Replicating Best Practice

Often we look outside our organisations for best practices and seek to implement them internally, but sometimes, best practices are already happening within, without our even knowing it. Take Department A. They have few customer complaints, minimal lead times for jobs, above budget sales, invoicing is always up to date, and they are extremely profitable. Then you have the dreaded Department B: the direct opposite of Department A and you spend an excessive amount of time putting out fires and propping it up from the profits of Department A. If I were consulting to this company, I would look at what the people within Department A are doing well; what their work habits and personal efficiencies are; what processes they are using; what meetings (or lack thereof) they are having and so on. Once I had this documented, I would then seek to duplicate this in Department A. Part of the duplication process (where people are concerned) would be having the high performers, coaching the lower performers and providing feedback along the way. One such example was a company I consulted to who had losses of $380,000 in one department, yet the other was significantly profitable. Using the replication of internal best practices, we brought the department back to breakeven within six months. Whether it is between departments, individual personnel or an organisation against another, best practice implementation and integration can be a relatively simple process. Find out what the best are doing and seek to replicate it. Photo by Dietmar Becker