Corporate Planning

[bat4255]

What makes this funny is the large amount of truth involved.
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A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very
discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person
steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person
rowing. So American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not
enough people were rowing.

To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management
structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area
steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering
manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1
person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder.

It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings,
dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting
new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor
performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and
canceled all capital investments for new equipment.

The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and
the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.

[techgesture]

Fitting

[inspiron]

And just what do you have against management consultants? We've got mouths to feed too...

[MagnumForce]

Moral of the story: Even though the American company screws up badly, the executives still get rich.

Sad reality indeed.

[leenmachine]

Oh how true...

[Apertureguy]

Bat4255...when I first read this...I jumped up & started checking offices for you...because I was sure you worked at my office.

This is a great story, and so true to what really goes on. In my company, we have several domains which have only Managers & no Employees.

Right now, we have a team of consultants in here, to see why these areas aren't getting things done and done on time. Amazes me how no one in executive management can figure this out.

Nevermind the money we're losing because they have no one to do the work...but these consultant types...don't exactly work for peanuts.