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DIR15
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BOATRACE.ZIP
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BOATRACE.TXT
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1993-07-13
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69 lines
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.