The following was found on the employee bulletin board of a major
    U.S. company. The names have been changed from the original U.S.
    (now LUSCO, for Large U.S. COmpnay) and Japanese (now JAPCO)
    companies to preserve jobs:

    Once upon a time, JAPCO and LUSCO decided to have a boat race on San
    Francisco Bay.

    Both teams practiced hard and long to reach peak performance. On the
    big day, they were as ready as they could be.

    JAPCO won by a mile.

    The LUSCO team was discouraged by the loss and company morale
    sagged.

    Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat
    had to be found.

    An Improvement Team of executives was set up to investigate the
    problem and to recommend an appropriate plan of corrective action.

    Their conclusion:

    The problem was that JAPCO had eight people rowing and one person
    steering their boat, whereas the LUSCO team had eight people
    steering and one person rowing.

    A new Corporate Steering Committee immediately hired a consulting
    firm to do a study of the LUSCO team structure. After the
    expenditure of many weeks and several million dollars, the
    consulting firm concluded that too many people were steering and
    too few were rowing the boat.

    To prevent losing to JAPCO again, the Corporate Planning Committee
    decided to reorganize the boat team into the following:
      four (4) Steering Managers,
      three (3) Associate Steering Managers,
      one (1) Staff Steering Manager,
      and one rower.

    A new Performance Enhancement Evaluation System (PEES) was
    instituted for the person rowing the boat to give him more incentive
    to work longer and harder for less money so that he would become
    qualified to be a designated a Propulsion Intensive System
    Specialist (PISS).

    To ensure compliance with all applicable federal, State, and local
    occupational safety and health regulations, the rower was required
    to buy and wear Personal Protection Equipment, such as Bungee
    harness, jump boots with metatarsal supports, hard hat, puncture
    proof gloves, eye protection, and hearing protection. (Due to the
    determination by the LUSCO insurance department that it would be
    cheaper to hire and train a new rower than to provide life and
    hospitalization coverage for non-management personnel, and to its
    interference with the Bungee harness, a life vest was determined to
    be undesirable.)

    The next year, JAPCO won by two miles.

    Corporate Management fired the rower for poor job performance, sold
    the oars, cancelled all capital investments for new equipment, and
    halted development of a new boat. The Corporate Steering Committee
    issued High Performance Awards to the consulting firm, and
    distributed the money saved as bonuses to the Senior Vice-
    Presidents.