Many companies go bankrupt in this way! Classic

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Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and in that mountain there was a temple, and in the temple there was a monk. One monk carries water to drink, two monks carry water to drink, three monks have no water to drink! OK, the story officially begins! When the abbot of the main temple learned that the people on the mountain didn’t even have water to drink, he sent a priest and a clerk to work together to resolve this issue. After taking office, the abbot realized that the key to the problems was inadequate management; therefore, he hired some monks to form a temple management department to establish division of labor procedures. In order to better draw on advanced foreign experiences, the temple sent leaders such as Tang Seng abroad to seek knowledge ； Furthermore, they even spent money to hire priests from Catholic and Protestant churches to teach MBA courses. The foreign priest didn’t stay long; he left after letting out a few farts, one of which was called BPR and the other ERP. The secretary was also busy; he believed that the key issues lay in the underutilization of talent and the inadequate development of temple culture. As a result, he established a human resources department and temple unions, etc., and earnestly carried out processes such as competitive recruitment and assignment of positions and staffing levels. A few days later, the results became apparent: the three monks started to draw water frantically, but the problem was that no matter how much they drew, it was still not enough for drinking. Not only that, but the young monks were busy fetching water, and no one in the temple recited prayers anymore. Over time, fewer and fewer people came to offer incense, and the funds collected from such offerings became scarce. To address the income issue, the temple’s management department, human resources department, and others held several days of meetings, and it was finally decided to establish a dedicated water-carrying department to handle logistics and a separate incense-offering department to manage front-office operations. At the same time, to facilitate better work, the temple promoted over a dozen monks to serve as deputy abbots and assistant abbots, and appointed junior abbots, deputy junior abbots, and assistant junior abbots for each department. The old problem was finally resolved, but new ones emerged in its place. The monks who are in charge of chanting at the front always complain that there isn’t enough water to drink, while those who fetch water from the back also complain about a shortage of staff, the high demand for water, and the unpredictable nature of these needs, making it difficult to meet them. To better resolve this conflict, it was decided after discussion that a new department should be established: the Water-Drinking Response Department, tasked with coordinating the conflicts between the front and back offices. To facilitate communication and coordination, each department has designated a corresponding contact person. Coordination has been established, but the results are not satisfactory; upon closer examination, it turns out that this is due to inaccurate water demand figures and an insufficient number of water wells. As a result, the various departments held several more meetings and decided to improve the monks in charge of preparing drinking water in their forecasting capabilities, as well as the monks responsible for fetching water in their ability to assess satisfaction levels. They also arranged for agreements to be signed between these monks, so that they could evaluate each other and thus strengthen the assessment system. To facilitate scoring and evaluation, the temple specifically purchased several computer systems, including a system for tracking water fetching, a system for tracking incense burning, a system for analyzing donations from ordinary pilgrims, and a system for analyzing donations from prominent pilgrims. It also established departments such as the Department for Managing Offering Money, the Department for Handling Financial Transactions Related to Offerings, the Department for Researching Well-Digging Strategies, the Department for Well-Digging Projects, and the Department for Well Maintenance. Since the numbers generated by various systems were always inaccurate and inconsistent, a technology development center was established to handle the maintenance and further development of these systems. Due to the large number of departments and insufficient office space, the temple established a specialized department to address this issue; ultimately, it was decided to turn the entire temple into an office area, with pilgrims allowed to burn incense only outside the temple gates. With so many departments and officials, there are naturally a large number of documents and meetings. To reduce the overload of paperwork and meetings, the General Office took the lead in holding N meetings on this issue and issued a document regarding the reduction of documents. At the same time, in order to streamline its structure and improve efficiency, the temple also established departments such as the Office for Structural Streamlining and the Department for Organizational Reform Research. Everything seems reasonable, but the issues regarding offerings and drinking water still remain unresolved. What is the problem? Some monks suggested that an analysis meeting should be held once a month, and thus the Business Analysis Department was established. Analysis requires a lot of data and reports, but the system is unable to handle this, so each department assigns some staff to manually compile statistics, fill out reports, and work on behalf of the system. The temple became more bustling than ever; some monks were desperately carrying water, some were fervently chanting prayers, some were striving to coordinate things, and others were trying hard to analyze various situations... Despite all their efforts, there was still not enough water to drink, nor enough money for offerings. What’s the reason? One monk said the process wasn’t smooth, another said the task breakdown was unreasonable; one monk said departmental responsibilities were unclear, and yet another said the assessment criteria weren’t strict enough. Only three people knew best what the key to the problem was, and those three people were the first three monks. In short, there are just way too many idiots around! They say, “Stop analyzing nonsense all day long! So-called process issues, responsibility issues, interface problems, evaluation issues – it’s all actually due to an overgrown organization!” If I had known it would turn out this way, it would have been better if the three of us had been more disciplined from the start! Now look, it’s brought in such a bunch of idiots – none of them do any proper work, and there are so many of them that it’s impossible to get rid of them, just like trying to shake off dirt! ” The three of them could no longer bear it and dared to report upwards, asking for more people to carry water. After going through several levels of hierarchy, the supervisor and secretary finally received this request, following summaries and analyses from the quarterly meetings of various departments. After several intense discussions, it was finally possible to assign some monks from other departments to provide support. However, these monks from other departments were not able to carry water at all, and they even gave orders to the monks who were responsible for carrying water. The monks in charge of carrying water asked again to be appointed as the leaders of that team. After evaluation by the General Headquarters’ Organization Department, it was determined that the three monks had sufficient expertise but lacked management skills; after some encouragement and persuasion, the status quo was maintained. Another year passed, the temple turned yellow, and most of the monks died: several bodies were found by the well; they had died from exhaustion ； Thousands of corpses were found in the temple, dead from thirst. There were also a few monks who did not die of thirst; they moved to other temples. They were the \"senior monks\" and brought with them \"advanced management skills\". This is why many companies fail: the headquarters become larger and larger, employees at the grassroots level are busier and busier, costs keep rising, and customers become more and more dissatisfied. This is the characteristic of traditional Chinese enterprises; when it comes to individuals, everyone is sensible and intelligent. Once combined, they end up staring at each other, becoming extremely complex. You scheme against me, I scheme against him, he schemes against you. As a result, all these talents and intelligence canceled each other out! So, a group of smart people together turn into a bunch of fools. Source: CEO Management Quotes