Uncovering best practices can have a powerful impact on organizations. It breaks established paradigms, creates a readiness for action, and provides models of excellence. The bottom-line results are significant as well. Executives have long been frustrated by their inability to identify or transfer outstanding practices. Barriers originate from a lack of motivation to adopt the practice and an inadequate process of identifying, understanding, and adapting outstanding practices.
Most people have a natural desire to learn, to share what they know, and to make things better.
This natural desire is thwarted by a variety of logistical, structural, and cultural hurdles and deterrents, which follow. A culture may value personal technical expertise and knowledge creation over knowledge sharing. There may be an over-reliance on transmitting explicit, rather than tacit, information. People may not be rewarded or even allowed to take the time to learn and share and help each other. Best-Practice Transfer Use benchmarking to create a sense of urgency or find a compelling reason to change.