I hate baselines. Not like baseball baselines (though I don’t much care for those either). I’m referring to the baselines most of use to measure or evaluate ourselves. I hate them, because we naturally tend to pick baselines that either artificially put us at the top of the pack or we pick a standard that is so high that our “humility” ends up limiting us. Because after all, we could never be like someone else whose doing it (whatever “it” is) better. We often compare ourselves with our friends and peers, but our peers tend to be mostly just like us. So in essence what we’re saying is this: “compared to all the people that are very similar to me, I’m better”. We all do it. And in doing so, we do a dis-service to ourselves. Baselines and comparisons typically create a mindset of status-quo or marginal improvement. Instead we should be pursuing excellence in our uniqueness.
Case in point, I recently overheard a new college graduate at work say (in regard to a particular business metric) “what’s the problem if we’re beating the industry average?” The response from his boss was “yeah I agree let’s focus elsewhere.”
Here’s the problem with that mindset. In this case, the industry being mentioned is struggling. So in essence what was being said was “what’s the problem if we’re struggling, but doing better than others that are struggling?” Or in other words, “our lifeboat is sinking, but not as fast as the ship”.
Occasionally at work, we have other retailers come in as part of a ’share group’. We meet to share ideas on how we pursue operational efficiencies. Most of the time the retailers in our ’share group’ are companies that are comparable in size and performance to the company that I work for. Usually those meetings end, the ’share group’ disperses and I hear statements like this: “wow, we’re doing really good compared to so and so.” Congratulations, you’re the best in your peer group. Too bad your peers are just like you – being beaten by their competitors.
I don’t believe that most of us want to be average or slightly better than average, but by comparing ourselves to others (even those that are ‘best in class’) we will end up limiting our potential. Our maximum potential is only found in the uniqueness of who we are. I heard this statement the other day and I think it sums this up best: “As long as you are trying to be like someone else, the best you’ll ever be is #2″
I stumbled upon this today at http://fivecentnickel.com and thought it was a good, practical tool to help avoid buyer’s remorse or frivolous spending.
In honor of our pending family vacation to Disney World, here’s a book review by someone who knows a little bit about the Magic Kingdom. Lee was the Executive VP of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort. Lee wrote this book from the perspective of his leadership experiences at other companies and how he used those learnings to craft his leadership style at Disney and how it helped to shape the culture at Disney. He boils his learnings down to 10 common sense principles. This book is a great leadership read. Most everyone can relate to the excellence and “magic” of Disney and this book gives you a real insiders perspective into how the organization uses common sense principles to create a culture of magic. Here’s some highlights:
