The canoe race

Once there was a Belgian canoe team.
The Belgian canoe team agreed with a Japanese canoe team to hold a yearly race.
Each team had 8 team members.Both teams started their training.
On the day of the race both teams were at their best. But sadly the Japanese team won. They were a mile ahead...
After the defeat, the Belgian moral was low. The management of the Belgian team decided that next year the race had to be won. To find out what went wrong in the race a project team was set up.
The project team found out that in the Japanese team, seven team members were rowing and one member gave instructions. On the other hand, in the Belgian team one member was rowing and the seven others were giving instructions.
In this crisis situation, the Belgian management gave proof of there management skills: they hired a consultancy agency to analyze the structure of the Belgian canoe team.
After many months of hard work, the experts came to the conclusion that in the Belgian canoe team, too many people were giving instructions and not enough people were rowing.
So with the report of the experts, the Belgian management decided to alter the structure of the canoe team: only four members of the canoe team had to give instructions, two members needed to supervise the instructors and one had to be the head of the supervisors. The last member rowed.
Also the following measures were taken to motivate the rower: “We need to enlarge his working area and give him more responsibility.”
A year later the Japanese rowing team won with 2 miles difference.
The Belgian team fired the rower immediately because of the bad results.
Never the less, a large bonus was given to the supervisors for their involvement in the project.
The consultancy agency made a new analysis and concluded that the chosen tactics were correct, that the motivation was good, but that the equipment needed improvement.
The Belgian team is now building a new canoe.

Two hundred people were laid off this week. They were all rowers...