Benchmarking is not as simple as Learning from Failure
Biz School Best Practice: Key Takeaways, PART 4
By George ILIEV, #RepurposeEducation
Benchmarking sounds like the simplest thing in the world. All it requires is a willingness to learn from the positive experience and achievements of others. Yet complexity gets in the way of deducing the right lessons from best practice.
The opposite of benchmarking is "learning from failure". Military schools often teach failure cases, while business schools predominantly teach success cases. This is driven by the military school principle: "you learn the right lessons from failure but the wrong lessons from success." The simple rationale behind this saying is that there are usually a small (finite) number of factors contributing to a failure and these can be identified; while there is often an infinite number of factors contributing to success.
Failure is often hidden from view - like a reef that sinks ships - as failed people and companies do not want to flaunt the fact that they have failed. Yet, Sweden and Croatia have museums dedicated to this theme: the Museum of Failure (Helsingborg) and the Museum of Broken Relationships (Zagreb).
Thus the learning process is obstructed in two ways:
And then there is also the double opposite of benchmarking: "not learning from failure". When failure cases are readily available, ignoring them is usually a recipe for disaster. This is why you've never heard of the phrase: "once bitten, never shy." Otto von Bismarck put it in an even more memorable form:
"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes.
The wise man learns from the mistakes of others."
By George ILIEV, #RepurposeEducation
Benchmarking sounds like the simplest thing in the world. All it requires is a willingness to learn from the positive experience and achievements of others. Yet complexity gets in the way of deducing the right lessons from best practice.
The opposite of benchmarking is "learning from failure". Military schools often teach failure cases, while business schools predominantly teach success cases. This is driven by the military school principle: "you learn the right lessons from failure but the wrong lessons from success." The simple rationale behind this saying is that there are usually a small (finite) number of factors contributing to a failure and these can be identified; while there is often an infinite number of factors contributing to success.
Failure is often hidden from view - like a reef that sinks ships - as failed people and companies do not want to flaunt the fact that they have failed. Yet, Sweden and Croatia have museums dedicated to this theme: the Museum of Failure (Helsingborg) and the Museum of Broken Relationships (Zagreb).
Thus the learning process is obstructed in two ways:
- Success is both difficult to untangle and also readily available in society and covered extensively in the media in a simplistic way;
- While failure is easier to unravel but is usually buried underground the moment it occurs.
And then there is also the double opposite of benchmarking: "not learning from failure". When failure cases are readily available, ignoring them is usually a recipe for disaster. This is why you've never heard of the phrase: "once bitten, never shy." Otto von Bismarck put it in an even more memorable form:
"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes.
The wise man learns from the mistakes of others."
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| Derailment in Sweden, 2005 (image source: Wikipedia) |
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