Business resilience best practices that do not work: Cautions and guidance

Across the world, there is an increasing tendency for businesses to rely on best practices, based on the assumption that they provide proven, credible and efficient solutions. In-depth scrutiny of ‘best practicism’, however, paints a different picture of its effectiveness; indeed, the adoption of best practices is commonly ineffective due to their misapplication or the use of unsupported assumptions. This article explores the use of best practices in the business resilience profession and describes reasons why assumptions about them are often incorrect. Cautions about best practices focus on the importance of change processes, underestimating problem complexity, and the influence of confirmation bias. These factors, and ways to address them, are described in the context of business resilience.