Best practices vs science

When the business world wants to figure out the truth, they set out looking for the final right answer. Then that answer becomes the best practice.

When scientists want to figure out the truth, they set out looking for one hypothesis of many. Then they test it. Then they get a result.

Then, after many hypotheses and many results, a theory forms.

That is as close to a playbook that they will ever find. Scientists know that their knowledge must always be updated, tested, debated, and even disproven. That’s a good thing. That means they’re getting closer and closer to the truth.

In business, we want the best practice because we want to remove unknowns. In science, they acknowledge: there will always be unknowns. There is no totally final state of knowing.

So we may as well stop debating whether we know something and get back to the real work: finding a hypothesis worth testing.

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