Is Your Program "The Standard"?

"We are the standard." Thus spoke Breanna Stewart on 13 September 2026 after Team US beat Team France in FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, 97 - 79. 

Team USA has not lost a game since the semi-finals of this tournament in 2006.

Read that again: Team USA has not lost a game since the semi-finals of this tournament in 2006.

"We are the standard," Ms Stewart, tournament MVP, said.

It's a moral victory for other teams to come within 20 points of Team USA in international basketball, so, hooray Les Bleues.

What about your cybersecurity function? Is it 'the standard'? If not, why not?

Sorry to ask an uncomfortable question but you need to be clear-eyed about this. Everyone understands that you have budget realities, leading to competition for resources. Your team may be still forming, maybe there are lots of organizational dynamics. All of that is real.

And so, is your program the standard? 

Let's say it's not the standard. Do you benchmark against other programs?

I have found this to cut multiple ways in my consulting life. Sure, you can feel better that you're not in the bottom half of the benchmarked companies. Unfortunately a lot of leaders with MBAs think this is all that's needed, that being at or slightly above the waterline means you're not drowning.

(Sigh...)

Ask yourself this: if other companies benchmarked against your cybersecurity program, what would they find?

Would they say "Whew, glad we don't have their problems!" or would they ask you for a follow-up to see how you do as well as you do?

Those are the only two real outcomes of benchmarking against your program.

Being the standard isn't about resources. It's about being relentlessly intentional with what you have with every system and every team member.

That's how you become the program others benchmark against, just like Team USA.

Ask us how we can help you set the standard.

(image credit:MichaelMaggs Edit by Richard Bartz, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons )