Benchmarking - establishing world class standards...or nicking someone else's tired, boring old ideas?

You remember the old conundrum. A frog sits on the edge of a pond, thirty feet in diameter. He jumps exactly half way, and then half that distance, and then half that distance. And so on. How long does it take him to get there? The answer, as we all know, is ‘never.’

I often find continuous improvement a bit like this. As we seek constant incremental improvement we may negate that single, creative, explosive quantum leap which freshens up the whole organisation, or function and takes us a massive step forward. As organisations seek ever-evolving improvement, so the evolutionary process slows down, a bit like our frog on the pond. Often, a creative, revolutionary leap has to be built into the system or processes to prevent stasis, the stagnant pond of miniscule improvement.

The same problem can occur if we benchmark, especially if we benchmark too early. In 1945 Nissan had intended to benchmark against General Motors, (the undisputed world leaders). Had they done so, their standards would have been considerably lower. Instead they admired general Motors from a respectful distance, and decided to create their own standards.

So they got their creative heads together and said, let’s have a ‘zero based approach.’ We know what we want to be. So with no systems, standards, procedures, rules or benchmark to tie us down, how can we create a world class motor car manufacturer. Then, and only then, did they look at general Motors. The rest, as they say, is history. Nissan’s meteoric rise to world prominence was almost as dramatic as General Motor’s decline.

And the moral of this tale? Benchmarking, especially too early, may mean binding your organisation or function up with the tired old practices, ideas and standards of another organisation, and prevent you from releasing your organisation’s true potential. So how do we prevent ourselves from the lazy approach of simply adopting Mediocre Inc’s standards because they worked for them?

Organisations, like people, are like some other organisations, all other organisations and no other organisations. So the key is to establish your own values, what is important to you. Not a wish list mission statement which could feasibly be hung on the walls of an engineering company, a doctor’s surgery and the local supermarket. I mean spending half a day asking the question: what do we REALLY want to be as an organisation.

Then, rather than tie ourselves down with Mission, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, (the old MOST principle), we simply determine our ‘magnetic north’ as an organisation. One common factor which unites great organisations is the creation of a shared vision. So often, the vision is either woolly or ethereal, or a set of impenetrable figures. To create a shared vision, for an organisation or for a function, we need to make it sensory, ie appeal to all five senses. History was shared through the ages by story telling. The ‘magnetic north’ should also be like a story which creates meaning in peoples’ lives.

“By the year 2012 we will be doing this, we will have changed this, our organisation/function will be shaped like this, which means the sorts of people we employ will need to be like this, etc, etc.”

Then, we align our processes and behaviours behind this point. The values are essential in my view, because they determine how our people should act, and this must be in a way which is absolutely consistent with our values.

And the way to achieve this? Measure ourselves against our values. How you measure the performance of your people will determine how they behave. So, if our values really are values, then we will be happy to let our performance management, appraisal scheme, or however we measure performance, reflect this.

Then you can benchmark! You might well be surprised, (shocked even), at how far ahead you are. A quantum leap, rather than slow, ponderous, incremental improvement will take our frog, not just to the other side of the stagnant pond, but beyond the pond, into fresher waters. The alternative is to dip your toes in the potentially stagnant water of ‘how others are doing things.’ Remember, the ‘perfect organisations’ are always not yours! It is always ‘the one over there.’ And when we visit them we find it is actually ‘the one down the road.’ And when we visit them …

Get your creative forces together, establish a zero based approach, (but don’t take eons over it!), and don’t be a copy-cat. At least not yet. You may find by doing that you have lowered your standards, and negated a great deal of potential, Alternatively, sit on the edge of the pond and cogitate.