A friend sent me an amusing story about working for the “Average Company,” which she’d read in Simple Tools and thought it was worth passing on. Now I’m doing you the same favor, because if you are getting bored with striving for excellence or settling for just doing a pretty good job, you may want to apply for a job here.
At the Average Company, the corporate vision is:
“To be no worse than any other company.”
The value statement:
“The greatest labor-saving device of all is tomorrow.”
It gets better. The corporate motto:
“You don’t have to be really good to get by.”
And the sales goal:
“To match last year’s sales goals, if it works out.”
My favorite is the management philosophy:
“To not make a decision is to make a decision.”
The law of averages tells us that, eventually, everything evens out. You have a few good years, you’ll probably have a bad year here and there. Most companies, if well managed, can weather the storm and come back strong and healthy. Those that don’t survive probably just got a little lucky in the good years.
If you work for the Average Company, you know that sometimes things work out better than others. You try, but occasionally circumstances are out of your control… or are they? I’m of the opinion that you make your own luck.
