The Olympics Show the Limits of Best Practices

U.S. Olympic speed skater Kamryn Lute is the daughter of a dear friend and mentor. She competed on February 18th in the women’s 1500m race.

The Olympics remind me of the limits of best practices. Do you remember the double axel jump in figure skating? Perfecting the move was once essential to medal. Now, athletes are hitting quadruples. Vaults in the 1980s gymnastics look basic compared to today’s double- or triple-twisting double-backs. Freestyle skiing and snowboarding often feature multiple corkscrews and 1440+ rotations (that’s four full revolutions in the air).

Best-practice thinking would have deprived us of these feats, because athletes would seek to perfect existing moves rather than invent better ones.

Sears’ catalogue-based sales were a best practice for a century until Amazon came along. Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar stores and late fees kept the company profitable until Netflix began streaming. Kodak invented and rejected the digital photograph. Film was the best practice.

Innovation is applied ingenuity. You improve or invent new practices instead of perfecting existing ones. A better-practices mindset requires Consistent Curiosity, Strong Standards, and Appropriate Adaptability.

Without curiosity, you will be content with best practices. Lack of strong standards means you’ll execute new ideas poorly. Poor adaptability results in resistance to change.

Hire for these behaviors and promote people who demonstrate them if you want your business to be driven by a thirst for better practices. You’ll be Quinting while others are perfecting the double loop.

In business, like sports, patterns don’t break by themselves. They break by design.

About Author

Chris Kolenda

I work with leaders who want to build unshakeable business endurance.

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