I put my fork on the wrong side of the plate.

At least according to traditional etiquette.

I’m right-handed, and I like my fork and knife on the right. So when I sit down somewhere with a traditional place setting, I usually rearrange things almost immediately.

Most people don’t care. Occasionally, though, someone notices. You get that tiny expression that says: You are doing this incorrectly.

And it made me wonder how many things we do simply because we inherited the rule.

Marketing is full of them.

Post every day. Never email on Friday. Your blog posts need to be a certain length. You have to niche down. You need video. Put the CTA here. Don’t use too much text. Always do this. Never do that.

Some of that advice is excellent.

That’s important, because this isn’t an argument for ignoring best practices or breaking conventions just to prove we can.

Rules can save time. Conventions create consistency. Guidelines give beginners somewhere to start. Shared expectations can make things easier for customers because they don’t have to relearn how everything works every time.

The problem starts when context disappears.

Someone says, “This worked really well for us.”

That becomes, “This is a good strategy.”

Eventually, it becomes, “This is how marketing works.”

A best practice is often context compressed into a rule.

Post at 9 AM. Why? Because engagement was higher. For whom? On which platform? Talking to which audience? Selling what? How long ago?

The advice may still be useful. But once we restore the missing context, we can actually evaluate it.

The same applies inside organizations.

Why do we send this report? Because we always have.

Who reads it? Not sure.

Why does this approval step exist? Because it has to go through Bob.

Why Bob?

Well, Bob left in 2021.

But apparently, spiritually, we’re still sending things to Bob.

So I’ve started liking three questions:

What problem was this rule created to solve?

Does that problem still exist for me?

What happens if I break the rule?

Sometimes the answer to that last question is “nothing.”

Sometimes the answer is “customers get confused.”

Both are useful answers. Now we’re making an informed choice.

Breaking a rule intentionally is also very different from never learning it. Sometimes the experienced person telling you to do something knows exactly why they’re telling you. Learn the rule. Understand what it protects. Understand the consequences of ignoring it. Then decide.

Rules aren’t valuable because they’re rules. They’re valuable when they solve something.

So the next time you hear yourself say, “That’s how you’re supposed to do it,” add one word:

Because?

If you can finish that sentence, great.

If you can’t, maybe it’s time to find out whether the rule still deserves to survive.