Monkey see. Monkey do.

A man flying in a hot air balloon realizes he is lost. He reduces his altitude and spots a man in a field down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?” The man below says, “Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon, about 30 feet above this field.” “You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist. “I am. How did you know?” “Everything you told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use to anyone.” The man below says, “You must be in management.” “I am. But how did you know?” “You don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.” – A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, another customer walked in and said to the shopkeeper, “I’ll have a C monkey please.” The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage at the side of the shop and took out a monkey. He fitted a collar and leash, handed it to the customer, saying, “That’ll be £5,000.” The customer paid and walked out with his monkey. Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, “That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only a few hundred pounds. Why did it cost so much?” The shopkeeper answered, “Ah, that monkey can program in C - very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money.” The tourist looked at a monkey in another cage. “Hey, that one’s even more expensive! £10,000! What does it do?” “Oh, that one’s a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java. All the really useful stuff,” said the shopkeeper. The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in a cage of its own. The price tag around its neck read £50,000. The tourist gasped to the shopkeeper, “That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?” The shopkeeper replied, “Well, I haven’t actually seen it do anything, but it says it’s a project manager”. – The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile. The American team was discouraged by the loss, and the corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action. The findings were: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering. After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the American team was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive. The following year, the Japanese won the race by two miles! Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.