Here are 12 benchmarking blunders to avoid
Here are 12 benchmarking blunders to avoid
On your next benchmarking project, make sure these items are NOT on your list, according to Collaborative Change: Improving Organizational Performance by Mary Gelinas and Roger James:
1. Unfocused initiative. The clearer you are on what you are trying to achieve, the more likely you are to use it.
2. Unfocused organization. If the organization’s purpose or goals are not clear, it will be more difficult to develop clarity about the purpose of the initiative.
3. No compelling case for change. If there is no compelling rationale that is explicitly connected to the business, it is unlikely that the initiative will be able to corral people’s attention and support.
4. Spotty or nonexistent sponsorship. If no one is sponsoring the initiative to improve performance, it will not be successful.
5. Staff-driven vs. line-driven. If change efforts are perceived as being led by the staff, they will soon fall to the bottom of everyone’s list of priorities.
6. Ready, fire, aim. Responding to requests for solutions without clarifying the real problem dooms change efforts to failure.
7. The allure of the quick fix. Simple solutions can appear very attractive, even if they are not ultimately helpful solutions.
8. Piecemeal solutions. The key to creating sustainable and significant change is not to try to fix each element or aspect in isolation, but rather to understand and balance all the connections among the pieces so that they work with and are in alignment with one another.
9. Unclear process. It is difficult for people to support or participate in a process they do not understand.
10 Too little involvement. When change initiatives involve too few people, they run the risk of missing the real issues, coming up with inappropriate solutions, and running into a wall of resistance at implementation.
11. Numerous competing initiatives. If the initiatives compete for resources and the attention of the organization’s leaders and employees, everyone suffers and the initiatives are bound to achieve suboptimal results.
12. Little commitment or capability to change. If an organization has little experience with change initiatives, or has been unsuccessful in improving its performance in the past, it may once again falter.
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