IBM and DEC decided to have a boat race, on the Thames, following the famous Oxford vs. Cambridge course.
Both teams practiced hard, and came the big day, they were as ready as they could be.
IBM won by a mile.
Afterwards, the DEC team were very downhearted, and a decision was made that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a working party was set up to investigate and report.
Well, they had everybody on the working party, Sales, Systems Engineering, Marketing, Customer Education, Field Service, the whole lot, and after 3 months they came up with the answer, and the working party co-ordinator gave his summary presentation.
"The problem was," he said, "that IBM had 8 people rowing and 1 steering, whereas we had 1 person rowing and 8 steering."
The working party was then asked to go away and come up with a plan to prevent a recurrence the following year, for DEC's pride had been damaged, and another defeat was not wanted.
2 months later, the working party had worked out a plan, and the coordinator gave his (customarily brief) summary--
"The guy rowing has got to work harder"
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"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara
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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.
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