A Modern Parable:
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General 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 8 people steering and 1 person 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, 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 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.
IF THIS WASN'T SO SAD IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
The tower room bathroom
1 year ago
3 comments:
yeah, can we say pride? Don't the Japanese know that management is supposed to be paid more and not do the work while the underlings get paid less to do more work? This is one thing that kills my father-in-law. he's been at his job for I think twenty years, knows it up and down, but he has no degree. He is always applying for management positions, yet they will always pass him over for a younger college grad for whom Tom has to clean up after when they don't do the job right! I think we put too much on a college education today, and I can say this becuase it's not a very competitive field anymore. Seriously. I get great grades in my classes with VERY little effort. I take twelve credit hours (which should require about thirty or so hours of studying, and yet I will end up spending about four a week and still end up doing better than many in the class. Why? Because 1. I do the work 2. I have better English skills than many and 3. I talk to the teacher when a problem occurs that causes me to need extra time on an assignment. Sometimes they let me have it. Sometimes not. BUT the point is that I try, even in minute amounts in these courses and the teachers are amazed to see it, so they grade me well. It just saddens me a little, because I don't feel I do the work for the grade...
Experience ought to count for something! That is what college should be for, to give inexperienced people more experience. But if you get it from the workforce, is college better? Only to professors!
wow- I love this. Totally worth passing on- I go to Mary Kay stuff sometimes and the main thing they talk about is that every job in the U.S. will eventually all be sourced out because its cheaper for the owners to run their business, and anyone over a certain age will have their jobs given to younger hirelings and the older, more experienced employees will be expected to train the youngers to do THEIR jobs. Its just too expensive to afford an older employee's benefits. The old world way of just workin' the land and running your own show sounds better and better every day. P.S. so cool to see you bloggin!!
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