What kind of practices?

I often hear people talking about how critical it is to follow "best business practices." It's been under my skin for a while, but I really started thinking how awful the concept is last night.

I'm not sure if users of this phrase realize what happened with best business practices last year. They have nearly killed us. As long as profits continued to rise, people thought the companies must be doing something right. Remember that one time when Enron was so awesome? They may not have been using certifiable best accounting practices, but their auditors were still letting them pass. In general, they looked like an awesome company doing everything right.

That's another misuse of the phrase. I hear it used for anything related to how work gets done, from business processes to accounting to how long I take in the bathroom. Just kidding on that last one.

Another fallacy is that there is a monolithic "best" to be practiced. Who determines what is best? Is it what the business community seems to be doing at the time? Mmm, design by committee. Is there a best practices board? Who appointed them?

And for my angriest critique. Best business practices are stultifying, and they breed laziness. These are two sides of the same coin, but they each bear highlighting. This idea ensures there is no creativity. You don't sit around the table saying, "What's a creative solution?" You say, "What's everybody else who's smarter and better than me doing?" Users may not start this way, but this process ends in laziness. "Just tell me what to change." If you spend all your time fixated on best practices, you'll soon be left in the dust trying to catch up to what may or may not be best. Should these be called "fine enough for lazy follower practices"?

There's a cultural/linguistic thing going here. We've seen how "progress" joined the pantheon of American/Western ideals. Always gotta grow. More profits this year. Cut your expenses, unless you add profits and then some. More SKUs. More brochures. As was proven in this last year, unless you choose a sustainable growth path of a few percent per year in an established field, your company will be hurting badly at the next down cycle. So we're always looking to grow faster than we should. We're looking for the *best* way to do things. Whatever happened to "good business practices"? What's wrong with good? The comparative and superlative denigrate the old lowly "good," which could really mean "honest" or "sustainable."

God declared his creation "good," even "very good." He didn't call it "best," because he wanted his creatures to industriously and creatively steward his creation in a way that would glorify him.