I think best practices become incredibly dangerous because of how precise and prescriptive they are. They seem so specific, but in reality, they lack the context that only you can provide. However, when we begin to deploy our intuition, we start considering the variables that best practices miss. We can’t know them all, but we can come a lot closer
... See moreJay Acunzo • Break the Wheel: Question Best Practices, Hone Your Intuition, and Do Your Best Work
Success requires shamelessness. So too does failure. Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely. If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same results that everyone else gets.[*] Best practices aren’t always the best. By definition, they’re average.
Shane Parrish • Clear Thinking
Be skeptical of “best” practice. In his book The Power of Moments, Chip Heath cautions, “Beware of the soul-sucking force of ‘reasonableness.’” Conventional wisdom and industry best practices will homogenize, not differentiate.
Finn has strong feelings about trying to copy anyone else’s recipe for success. “That’s not where you start. Particularly with marketing or anything creative, you don’t try to replicate it. You try to smash it on the ground, pick it apart, maybe see if there’s something that works in it, and then rebuild something completely different.”