How to Break Best Practice and Why

A Field Guide for When the Rules Don’t Fit

Most organizations know the rules for getting things done: dedicated teams, formal progress reports, clear meeting agendas, structured oversight. Yet most struggle to follow these proven practices, not because of resistance or lack of knowledge, but because something about these “universal” best practices doesn’t quite fit. This session challenges our assumptions about best practices themselves, revealing how rigid adherence to conventional wisdom can prevent us from seeing what comes next.

Learn why organizations consistently struggle to adopt practices they know are valuable, and when that resistance signals a need to dig deeper rather than push harder. Through real-world examples, you’ll see how to distinguish between organizational resistance that needs to be overcome and resistance that’s revealing legitimate gaps in your frameworks. The leaders who read those signals correctly are the ones who know when to drive adoption forward and when to stop and ask whether the practice itself is the problem.

Walk away with practical approaches for knowing when to push best practice forward and when to envision what “best” could look like for your unique context, a sharper set of questions to ask before rolling out the next “proven” framework, and a clearer view of when the rules are working for you and when they’re holding you back.