but i thought this happened only in india***A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (GeneralMotors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teamspracticed long and hard to reach their peak performance before therace.**On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.**The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided toinvestigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team madeup of senior management was formed to investigate and recommendappropriate action.**Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 personsteering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 personrowing.**Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired aconsulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a secondopinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steeringthe boat, while not enough people were rowing.**Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to preventanother loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structurewas totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steeringsuperintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.**They also implemented a new performance system that would give theone person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It wascalled the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinnersand free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting newpaddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practicesand bonuses.**The next year the Japanese won by two miles.**Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poorperformance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, andcanceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money savedwas distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the nextyear's racing team was out-sourced to India.