There was a company, once very profitable & successful, started under performing. The management couldn’t figured out why was it so, because the market was growing and attracting new players.

The company hired a very high profile(also the high cost) consultant to figure out the problem. The consultant came out with series of recommendations, half of which were not accepted and the other half never implemented.

Then the company resorted to series of training programmes for their middle & senior management, but without any result.

One day an old accountant, during a review with management, showed the company financials and asked if they saw any problem. Everyone looked at the top numbers & said it looked fantastic. Then he started showing the details, numbers sliced down to geography & business and repeated the question. The group felt uncomfortable with those details and kept quiet. In the next step, the accountant compared the numbers with those of competitors and repeated the question. The group had no option but to accept in suppressed voice that there were problems in the way business was managed.

The accountant asked the group what they thought the problems were. Everybody pointed out the problems they saw in each others’ area.

The CEO got the message & understood the root cause of the problem. The problem was with attitude. The managers had become complacent & lost touch with details. Also, everyone thought that the problem was in other area and didn’t do anything to improve his own area.

The solution was simple but the company had lost time & business. It doesn’t exisit any more.
The rule for survival is simple either Strive or Perish.