linuxmafia.com 2016/linuxmafia.com.tar/linuxmafia.com/pub/humour/rowboat-race

Text File | 1998-07-26 | 2KB | 36 lines

Once upon a time an American automobile company and the Japanese
decided to have a competitive boat race on the Detroit River. Both
teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the
big day, they were as ready as they could be.

The Japanese won by a mile!

Afterwards, the American team became very discouraged by the loss and
morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the
crushing defeat had to be found. A Continuous Measurable Improvement
Team of "Executives" was set up to investigate the problem and to
recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese team had eight
people rowing and one person steering, whereas the American team had
one person rowing and eight people steering. The American Corporate
Steering Committee immediately hired a consulting firm to do a study on
the management structure.  After some time and many dollars,
the consulting firm concluded that "too many people were steering and
not enough rowing". To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year,
the management structure was changed to four steering managers, three
area steering managers, and one staff steering manager. A new
performance system was added for the person rowing the boat to give
more incentive to work harder and become a six-sigma performer.  "We
must give him empowerment and enrichment.  The productive potential
of the American worker is unparalleled..." was the consensus.

The next year, the Japanese won by two miles.

The American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance, sold
all the paddles, cancelled all capital investments for new equipment,
halted development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to
the consulting firm and distributed the money saved as bonuses to the
senior executives.