It was breezy , bustling Monday afternoon, sun was drifting lazily in the Mumbai’s sprawling light grey sky, creating fragmented shadows on the narrow footpath like slowly moving images on the dusty canvass . I hurried towards the imposing glass tower across the road and walked silently in the direction of reception area asking for the meeting room where much awaited Digital Transformation Project will be formally Kicked Off by the leadership in the next 15 minutes.
The boardroom was almost full, the excitement was palpable in the air, people were chatting casually while the laptop was getting connected with presentation screen. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Chris, the CHRO, wearing a pleasant smile started the customary speech with electrifying passion and intensity, underscoring the need for the digital transformation for the organisations’ continuous growth.He emphasized and asserted to seize this opportunity and tranform the existing business processes to improve efficiency by adopting the the Best Practices. The meeting ended with the ceremonial cake cutting and usual exchange of best wishes and pleasantries
I came out thinking about the interesting and ubiquitous business jargons without which the corporate conversations seem vapid, shallow and incomplete What intrigued me most is the statement about the “Best Practices Adoption” and I wondered how easily it will be forgotten during the project journey from boardroom to operational war zones. The baggage of prior experience reminded me - Hey! “Its All Hat No Cattle”, but a new sapling of hope emerged from no where in the tiny corner of the heart and whispered – Be Hopeful, this time it will be different, CHRO’s wishes will be translated into reality.
The Bible of Best Practices
Best Practices documents that are often referred to in the business conversations as a panacea of all ills are not the God’s revelation to the humanity or any codified constitution – it is a repository of subject matters’ experts experiences, opinions and advises with or without measurable evidence that may help the organizations to standardize and streamline the business processes making significant positive impact on process efficiency , effectiveness and user experience.
The adoption of Best Practices is no doubt the most important ingredient of the recipe for digital transformation but ironically more often than not organizations prefer the existing processes over the best practices advised by their transformation business partners. They defend the choice passionately , stating that the processes are unique to the organisation culture and cannot be modified or transformed. Most of the organisations despite the announcements in the meeting rooms, do not measure or track the adoption of best practices as a critical success criteria for the successful project completion.
Oration to Adoption- Challenges
The oration to adoption journey of best practice is difficult and is marred by dissenting voices of the followers of “Status Quo”.This resistance to any potential change is not a new phenomenon , it is deeply rooted in human psychology. William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser coined the term “Status quo bias” in 1988 to explain this behaviour, which is defined as the preference for maintaining one’s current situation and opposing actions that may change the state of affairs.
According to Gartner survey , only one in three (32%) mid-to-senior level business leaders said that the last change they led achieved healthy change adoption by employees. In my humble opinion the percentage comes further down when the change is driven through technology. It is further mentioned in the same report that leaders use inspiration and the vision of change to get employees to adopt change, however it was observed that the inspirational approach only works when there is high change trust. When change trust is low, Gartner’s model predicts that only one-quarter of changes led by inspirational leaders would achieve healthy change adoption
Some of the factors that contribute to the poor adoption of Best Practices in the business organizations are mentioned below.
1- Fear of Change - People prefer to stay in the comfort zone of status quo due do multiplicity of reasons that include fear of unknown , possible loss of control, lack of trust etc.
2- Weak Stakeholders – The stakeholders are either not empowered or do not have the inherent leadership quality to drive the changes in the organisation.
3- Non Availability or Lack of Supervision by Organisational Leadership – Many a times, leadership team does not have the bandwidth to review the project vis-à-vis the underlined objectives defined and declared during project kick off meeting.
4- Transformation Partner Competency – The poor adoption of Best Practices is also contributed by the lack of transformation partners’ competency to drive the changes smartly through structured process.
5- Organisation Culture – Organisation culture also plays critical role in adoption of the new changes.
6- Change Fatigue - Many a times Customer resistance also stems from the barrage of continuous changes organisation has undergone in recent past without successful and meaningful result.
Conclusion
The adoption of best practices is necessary for the organisations to outperform the market. It is a continuous process and might require tweaking due to changes in the internal and external conditions. For leadership vision like Chris to succeed it needs to be measured and tracked during the project journey and afterwards. The success does not lie in copying the process and retrofitting it in organisation framework – the best practices should be harmonized to seamlessly fit in the Organisation without sacrificing the essence and objective.
Reference - https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-07-08-gartner-hr-research-finds-just-32-percent-of-business-leaders-report-achieving-healthy-change-adoption-by-employees
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