Benchmarking Breakdown

Many organizations have fallen into an unhealthy trap in their view of benchmarking. Just as there are many great resources in business development... there are just as many ways to use them improperly. I've noticed organizations using benchmarking as a technique for their strategy and product development. Benchmarking was never intended to serve that purpose. This is a tool that helps organizations understand their market landscape and to learn other's best practices in certain pieces of their market. But the tool should stop here... this is not a means for determining strategic direction.

But why isn't it a tool for strategic direction? Simple. Strategic direction should strive to be unique, customized to clientele, principle-aligned, and specific to markets in a given time. Benchmarking starts with someone else's strategy and deducts from that point. Great vision is never a deduction. Great vision is always pioneering in method.

Where is benchmarking most useful? I would suggest that the most beneficial means for benchmarking is to explore principle, because principle never changes. But we must strive for what's unique and specific to our market - we'll never get that from someone else. In large part, this is our calling and our responsibility... to bear the image of our Creator in how we create and innovate for the future.

Fresh method and unique vision are both some of the greatest points of blessing given to us. May we never lower leadership to the deduction of benchmarking as a foundational practice. The people we serve deserve far better than that.