A quaint little story;

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motor Company) 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 the event by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and feeling depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.

A management team made up of senior management was formed to look into this matter and recommend the appropriate action. Their conclusion was that 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 firm, 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 into 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 were discussions of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment. But when the event was held again the next year, the Japanese won the race 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 more new equipment.

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