follows. If best practices are old innovations, then treating them as permanent rules means organizing around the past. Seeing them as a moment in time makes it easier to question them.
Conclusion
Best practices started as someone’s bold idea. Treat them that way.
We should probably establish what I mean when I talk about best practices. We all know what they are. It’s the standards: this is the way you’re supposed to do it, this is the right way, this is the guaranteed way to get to success. But I think we also forget that best practices are just yesterday’s innovations.