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What’s wrong with best practice? How the quest for certainty affects the agility and innovation needed for organisations to thrive
We see all around us the evidence that science works. For many years there has been an effort to apply scientific thinking to management. In organisations, managers attempt to define and spread ‘best practice,’ which seems to offer certainty about the correct procedures to follow. Daniel Thornton considers why using terms such as ‘best practice’ is bad practice, and suggests an alternative approach that could help to navigate the complexities of organisational life.