“Best practices,” as a term, should speakfor itself. These rules, procedures and guidelines for how thingsget done have, obviously, the goal of streamlining and improvingwork. Otherwise they wouldn't be best, right?

But it turns out there's a chasm between how managers,executives, and business owners think of these helpful suggestionsfrom the top and how front-line employees view them. They may bebest from management's perspective, but ordinary employees, itseems, often beg to disagree. A new survey of 800 execs, employees,and educators from across a range of industries carried outby communication trainingcompany Fierce uncovered resentment and annoyance overso-called “best practices.” The survey found:

• 44 percent of respondents say their company's best practicesactually hinder employee productivity and morale
• 47 percent report that their organization's current practicesconsistently get in the way of desired results, rather thanoptimize the success of the business