The Search for Best Practices will help you do the right thing and in the right way in spite of organizational roadblocks. It gives a real “how to” look to assist management and operations personnel to analyze their operations in a program of continuous improvements and on-going search for best practices so that each entity operates most economically, efficiently, and effectively—tied into why the entity is in existence in the first place. Best practice techniques assist the company in identifying its critical problem areas and treating the cause and not the symptom. With sensible business principles as the hallmark for the company’s quest for best practices, the company can be clear as to the direction of movement and avoid merely improving poor practices or matching competitors’ less than desirable practices—that is, being less inefficient than competitors. Clear business principles that make sense to all levels of the organization allow the company to identify and develop the proper best practices. In this manner, everyone in the organization is moving in the same desired direction—and singing from the same songbook. The viruses that corrupt a business organization can be widespread and quite contagious. Nouveau quick fixes may be okay in the short term, but over the long haul, the company needs to know what they are doing. If the company doesn’t, some other company will.
