NOT AIKIDO, & SADLY MORE TRUE THAN FUNNY

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[JAMJTX]

This came in my email today. It sounds like vurtually every corporation I ever worked for:

The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile.

The American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.

After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the American team's management structure was completely reorganized.

The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.

The next year, the Japanese won by two miles!

Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

[Don_Modesto]

Yeah.

Let me see the hands of everyone who DOESN'T work for Dilbert's boss...

[Kevin Leavitt]

I don't. Wait a minute...maybe I AM Dilbert's boss!

[Steve Mullen]

I don't. Wait a minute...maybe I AM Dilbert's boss!

If you think everyone else in a room is crazy how can you be sure you are the sane one. :freaky:

[Jim ashby]

This is more real than people think. I have just been given a task that, given two minutes per cell of information to retrieve and input, would take an entire working week to perform EVERY MONTH. This is to facilitate forward ordering on projected sales, yet the salesmen are having 1/4 of their time taken every month just filling in these forms. This was devised by a management consultant on way over £1k/day.
I just love it.

[James Davis]

This is more real than people think. I have just been given a task that, given two minutes per cell of information to retrieve and input, would take an entire working week to perform EVERY MONTH. This is to facilitate forward ordering on projected sales, yet the salesmen are having 1/4 of their time taken every month just filling in these forms. This was devised by a management consultant on way over £1k/day.
I just love it.
I'm betting that when things get really cruddy, management will call the SAME CONSULTANT! :D

[Psufencer]

My wife works in an office like that...I often get her little things from despair.com, just to cheer her up. Just recently purchased a mug that read, "Consulting: if you can't provide solutions, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem."

:confused: