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Once upon a time two manufacturing companies, British and Japanese, decided to have a competitive boat race on the Thames. Both teams practiced hard to reach peak performance and on the big day they were as ready as they could be.

The Japanese won by a mile.

The British team became discouraged and morale sagged.

Senior executives said the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found and set up a Continuous Improvement Team of shop floor workers to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The team concluded the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering, whereas the Brits had one person rowing and eight people steering.

The British senior executives felt the problem needed further research and immediately hired a consulting firm to study the management structure.

After some time and thousands of pounds the consulting firm concluded: “Too many people steering and not enough people rowing."

To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year, senior executives changed the management structure to four Steering Managers, three Area Steering Managers, and one Staff Steering Manager.

They created a new performance system for the boat’s rower with an incentive to work harder and become a six sigma performer – empowered and job-enriched.

The next year the Japanese team won by two miles.

The British company paid off the rower for poor performance, sold the paddles, cancelled capital investments for new equipment, halted development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to the consulting firm and distributed the money saved to the senior executives.