Benchmarking and Goal Setting: Is Second Best, Best?

Recently, I read an article that said “sometimes, second-best makes a better role model.” Two researchers at the University of Warwick in Britain found that looking at “the best of the best, rather than being inspirational, it might just be depressing.”

When organizations benchmark how they stack up against peer institutions, invariably they include “aspirational peers” in the mix. Or our CEO’s ask, “Who is excellent at this? What are they doing? How do we compare?” Instead, should we examine the successes of organizations just one or two steps ahead of us?