Seth Godin on Benchmarking

I was rereading a book that I had previously read a couple years ago when I came across a little nugget:

In addition to the stress it creates, benchmarking against the universe actually encourages us to be mediocre, to be average, to just do what everyone else is doing. The folks who invented the Mini (or the Hummer, for that matter) didn’t benchmark their way to the cutting edge. Comparisons to other cars would never have brought about these fashionable exceptions. What really works in not having every little thing be up to the usual standards — what works is everything being good enough, and one or two elements of a product or service being amazing.

So, I’m officially letting go. I’m going to stop comparing everything to my all-time best, to your all-time best, to everyone’s all-time best. I’ve stopped checking Amazon. Instead of benchmarking everything, perhaps we win when we accept that the best we can do is the best we can do and then try to find the guts to do one thing that’s remarkable.

—Seth Godin

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