I passed my higher secondary examination in 1958 coming first in my school and also in the Education District where my school was located . My happiness and sense of achievement knew no bounds and my parents were justifiably proud of me. During those days , my maternal grand father , a retired police officer , was convalescing in the medical college hospital at Trivandrum , capital city of Kerala . We went to look him up in the ward and my mother proudly informed her father about my achievement . He looked straight at me with piercing eyes and commented ” If you had studied better and put in more hard work , you could have come first in the State ” .
All my ego got deflated and I felt very small on hearing my grand father’s comments . I really did not understand him then . Neither have I heard the term ” benchmarking ” at that age .
Looking back at my career spanning more than 45 years of work life , I can now fully understand the deep meaning behind my grand father’s observation . He was very fond of me and sincerely felt that I came short in his expectations – meaning I was capable of a state first rank but did not work hard enough to get it !!.
The concept of bench marks came originally from a carpenter’s work bench and later used by surveyors as a reference point for measurement . The management experts used this concept to good use in measuring and comparing performance and achievement against established standards .
Benchmarking is a very useful tool to measure the gaps between potential and actual performance and it can be gainfully used to give effective feed back with a view to improve future performance or goal setting exercises . Jack Welch of GE used it to decide on divesting businesses which were not number one or two in their segments . Governments and Corporate Leaders as well as NGO’s use this technique to excel in whatever the endeavor they are .