The Ant, a Fable ... Part I -The Decline and Fall

1. or The Ant, a Fable ... Part I -The Decline and Fall Part I – 2 minuteslong- was translated from the original presentation by Pr. Obrigado Mário in Portuguese. please click left mouse-button to continue

2. Every day, a small ant arrives at work very early and starts work immediately.

3. She produced a lot and she was happy.

4. The Chief, a lion, was surprised to see that the ant was working without supervision.

5. He thought if the ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more if she had a supervisor!

6. So he recruited a cockroach who had extensive experience as a supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.

7. The cockroach’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system.

8. He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports and …

9. ... he recruited a spider, who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

10. The lion was delighted with the cockroach's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyse trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board meetings.

11. So the cockroach had to buy a new computer and a laser printer and ...

12. ... recruited a fly to manage the IT department.

13. The ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time…!

14. The lion came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person to be in charge of the department where the ant worked.

15. The position was given to the cicada, whose first decision was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his office.

16. The new person in charge, thecicada, also needed a computer and a personal assistant, who he brought from his previous department, to help him prepare Work and Budget Control Strategic Optimisation Plans …

17. The Department where the ant works is now a sad place, where no one laughs anymore and everyone has become upset ...

18. It was at that time that the cicada convinced the boss, the lion, of the absolute necessity to start a climatic study of the environment .

19. Having reviewed the charges for running the ant’s department, the lion found out that the production was much less than before.

20. So he recruited the owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant, to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

21. The owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report, in several volumes, that concluded: “ The department is overstaffed ...”

22. Guess who the lion fires first?

23. The ant, of course, because she “showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude."

24. or The Ant, a Fable ... Part II The Resurrection Part II – 3 minutes long - was created by BridgeS E C,  2010. please click left mouse-button to continue

25. Production was down, quality poor. Offshore competitors with products made by cheap and efficient Bee workers were entering the market.

26. Some competitors were starting to use butterflies for very effective marketing on the Internet. “Butterfly power,” grumbled the lion. What to do? He needed something new.

27. An executive coach! He had heard that some strategy-coaching elephants charged fees on a results basis. He liked that. He called in an elephant.

28. The elephant begins with questions about how the business is defined, who its best customers are and why.

29. The elephant then asked the lion what his strategy was? How did he capture it, for instance didcash cows and dogs map its territory and, once it was found, secure it with value chains?

30. These questions and a series of follow-on ones led the lion to reposition his team.

31. The cockroach was tough. There were rumours he could even survive the radiation of a nuclear bomb. And the military required the precise reports he was so good at preparing. He would be perfect for military marketing.

32. The cicada was elegant and concerned about the environment. He would be wonderful for bio-friendly designer products for the premium upscale market.

33. The spider and the fly were told to resolve their differences and set to work recruiting butterflies. But what about the ant?

34. The elephant asked the lion if he knew about the Hawthorne experiment? The lion read a three page summary of it and reflected.

35. The elephant asked the lion if he were familiar with leasing machinery and equipment to start-up companies? The lion reflected on that.

36. Idea! The lion decided to lease the factory machines to the workers. They would be their own bosses. He would make them mini-lions! They could all be more like him.

37. The lion has the ant found and brought to him for a meeting. He explains the three step procedure to her.

38. Step I The ant leases the production machine she used and can either leave it in the factory, or take it to any place she wants.

39. Step II The factory will buy raw material and provide it to the ant. She will work it and return the completed pieces to the factory for final assembly. She will be paid for the amount of work she actually does.

40. Step III The ant is allowed to use the machine to do work for other customers also. In short, she is running her own small production business.

41. Now the ant certainly did not want to turn into a mini-lion. But she did like the idea of being her own boss.

42. Results • Production, quality and innovation improve. • The re-aligned team successfully penetrates the new military and upscale markets. • The stock price rises.

43. The lion receives new stock options and the elephant a generous results payment.

44. Would that solutions were really that easy! Therefore we present different “Qoogols” (= innumerable questions) in Tools & Techniques. The trick, of course, is knowing which Questions to focus on.

45. NB: The characters in this fable are fictitious; any resemblance to real people or facts within the Corporationis pure coincidence …

46. Act now !