Once upon a time, CMS PLC and the Japanese decided to have a competitive boat race on the Manchester Ship Canal. Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance. On the big day they were as ready as they could be.

The Japanese won by a mile.

Afterwards, the CMS PLC team became very discouraged by the loss and morale sagged. Senior management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found and a project team was set up to investigate the problem and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering. CMS PLC had one person rowing and eight people steering.

Senior management immediately hired a consultancy company to do a study on the team structure. Millions of pounds and several months later the consultancy company concluded that: Too many people were steering and not enough rowing.

To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year the team structure was changed to "Four Steering Managers, Three Senior Steering Managers and One Executive Steering Manager". A new "Quality" performance system was set up for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a key performer.

"We must give him empowerment and enrichment. That ought to do it!"

The next year the Japanese won by two miles!

CMS PLC laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off all the paddles, cancelled all the capital investment for new equipment, halted the development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved to senior management.