Personal Benchmarking

Benchmarking is defined as comparing activities and situations for improving processes. It has been used successfully in business for many years. A typical situation would be for a restaurant that is having problems in delivering food in a timely manner to visit a competitor to see what that competitor is doing well.
Often leaders will visit companies in other industries to learn innovative solutions. It is common for hospital executives to observe hotels in order learn about superior customer service.

Applying Benchmarking to Personal Goals

Recently there have been a number of books and articles applying the words of people unrelated to business to business issues. The leadership principles of people from Sun Tzu to Jesus Christ have been modified to relate to business topics. It is possible to work in the opposite direction.
Business can be defined as the creation of a product or service in order to generate profits. The product is the means, money is the end. In personal life, money can be important, but it is likely the means to an end, and happiness is the real goal.

n order to achieve happiness, is the goal to be the biggest? In the same way that not every business wants to be McDonald’s, not everyone wants to be Donald Trump or Paris Hilton. Happiness is different for each individual.
In business benchmarking, the goal is not to become the other company, but to emulate the best things they do in order to improve. An appropriate benchmark for an person is not simply to become Derek Jeter, today’s biggest rap star or Pope John Paul II, but to find out what makes them special and incorporate those actions in their lives.

Steps to Successful Benchmarking

• As companies do, select a person or group to benchmark against. The person should be successful, at least in some area that you wish to mimic. It is also possible to observe those who are unsuccessful, in order to see what to avoid. Benchmarks do not have to be famous. There may be successful people in your life that you wish to be like.
• Focus on the actions the benchmark takes. Does the person have a tremendous work ethic? Copy it. Is the person extremely good with other people, have many friends and acquaintances? Mimic them.
• Read about the person, if possible. Famous people write, or have books written about them. Study their influences, and look for character traits that enabled them to be successful.

The Key to Successful Benchmarking

In summary, the goal in benchmarking is improvement, and improvement needs to be incremental, one step at a time. Feel free to select traits of many different people. Businesses never stop working to improve, and people can adopt the same attitude of continuous improvement.