Best practices in volunteering may not be the best after all

I have a problem with the term “best practices.”

Too often, what we call best practices for volunteerism, aren’t really the best. They are either the best we know of so far or they’re simply the ones someone called the best and so everyone else follows them.

When I was walking my dog the other day, I took the picture above. Funny, isn’t it? There is a direct line between where I stand and the exit of the field, but the path trodden in the snow is wiggly. It’s just that the first person who walked across in the new snow wandered for some reason. The second person, and the third and so on, just automatically followed the same path rather than cutting straight across. It’s not even that the snow is deep.

This is a great analogy for how we humans often adopt ideas.

Think about it. If we need to do something we’ve never done before, the first thing most of us do is find out how other people have done it. After all, why reinvent the wheel? So we do things the same way others did it in the past, as long as it works.

But, as Patty McCord states in her TED talk, Eight lessons on building a company people enjoy working for, “There’s all kinds of things that we call ‘best practices’ that aren’t best practices at all. And how do we know it’s best? We don’t measure this stuff. In fact, I’ve learned that ‘best practices’ usually means copying what everyone else does.”

It’s like following a wiggly path in the snow. Sometimes we need to reinvent the wheel, or at least tweak it. Have you ever heard the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? It’s a terrible piece of advice. Just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be made better. At one time, the best practice for getting from A to B was by walking. Which can be great for some things, like going from the couch to the fridge but I think most of us agree there are better ways now to get across town.

I think that’s why I dislike the phrase “best practices” so much. As soon as something is labeled as the “best”, we make a subconscious assumption it can’t be improved upon. Everything can be improved but we won’t even try if we believe those who are smarter, or who have more experience, think this way is the best.

Our world, and the volunteer sector, are constantly changing. We need to be able to, on a regular basis, rethink how we do things, to challenge the status quo and to accept that best practices in volunteerism aren’t, necessarily.

How do we do that? How can we tell whether something can be improved? Look at the picture above. It seems obvious the faster, more efficient path is straight ahead. We can see that because we’re looking up. But when we’re walking—or working—we often have our eyes on the ground just ahead of our feet. We aren’t necessarily aware of how the path is twisting because we only see a couple of steps ahead.

To decide whether a practice or procedure can be improved, we need to take the time to raise our heads and study the wider perspective. Another way is to consider the practice in the light of our mission.

What may truly be a best practice for some types of organizations may be less than ideal for others. For example, I’ve often heard that a best practice for recruiting volunteers is to make the role or task sound less like work and more like fun. That works great for some roles or missions, like friendly visiting of seniors or socializing kittens. For other roles, however, it can lead to misunderstandings and high turnover. Consider the hard physical, dangerous work of volunteer firefighters or the high-stress, often heartbreaking shifts on a suicide hotline. Emphasizing the fun in those organizations doesn’t sound like a “best practice” to me.

The fact is, best practices in volunteerism aren’t universal. What works superbly for one organization may not work at all for another. What worked great 10 or 15 years ago likely is less effective today. When we label something as a best practice, we are limiting ourselves and others from exploring new ways that may be even better.

I understand the processes we tend to call best practices really are better than most out there, for most organizations. It’s just that calling them “best” seems to put a stop to experimentation and enhancement.

If you think that it doesn’t, take another look at the picture.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.