Michael:
I've much respect for your posts and offer the following as both preamble
and disclaimer: Benchmarking is not our core business but merely one of
many tools that we use to support a client's needs. Second, we see
benchmarking, strategic planning, "learning organization" tools, and TQM
as sharing such essential elements and approaches, that we freely move
modules as needed into a client benchmarking program depending upon the
scope of the project and the needs of the team. Third, we create
"boundary crossing" programs that integrate multiple disciplines so we
look to meld approaches that many might keep separate (to a client's
disservice we believe).
>It is the pervasive nature of the statement [best practice] which often implies
>that the source of what is most useful for one company is the best practice of
>another.
Most firms do not have, or at least do not implement, the breadth of what
I see as your personal vision. Firms are not monolithic blocks but balls
of writhing eels, each eel a stakeholder, often fearful or resistant to
change, or lacking the vision to change. For many, benchmarking slices
through the "NIH" -- Not Invented Here" -- and provides an instant
history of something that is already working elsewhere and that can be
grafted into the client firm. Benchmarking is a catalyst in more ways
than one, notably in it's ability to get stake holders to accept specific
changes and to be pleasantly de-stabilized into accepting, or
participating in, new change efforts.
The better benchmarkers employ gap analysis, which when done correctly,
attempts to draw trend information to predict future positions against
their targets, and to then create a "leapfrog strategy" that takes the
client beyond the expected position of the competition in the future.
(Many benchmarkers fail this point, relying merely on the best practices
of others. This is a particular problem for "product" benchmarkers that
fail to perform "technology projection" and technology "food-chain
analysis" upon their competitors' products. Despite the massive resources
committed, a Fortune 50 firm with which we deal is often said to
"implement five year old technology five years late.")
In our experience, clients are rarely preeminent in all areas, not even
all their core areas, and so benchmarking allows them to move ahead in
many core and non-core areas at minimal cost and time. For many, that is
perceived as enough, but for the thoughtful few, it is a springboard to
greater heights which they themselves create.
>This approach matches the limited view of learning that is "learning
>from experience" is the major possibility of learning. I think it's
>the minor one. The major possibility of learning, for me, is
>generative, creative, innovative and not one of learning from
>experience or learning (directly) from others.
I couldn't agree more and feel that the best benchmarking candidates take
the raised baseline as a stepping stone to better performance -- if by
nothing else, better integration and execution.
>What I suggest companies seek, if they are pursuing learning as a
>strategy for survival or growth or winning or (fill in your own), is
>that they look at what others do in ways that provide information
>that can be rechunked and recombined in new ways to produce what no
>one has thought before. This activity does not fit within most uses
>of "benchmarking" (and certainly not its original use) and has no
>necessary relation to seeking out "best practice".
Again, I agree and would submit that the best benchmarking candidates do
just that -- it is most certainly our approach although some clients are
seeking a "lite" version for one reason or another. Benchmarking is also
essential for genuine strategic planning lest the client "draw the blinds
on the real world" and operate in the false vacuum that they are ahead of
the game.
Benchmarking is merely another tool, and like many tools, is superficially
used by far too many. When used fully and in concert with other tools it
achieves the goals you set forth.
Best regards, Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group
ghidra@modulor.com
Tel: 810-626-1310
--Gordon Housworth <ghidra@modulor.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>