Once upon a time two airlines (we'll call them A & decided to have a competitive boat race.
Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance. On the big day, they both felt ready as they could be.
Airline A won by a mile.
Afterwards airline B became very discouraged and morale sagged. Senior management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found and a committe was set up to investigate the problem and to recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion: Airline A had eight people rowing and one person steering. While airline B had one person rowing and eight people steering. So Senior management immediately hired a consulting firm to do a study on the management stucture. After some time and millions of dollars, the consulting firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough rowing.
To prevent losing to airline A again the next year, the team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering managers, three area steering managers, one staff steering manager and a new appraisal system was set up to give the person rowing the boat more incentive to work harder and become a key performer.
The next year airline A won by two miles.
Humiliated, airline B laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all the oars, cancelled all capital investments for new equipment and halted development of a new boat, gave high-performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved to senior management.
So it goes.
Keep'em flying
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