Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management: Radically Rethinking Management for a Volatile World, Third Edition

Chapter 4. Using Best Practices to Drive Change

	Plan ahead: It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.
	--Richard Cushing

A BRIEF HISTORY

Seeking out and copying the best products, methods, or tools has been a routine part of life ever since the earliest humans copied and refined the skills of the best hunters, tool makers, and warriors. A continuous cycle of innovation, adaptation, and enhancement underpins the creation of knowledge and wealth throughout history (see Exhibit 4.1).

The breakthrough event in any innovation cycle is the invention of a radically new product, method, or application. From the invention of the wheel (ca. 3,200 B.C.), through paper (ca. A.D. 105), to the telephone (1876) and the Internet (1973), each new breakthrough creates something that demonstrably adds value and is a clear best practice relative to the other alternatives available at the time. Once a best practice is recognized and communicated, adoption rates tend to accelerate dramatically as imitators seek to realize the same benefits. Increasing adoption inevitably leads some imitators to enhance or adapt the breakthrough to new applications, thereby improving on the original. Such is the process by which best practices are created, deployed, and enhanced.

Any individual, product, or activity that succeeds in distinguishing itself becomes a target for imitation. You do not have to be a student of economics to observe this phenomenon. For example, in the entertainment world, the first James Bond film, ...