Practices, or possibilities?
Every time I hear the term “best practices” I cringe a little. We hear it frequently in the association world; we all want to know how another organization’s success can be transplanted into our own. It’s human nature to want to avoid reinventing the wheel…and gee, if we could just take that strategy, that event, that plan and paste it into our organization, we’d be successful too!
Who’s to say what’s best, when parameters can vary so widely? Even use of the more palatable (to me) term “effective” in place of “best” puts limitations on the creativity and innovation an organization might generate if it looked inside and considered its possibilities. Yes, it’s helpful to see what others have done, and how it’s worked for them. However, what has worked great in another organization doesn’t take into consideration our own uniqueness, challenges, and strengths.
We like to solve HOW we do things, without spending much time on WHY we do them. When embroiled in the tyranny of the urgent, it’s really difficult to think about possibilities. We don’t ask “what if” questions nearly enough; we’re generally way too busy focusing on “how do we…?” to spend time with “what if we…?” – a much more challenging and powerful question.
What if, when you return from Boston loaded with new ideas and new possibilities, you asked your colleagues “what if we…”? What possibilities might that conversation generate?