(Author unknown The parable was sent to the Editor by Dr Alick Dowling)
There was once a boat race between a Japanese crew and a NHS team. Both practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance but on the big day the Japanese won by two hundred and fifty boat lengths.
The NHS team became discouraged and morale sagged. Senior managers decided the reason for the crushing defeat must be found and set up a working party to investigate the problem and recommend action.
That concluded that the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering while the NHS team had eight steering to one rowing. It immediately hired a consultancy to look at the teams structure. Millions of pounds and several months later the consultants reported that too many people were steering and not enough people were rowing.
To avoid losing again the team structure was changed to give three assistant steering managers, three steering managers, one executive steering manager and a director of steering services. A performance and appraisal was also set up, to give the person rowing the boat more incentive to work harder. The Japanese were challenged to another race and this time won by five hundred boat lengths. NHS managers responded by laying off the rower for poor performance, selling the oar and cancelling orders for a new boat. The money saved was used to finance higher-than-average pay awards for the steering group.
(The editorial group do not express an opinion on the implications of this piece!).