The story of timid companies is marked by a failure to live up to their fullest potential. They build stories behind an elaborate set of excuses designed to keep the company in the middle of the road, never venturing too far to either side. Managers of timid companies are not bad people. They don’t set out to be average; they are just not the risk takers of the business world.
Most organizations are successful to some degree in spite of their management, not because of its behavior. Managers in timid companies get in the way of their own success because they tend to think small, stay in a low-performance comfort zone, and avoid risks. This mediocre behavior is generally acceptable in the average American corporation where the “industry average” is the performance benchmark. If an industry average growth is 10 percent, a timid company is satisfied with getting close to that mark. Their story at year’s end is a glowing admission of limited thinking. Praises and self-congratulations are made for setting and meeting average performance goals. Such self-limiting behavior creates mediocre management.
Thinking small is an extremely limiting managerial behavior. With few exceptions, most managers today are trained with a numbers mentality that leads to thinking inside a box. Words such as practical, reasonable, and attainable are replete in our business language. Managers brag about making money the old-fashioned way; they earn it one dollar at a time. Executives take pride that their companies are conservative, as if working at less than full potential is a badge of distinction. Reaching for the stars is something relegated to a handful of entrepreneurs.