An Average: An Excessively Crude Metric
— Considering the Perils of Metrics —

Few numbers feel as reassuring as an average.
And few numbers are as crude as an average.

Average income, average temperature, average lifespan, the “average” employee.
When we try to judge something, we often place an average on the table first.
It should be a starting point for thinking—
yet before we notice, it becomes the finish line.

An average does not speak about distributions.
The upper and lower ends, skew, distortion, outliers—
the very places where meaning often lives—
are flattened into a single number.

And still, an average looks “objective,” “rational,” and “fair.”
That is why it is convenient.
And because it is too convenient, it is also dangerous.

“On average, there’s no problem.”
“On average, things are going well.”
“Compared to the industry average, we’re healthy.”

These phrases sound like explanations,
but they are often closer to declarations of suspended thought.

Real decisions require us to see where things break,
where the extremes are, where fragility hides.
Yet the average treats the extreme from the start as “noise.”

An average is not always a tool to understand the world.
It easily becomes a tool to oversimplify it.

A society described by averages becomes brittle the moment it deviates from them.
An organization designed around averages loses its ability to decide
when it encounters the unexpected.

The average is not lying.
It is simply silent about far too much.

And when that silence makes us feel safe,
perhaps we have already stopped thinking.