Sounds familiar..

Once upon a time a large oil company's senior management and one its clients decided to have a boat race on a river. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach peak performance. On the big day they were as ready as could be and the client won by a length.

The big company was discouraged and the senior management set up a project to investigate the problem. Its conclusion was that the client's team had 8 people rowing and one person steering. The oil company's team had one person rowing and eight people steering. Senior management immediately hired consultants to study team performance. Millions of dollars were spent and several months later they concluded that there were too many people steering and not enough rowing.

The following year the team structure was changed to 4 steering managers, 3 senior steering managers and one executive steering manager. A performance/appraisal system was set up to give the rower more incentive to work harder and become a key performer. They concluded he must be given empowerment and enrichment.

The next year the big day arrived and the client company duly won. The oil company laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off the paddles, canceled capital investment and halted development of the new boat. Then they gave high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved among senior management.