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Against Best Practices

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279 points ingve | 10 comments | 18 Nov 24 07:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.003s | source | bottom
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lkrubner ◴[18 Nov 24 16:19 UTC] No.42173871[source]▶
Dan Morena, CTO at Upright.com, made the point that every startup was unique and therefore every startup had to find out what was best for it, while ignoring whatever was considered "best practice." I wrote what he told me here:

https://respectfulleadership.substack.com/p/dan-morena-is-a-...

My summary of his idea:

No army has ever conquered a country. An army conquers this muddy ditch over here, that open wheat field over there and then the adjoining farm buildings. It conquers that copse of lush oak trees next to the large outcropping of granite rocks. An army seizes that grassy hill top, it digs in on the west side of this particular fast flowing river, it gains control over the 12 story gray and red brick downtown office building, fighting room to room. If you are watching from a great distance, you might think that an army has conquered a country, but if you listen to the people who are involved in the struggle, then you are aware how much "a country" is an abstraction. The real work is made up of specifics: buildings, roads, trees, ditches, rivers, bushes, rocks, fields, houses. When a person talks in abstractions, it only shows how little they know. The people who have meaningful information talk about specifics.

Likewise, no one builds a startup. Instead, you build your startup, and your startup is completely unique, and possesses features that no other startup will ever have. Your success will depend on adapting to those attributes that make it unique.

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1. coding123 ◴[18 Nov 24 19:15 UTC] No.42175845[source]▶
The army that is conquering is carrying best practice weapons, wearing best practice boots, best practice fatigues, best practice tanks, trucks, etc.

They're best practice aiming, shooting, walking, communicating, hiring (mercs), hiding, etc...

The people that are in the weeds are just doing the most simple things for their personal situation as they're taking over that granite rock or "copse of lush oak trees".

It's easy to use a lot of words to pretend your point has meaning, but often, like KH - it doesn't.

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2. godelski ◴[18 Nov 24 19:44 UTC] No.42176134[source]▶
This is frequently not true. There’s examples all through history of weaker and poorer armies defeating larger ones. From Zulus, to the American Revolution, to the great Emu wars. Surely the birds were not more advanced than men armed with machine guns. But it’s only when the smaller forces can take advantage and leverage what they have better than others. It’s best practices, but what’s best is not universal, it’s best for who, best for when, best for under what circumstances
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3. adamc ◴[18 Nov 24 20:17 UTC] No.42176452[source]▶
Often not true. Often they are just "good enough" weapons, etc.
4. coding123 ◴[18 Nov 24 20:19 UTC] No.42176464[source]▶
That doesn't defeat my point- is the smaller/poorer army using best practices?

When all things are the same, the army with more will win.

When all things are not the same, there are little bonuses that can cause the smaller/poorer, malnourished army to win against those with machine guns. Often it's just knowing the territory. Again though, these people are individually making decisions. There isn't some massively smart borg ball sending individual orders to shoot 3 inches to the left to each drone.

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5. godelski ◴[18 Nov 24 20:33 UTC] No.42176634{3}[source]▶

  > That doesn't defeat my point- is the smaller/poorer army using best practices?
I don't agree, but neither do I disagree. But I do think it is ambiguous enough that it is not using best practices to illustrate the point you intend.

  > malnourished army to win against those with machine guns
With my example I meant literal birds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

6. cafard ◴[18 Nov 24 20:38 UTC] No.42176704[source]▶
The Zulus won a pitched battle or two, but lost the war.
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7. Aeolun ◴[18 Nov 24 23:57 UTC] No.42178617[source]▶
> It’s best practices, but what’s best is not universal, it’s best for who, best for when, best for under what circumstances.

I’m pretty sure building an organization on a free for all principle is anathema to the idea of an organization.

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8. lmm ◴[19 Nov 24 04:04 UTC] No.42180014[source]▶
Occasionally something novel and innovative beats the best practice. In that case it usually gradually gets adopted as best practice. More often it doesn't, and falls by the wayside.
9. chthonicdaemon ◴[19 Nov 24 11:20 UTC] No.42182248{3}[source]▶
Sure, they (eventually) lost against the British, but they won against many of the southern African tribes before.
10. jdbernard ◴[19 Nov 24 11:45 UTC] No.42182399{3}[source]▶
That's a straw man. The actual argument is about the danger of applying "best practices" uncritically, not about doing away with leadership.

"Do X because it's best practice" is very different than "do X because you were commanded by your rightful authority to do so."