A modern parable
A Modern Parable.
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a boat race (in long canoes) on the Missouri River. Both teams practised 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 the appropriate future 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 channelled 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 cancelled 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, and predictably the End approacheth ......... !!!
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Here's something else to think about:-
Ford has spent the last thirty years moving factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
Whereas, TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen factories inside the US - AND investing in other countries in order to give their customers in those countries a better spares and repair service. It seems to be working well for the Japanese "boat" - and NOT for the American "canoe".
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, but collecting bonuses...
IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
and yet they are going to get bailed out ?? And their senior executives fly to the "handout" meeting in private jets and they need to be told to take scheduled flights ???!!!!!! The same goes for the "other" two biggies (GM & Chrysler) . ?
With due deference to my American friends and neighbours this is nothing NEW !!!!! The Brit motor industry suffered this "NH" (Not Here) syndrome decades ago and look where it got them there are NO mass produced cars or factories in Britain anymore !!! The daft fact is that the present clique of American CEOs etc committed the SAME mistakes of their Brit counterparts of a few decades ago. Except the Brit CEOs did not take the multi million payoffs as their respective companies were dying in the words of the popular folk song "When will they ever learn "
Al.
