ENPI White Papers

Next Practices – A Method to Move Beyond the Status Quo

In light speed changing markets, yesterday’s approaches to running a business or applying outdated techniques to contemporary problems will quickly get “disrupted”. Moving beyond the status quo has never been more important.  Our think tank of hundreds of top executive and thought leaders has been focused on the concept of “next practices”.

Next Practice development isn’t about making something more efficient – it entails a fundamental transformation of the core business culture to ensure that all the moving parts of a business are aligned and effective.

Some of the key elements necessary to understand and build Next Practices are:

Best practices are past driven – repetitive formulas for tactical business problems.

Next practices are future-driven strategic solutions that enable you to better anticipate and respond to workplace violence situations.

Next practices represent an enhanced way of looking at issues that have embedded uncertainties, risks and variables.

  • The Need: Every organization needs to get past status-quo thinking in order to create transformation and change that will enable it to effectively respond to challenges and obstacles to its growth.
  • Beyond Best Practices: Conventional Best Practices tend to be proven, locked down business techniques that can be re-executed successfully on demand at the middle management level. There are few such “Best Practices” for C-level executives who face a constant flow of new challenges, unforeseen problems and marketplace conditions beyond the reach of conventional thinking.
  • Next Practice Intelligence: In place of proven techniques, Next Practices offers flexible tools, frameworks and situational analysis methods that enable executives to get a clear view of the current situations they face and frame intelligent responses to it.
  • Moving Parts: The full Next Practice approach includes policies, practices, behavior models and performance techniques, used in combination with highly collaborative and cross-functional communication between people. Taken as a whole, this approach enables leaders to be exponentially more effective in directing change.
  • Metrics: Next Practice techniques and methods are designed to be measurable so that their effectiveness can be understood and assessed.
  • Cross-Functional Focus: Next Practice thinking requires a cross-functional focus in which problems are addressed by stakeholders from all areas related to a given topic or problem area. The Next Practice philosophy considers it essential to have people of different perspectives working on a challenge simultaneously, in a holistic way, to effectively and successfully arrive at a solution.
  • Collaboration is Key: Next Practices assume a high level of collaboration between stakeholders at all levels – from senior executives to management to staff – in working on any business initiative or challenge. Power derives from the diversity of ideas and collaboration around those ideas.

Next Practices For leadership

The Next Practices approach centers on how to transform top-down closed-door hierarchies to an open-door, fully transparent collaborative high accountability and participatory world – a place where cross-functional teams are part of a shared responsibility universe to help support and inform executive decision making and keep the workplace safe.

Characteristics of a Next Practices Organization:

An aware, highly communicative culture

Employee engagement

Individual growth

Shared responsibility

Safety and accountability

All rights reserved   Scott Hamilton ENPI www.enpinstitute.com 562-857-1953