A Modern Parable.

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford Motors) 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 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

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

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people 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 rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale-boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .

Sadly, the End.

Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US . The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses...

IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

Belive that the Americans spent large amounts of money at the start of the space program to develope a pen that would work in zero gravity, Russians gave their guys pencils

I think this parable is flawed for a couple of reasons.

It addresses the problems with the American team, but doesn't mention what helped make the Japanese team successful (other than having more rowers). However, if those rowers weren't motivated and well managed, they probably wouldn't have done as well.

The parable also fails to mention that the American rowers were in poor shape, having missed numerous training sessions while being out on strike for higher wages, shorter hours and better benefits, even if that meant the team would suffer for it. As long as the individual benefited, what happened to the team wasn't important.

Years back, before fibre-optics were very common, an American tech firm created the smallest fibre optic cable ever. They sent a sample to a rival Japanese firm, claiming bragging rights for this creation.

What did the Japanese firm do ? They took that piece of American fibre optic cable, drilled a hole down the length of it and inserted an even smaller fibre optic cable through it (then sent it back to the Americans, but didn't boast or brag about it).

I think that greed (individual and collective) is what caused the American team to lose the races. Greed and a "me first" attitude, whereas the Japanese put the team first, and won the race(s).

Belive that the Americans spent large amounts of money at the start of the space program to develope a pen that would work in zero gravity, Russians gave their guys pencils

Read that story before, it may be urban legend or it may be true, nothing would surprise me.

Creating problems that shouldn't exist and an inability of solving problems that do exist by just throwing money at it is not forward thinking.

Toyota are only able to do business because General Douglas MacArthur let them !

totster

Well, the Russians were coming, the Russians were coming.

Creating buffer states against the Communist threat was more important than punishing nasty old war criminals.

Great parable, expertly dissected by Kerryd. Why do some people find comfort in such cop-out expressions as 'It isn't that simple'?

Toyota are only able to do business because General Douglas MacArthur let them !

totster

MacArthur had his arse kicked in the early part of the war, barely escaping incompetence charges and only returned to the Philippines in late '44, with superior air and carrier power, although he did end up as one of the most decorated men of the Us Army.

Toyota built a factory near where I live. They spent a lot of time, effort and money making sure that the objections that the locals had were overcome to everyone's benefit. They provided teachers to give Japanese lessons to any local schools that wanted them. They built a block of flats to house the people who came from Japan to train the locals. They made huge efforts to make sure that they fitted in to the local community. They advertised their jobs and got an enormous response from all over the country. The only proviso was that they wouldn't employ anyone who'd previously worked in the UK car industry. That was 20 years ago. They export cars all over Europe. They have even exported particular models back to Japan. We still get little gangs of Japanese blokes down at Sainsburys buying a few tinnies for a Friday night piss-up. Round here for a lot of people getting a job at Toyota is like winning the employment first prize.

This would have been a great story 20 years ago when the Japansese economy was kicking butt, however, that has not been true for some time and America was doing fine.

Right now, nobody is winning the race.

Toyota are only able to do business because General Douglas MacArthur let them !

totster

MacArthur had his arse kicked in the early part of the war, barely escaping incompetence charges and only returned to the Philippines in late '44, with superior air and carrier power, although he did end up as one of the most decorated men of the Us Army.

I am no MacArthur fan, and I agree that his arrogance and lack of understanding of the role of air power was damaging. But he was a superb ground maneuver commander, and the New Guinea campaign, especially the Kokoda Track campaign and the Battle of Buna-Gona, showed how he could manuever men as few others could.  The Japanese assumed that the terrain and elements could not be passed, yet Australian and American troops succeeded in taking the battle to the Japanese. 

MacArthur may have been a jerk, but give credit where credit is due.

Great parable, expertly dissected by Kerryd. Why do some people find comfort in such cop-out expressions as 'It isn't that simple'?

Because it puts them in a position of power. i.e.

"Get with the program". Its not that simple = you must be too stupid to understand

These also tend to be the ones who dare not say the emperor is wearing no clothes........