The Great Fable

The Japanese company Toyota and the 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 were discouraged and depressed, but decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior executives was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. 

Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people paddling and one person steering, while the American team had seven people steering and two people paddling in line with their modern management schooling.

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

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

Not sure how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was reorganized to four Steering Supervisors, two area steering superintendents and one Assistant Superintendent Steering Manager. 

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the two people paddling the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the paddlers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and performance bonuses for the managers. 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 team laid off one paddler, 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 paddler 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: GM 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 year's results: 

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

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

IF THIS WEREN'T  TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY 

Management 101 

God Bless America America Bless God
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Contributed by Bill Stanley

That we have allowed the Japanese to beat us at the automobile manufacturing and marketing businesses is proof positive that the political and business institutions running America have gone stupid. The Harvard and Wharton Business Schools will have fancy language for it, but that is the case.

After WWII our car manufacturers could put four wheels and chrome bumpers on an outhouse and sell it to a car hungry public. The makers not only got spoiled, but the unions gave them some lessons in self-destruction by pushing wages up to the point that a kid with no education or greater skill than to put a nut on bolt and turn it the right way four times would be paid $80 an hour in wages, benefits and bonuses.  Regard for school, education, ambition and the curiosity that made America great all went bye-the-bye and we wondered why economy went down and down.

When Washington DC discovered how much money the elected ruling class could make doing deals, selling out the nation, starting wars in stupid places, selling "fair trade" relationships where foreign goods come in duty free and our exports are charged up to100% duties, which continues to this while the Swiss number accounts burgeon with cash for US Senators and Representatives only to be compounded with printing basesless money we wonder why America is more than flat broke.  We're in a hole deeper than the gross domestic product for one year, but half our politicians can only make up fables about Russians "...destroying our Democracy!" (gasp)

The truth of the matter is that we beat them to it with two parties melting into one totally corrupt organization worthy only of an asteroid from space some night to bring an end to the great fable.

Adrian Vance