It's all about the links my friend
I'm reminded of a story Peter Ustinov used to tell....
Back in the days of the good old USSR party officials met to sweat over a few pressing matters. One key issue was that the good folks out in the nether regions of the mighty empire were short of Wellington Boots and fur coats. Couldn’t get them for love nor money..... These items being made primarily in Moscow and shipped out by train....
Production was high, plenty were being made. So clearly the problem was transport. The goods obviously weren’t being loaded onto trains and travelling the rail miles out to these desperate regions. SO! One bright spark decided the thing to do was to make sure the goods got loaded onto trains and measure that; and every time a load travelled a hundred miles that fact would be recorded as a stat and fed back to the party...
Six months later the party met again. Still the folk on the edges of the mighty empire were freezing cold with wet feet. Transport officials were puzzled. Statistics showed that the goods were loaded onto trains, and travelled as many rail miles in a day as they’d previously covered in six weeks! Baffled by this all the party could do was order that a greater effort be made to ensure these goods travelled even MORE rail miles! More statistics must be gathered, more boxes ticked!
The second problem that the party had to deal with that day was the fact the commuter trains in Moscow were at a virtual standstill. They couldn’t move for freight trains full of welly boots and fur coats going round and round in circles clocking up rail miles!!!
Sorry; they can have all the links in the world; they're still making themselves look like a bunch of completely unprofessional w...ers!
