THE EAST TIMORESE

ROWING TEAM

Once upon a time there was an East Timorese rowing team

Timor-Leste

East Timor (Timor-Leste) and Japan agreed to do an annual

rowing race. Each team should contain 8 men.

After months of intensive training,

the maiden race was finally flagged off!

FINISH

Result:

The Japanese won by 1 km!

The Timorese team felt deeply humiliated by the result, but they

were determinated to win the race next year.

The manager (Diretor Geral) was furious and stablished a panel of

Timorese experts to analyze the situation and unearth the root

cause of the problem.

After several weeks, some comparative

studies and travels to Japan (and per diem$),

the Timorese panel could find only one

difference: the Japanese had 7 rowers and

1 captain…

… and the East Timorese team had 7

captains and 1 rower!

Facing such scenario the management showed an unexpected

decision: they hired an Indonesian consulting company to

restructure the East Timorese team.

After several months the consultants came up with the conclusion

that there were too many captains and too few rowers in the East

Timorese team. A solution was proposed based on this analysis:

the structure of the Timorese team has to be changed!

Dollar

Timor Timur

bagus!

Based on the Indonesian consulting company and after some

travels to Indonesia (and per diem$), the manager decided to

follow the recommendations.

… other recommendation:

The team should travel to

Indonesia to learn how the

Indonesians do.

Thenceforth the new set-up would be:

• 4 captains (brothers of the Diretor Geral),

• 2 directors of department (brothers in law of the Diretor Geral)

• 1 chief of section (cousin of the Diretor Geral)

• and 1 rower.

Besides that, they suggested to improve

the rower’s working environment and to

give him higher competences

FINISH

Next year the

Japanese team won

by 2 km!

The East Timorese Team upper management immediatly fired the

rower, blaming him for the latest disastrous result.

A bonus was paid to the captains, directors and chief for the

strong leadership and motivation they showed during

preparations phase and as incentive for them to find a better

rower for the next race.

The Indonesian consulting company prepared a new

analysis of the restructuring activity, wich showed

that:• the strategy was good,

• the motivation was great,

• The restructuring was executed correctly,

• But the the tool used (which was not included in the original

data) was sub-standard and had to be improved.

Currently the East Timorese will buy a new

boat from a Indonesian company in a

partnership with a Timorese company (the veteran uncle of the manager is the owner)

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After purchase it was found that:

•The boat cost twice the market price,

•the boat was not new,

•had a hole.

$$ TERIMA KASIH TIMOR TIMUR $$

To solve the problem, the manager is considering

contracting a uncle's company to repair the boat...

$$ TERIMA KASIH TIMOR TIMUR $$