The Ant Story and Management

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

 She produces a lot and she was happy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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‘s meetings.

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

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

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…!

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

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

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

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

The owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report, in several volumes,

that concluded :

“ The department is overstaffed ...”

Guess who the lion fires first?

The ant , of course,  because she

“showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude".