ABSTRACT
A spoiler is a deliberate ploy designed to obfuscate an organization's aims and to prevent the judgement of its performance. It is interesting that just as aiming for efficiency tends to take an organization automatically down to the cheaper mass-market end of its market, so 'striving for excellence' takes them willy-nilly up-market. There is undoubtedly a cachet in being able to claim that one's own organization is different. Everyone likes to believe in their own exclusivity, their uniqueness; even perfectly standard widget companies insist that their company, or their widgets, are unique. The panoply includes 'maximize', 'survival', all lamp-post figures and proxies, 'efficiency', 'value for money', multi-purpose organizations, the stakeholder theory, the confusion between purpose and strategies or aims and means and finally, the idea that non-profitmaking organizations are different and cannot be measured.
