FEBRUARY 5, 2021 – During my banking years, the “Best Practices” corporate fad worked its way into on-site drinking water. Senior management imposed quotas on lower management, and soon everyone was obsessed with generating “best practice” ideas just to mollify the Quota Police.
The fad topped the agenda of my boss’s weekly direct reports meetings. Each of us minions had to address performance by her/his division. Call it intentional peer pressure.
To my division I’d attracted iconoclasts. My main hiring criterion: you had to be smarter than me—admittedly, a low bar, but over time, as the people I hired applied the standard to their hiring practices, the group could hit home runs no matter how high the fence. Pre-occupied with hitting higher and farther, my people didn’t have time for “Best Practices.” For my managers—and me—the quotas were an irritant.
One week I resisted peer pressure at the direct reports meeting. “Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” said our boss.
“What’s driving ‘Best Practices’?”
“Good question,” he said. “It’s translatable to increased share value. We’ve estimated that on average, every Best Practice idea can add $1,000 in revenue generation or cost savings. If 40% of our workforce submit a Best Practice idea per person each month, that’d boost our stock value by $1.04 per share.”
Too much of a conformist to laugh out loud, I fingered the knot of my tie and said, “Can I offer a contrary perspective?” Pens dropped. I could be known for self-immolation.
“We’re all ears,” my boss said.
I knew he was lying—wax an inch thick plugged his ears. But since I’d taken the plunge, I had to swim.
“I think Best Practices could actually be a drag on shareholder value.”
“How so?” Curiosity had penetrated the wax.
“Three ways. First, you’ve got the lost productivity associated with 40,000 employees [40% of the bank’s 100,000 employees at the time] filling out Best Practice forms every month. Second, imagine how many people it takes to collect and deliver those 40,000 forms [all paper; nothing was submittable online]—every month; not to mention the legions of employees who review 40,000 submittals and decide what’s dumb, smart, workable, non-workable—and what falls beyond the reviewer’s understanding. Third, every month another army has to stick 40,000 little pennants—costing what?—and ‘acknowledgment certificates’ in envelopes for delivery back to the poor schmucks who’d been pistol-whipped into meeting an arbitrary quota.
“Add all that up, and my estimator-calculator says it depresses share value by at least $1.04.
“All of which suggests that the best Best Practice is elimination of the program.”
No one dared utter a word. I sensed that at least two of my peers were relishing my self-destruction. Our boss had his eye on a higher position, which meant each of us was a potential successor. My best Best Practice idea was a bad one for advancement.
“Moving on with the agenda,” our boss said, breaking the awkward silence.
In time, he was moved up, and I was moved . . . out.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
