In a now well-publicized buttocks kicking, Jon Stewart ripped Jim Cramer and CNBC apart on his news show. He covers a lot in the segment (video embedded below), using his trademark intellect and wit, but in essence he points to CNBC as a group that has self-anointed themselves as financial market experts yet did not see the market tsunami coming nor really held accountable the people they have access to, e.g., the CEOs they converse with. At one point, Stewart calls Cramer a “snake oil salesman” and Cramer agrees. Interesting.

What Stewart did is rarely done, and that is holding self-anointed experts accountable by showing them what they said and what the result was. Of course, with the benefit of the impressive platform he has built, his ideas spread like wildfire.

So what do CNBC and Jon Stewart have to do with business finance professionals? In August 2008, I’d written an article in Business Finance magazine that featured what I’d dubbed “The Skeptic’s Guide to Best Practices,” wherein I discussed a malady called best practicism — the errant belief that replicating other organizations’ processes, strategies, and ideas is the quick route to success.

After seeing Stewart, I thought I’d dust off this journalistic masterpiece (sarcasm intended), share it again, and, more importantly, see if there is anything useful to be taken away from this all. The analogy in this case is that best practices and the experts who hawk them are all too often the CNBC of the corporate world. Don’t get me wrong — some are legitimately “best,” but these are few and far between, and amidst all the best practices noise, it is hard to discern them.

Go to any finance conference or read any finance publication, and you’ll be overwhelmed by the number of “best practices.” These days, people talking about what has caused our market woes is especially popular at conferences. I wonder where these people were before, since they sure seem smart. Yes — Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of Jon Stewart to differentiate between and expose the real best practices vs. those which are mythological (it would make for incredibly boring TV). (Note: I recommend a great book that talks about this topic to some extent, titled The Halo Effect.)

In the meantime, be a skeptic and use forums like this to share with others your notions of the “stuff” vs. the “fluff.” ###