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General Motors and Toyota decided to engage in a competitive canoe race on the Mississippi River. The Americans figured they had a significant competitive advantage because it was their river. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, both teams felt ready. The Japanese won by a mile.

General Motors Senior Management took immediate action. They fired the rower.

Despite this quick action by management, the American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. General Motors Senior Management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. A management team made up of senior GM executives was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Immediately a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommended corrective action.

After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the consulting firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team. The consulting firm's finding was as follows: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, General Motors management hired a second consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They corroborated the first consulting firm's conclusion that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the Senior Executives at General Motors made a firm decision to re-organize. The rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. Senior Management also considered the rower and said, "We must give him empowerment and enrichment. That will accomplish our Total Quality Management goals!!" They even implemented a new performance system that would give the person rowing the boat greater incentives to work harder. It was called the "The Rowing Team 'Quality-First' Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

Finally, the big race day came. On that day, the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American company laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem. They then hired a new HR consultant to help them answer two questions: (1) Why can't they find competent rowers? (2) Why is rower turnover so high?

Then GM sold the paddles, cancelled all capital investment for new equipment, halted development of a new canoe, gave a "High Performance" award to both consulting firms, and distributed the money saved from rower bonuses to the senior executives.

The next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.