3 Minutes to think...

ChaiWala · Jun 2nd, 2009, 03:05 pm

read this entirely and tell me.. who is responsible..?

Quote:

A Japanese car company and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, 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 rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channelled into
morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses. The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, the End.

Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can' t make money paying American wages. The Japanese car company has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: This Japanese car company makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses. IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY….

This is what industrialization is..!

Why are people so greedy..!? Why people dont care of other families and their children...?

And what can we do...?

Aliyish · Jun 2nd, 2009, 04:09 pm

Well the methodological and theoretical significance of culture and given the importance of the culture and its bearing on management, is the main yoke here

As today, most contemporary management scholars realize that cultural differences can have a profound impact on work motivation and job attitudes, what remains elusive, however, is a solid understanding of how and why culture influences fundamental motivational processes.

In America, successes and failures belong to individuals. It is ‘my’ job, ‘my’ responsibility, ‘my’ authority, ‘my’ achievements, and ‘my’ failure

And Individualism is 'a loosely knit social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and of their immediate families only' . American business culture is a best example in such case .

While Collectivism is characterized by a tight social framework in which people distinguish between ingroups and outgroups, they expect their ingroup to look after them, and in exchange for that they feel they owe absolute loyalty to it' . (Hofstede, 1980). Japanese business culture is often attributed as a tight social frame work .

The cross cultural system is influential in all aspects of social lives including business management. Every culture has some unique characteristics as Chinese culture has an element of unique Confucianism , Japenese business culture is based on family-ism and group orientation philosophy of life . The American business culture has a mode of thinking that has made the American cultural system distinctive and powerful.

ChaiWala · Jun 2nd, 2009, 05:11 pm

^ very true observations.. and yet US still leads the pack for most of the worlds industries..!

What I think is they 'use' the social framework to their advantage, manipulating it they way they want it to. In esence, I beleive that US have the smartest brains individually but in a lower number, compared to other cultures that have smart brains but in good numbers..

Quote:

The American business culture has a mode of thinking that has made the American cultural system distinctive and powerful.

.. This is exactly what I am stating as well.. they look forward way forward in the future whereas any other cultures can go only see/plan a few yrs ahead..!

This is what makes US so powerful and thus these companies have raped the benefits of teh society, they leave us in turmoil.. making us busy in our lives just to put bread on the table and not think anything else.

saathi · Jun 3rd, 2009, 10:15 pm

hi . industrialization and collectivism , u.s. economy is going deeper and deeper into recession because of the paper money given to the friends and family of wall street bankers , who not only devised a plan to rob the country of all of its money , but also they had their allies in the u.s. government in the form of geithner and paulson , former treasury secretary , both people who have printed billions of dollars out of thin air from fed ' s money printing machine . where is this leading to ? the citizens of america pay taxes on something that does not exist . the trail of paper money traces to fed and it is designed to rob the citizens of their money . this is exactly how the u.s. system works . middle class is left much behind while someone with strong political connections is given a leash , a corporate jet and bonuses because it was specified in their contracts . american system thinks long term but the way it is designed has failed , it is failing and it will continue to fail because there are a few people in the world who sit at the top and control america . it is not the u.s. government , it is a cartel of private bankers who have established fed and oversee u.s. economy . bilderberg meetings held annually are proof enough .

Amabel · Jun 3rd, 2009, 10:52 pm

Nice discussion going on....

for the most part, I agree with all of you.

One point I have, regarding Saathi's comment above: the govt was involved throughout this mess.... all these giant companies were paying for political campaigns and therefore, these senators from both parties were ignoring a lot of facts and issues. I'd say govt is equally to blame for...

adeeba · Jun 4th, 2009, 04:31 am