COMPARISONS

Beware, comparisons could be dangerous, misleading and disempowering.

It's no longer the case that you compare apples to apples but what grade, variety, source, and other properties that make this exercise completely useful at all.

We come to the point where comparing past result to future result will give us a good indication of progress, or lack thereof. But times are a-changing. Comparisons now are what it seemed to be decades ago. We compare our achievements or lack thereof with our neighbor next door, or circle of friends and see how we rate. With a new car, house, appliances, their kids going to better schools, new hobby gadgets, professional designations, etc. 

Now with social media, we get to see the best looking, brightest, smartest, richest, and most loved professional in our field, and we think that's the standard of everything great. If you're a business, to the fastest growing, VC-loved startup raking in millions in less than 5 years. If you're a purpose-driven organization, to the well-respected, well-oiled organization in your sector that's getting all the accolades all the time and getting it right most of the time. 

This unbelievable, impossible idea of standard is ubiquitous but seldom rejected. It presents an illusion that could never be satisfied. Yet, the picture of success or nirvana is just that. We have that picture in our minds. 

What comparisons do you use to gauge your performance? your organizational health and vitality? your relevance to your community? your competencies as against life's challenges?  Do you really know the person and organization you are trying to emulate? What standard or measure do you subscribe to and how they came to be? By acclaim, by rigorous system, by a multilateral consensus? By politics? self-promotion?

Internal comparisons are the best. Internal best practice as against trade/industry practice could be profitable. The people that are in deep trenches know more than what the annual reports say. They get to build and develop the measures, the measurement, the methods, and the theory of what and how change can happen.

As a rule, it's best to construct your own metrics.