---
title: "Employees Don't Execute Well: Change People or Change the System? Profound!"
description: "This article uses five stories to illustrate the power of systems over individual effort, showing that changing the system can lead to dramatic improvements in performance and outcomes."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-03-25"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/employees-don-t-execute-well-change-people-or-change-the-system-profound-37c1da1d/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/employees-don-t-execute-well-change-people-or-change-the-system-profound-37c1da1d.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iDFnpCQdK6sWYgkN9dxx8Q"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%91%98%E5%B7%A5%E6%89%A7%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%8D%E5%8A%9B-%E6%8D%A2%E4%BA%BA%E8%BF%98%E6%98%AF%E6%8D%A2%E5%88%B6%E5%BA%A6-%E6%B7%B1%E5%88%BB-37c1da1d.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/employees-don-t-execute-well-change-people-or-change-the-system-profound-37c1da1d/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Employees Don't Execute Well: Change People or Change the System? Profound!

> This article uses five stories to illustrate the power of systems over individual effort, showing that changing the system can lead to dramatic improvements in performance and outcomes.

01
**Story 1: The Inspection System for Pass Rate**
During World War II, the pass rate for parachutes in the U.S. Air Force was 99.9%, meaning that statistically, one out of every thousand soldiers who jumped would die due to a defective parachute. The military demanded that manufacturers achieve a 100% pass rate. The manufacturer's representative said they had done their utmost, and 99.9% was the limit unless a miracle occurred. The military (some say it was General Patton) changed the inspection system: before each delivery, they randomly selected a few parachutes and had the manufacturer's representative personally test them by jumping. From then on, a miracle occurred: the parachute pass rate reached 100%.
02
**Story 2: Payment Method**
After Britain turned Australia into a colony, because the land was vast and sparsely populated and undeveloped, the British government encouraged citizens to immigrate to Australia, but at that time Australia was very backward, and no one was willing to go. The British government came up with a solution: send criminals to Australia. This solved the problem of overcrowded prisons in Britain, addressed the labor shortage in Australia, and they also thought that by sending away the bad guys, Britain would become better.
The British government hired private ships to transport prisoners, paying based on the number of people loaded, so more prisoners meant more profit. Soon the government discovered a major drawback: the death rate of prisoners was very high, averaging over 10%, with the worst ship reaching a shocking 37%. Government officials racked their brains to reduce the death rate during transport, including sending officials on board to supervise and limiting the number of prisoners, but none of these measures could be implemented.
Finally, they found a permanent solution: they changed the payment method from paying based on the number of people boarding to paying based on the number of people disembarking. Ship owners could only earn the transport fee if they delivered the prisoners alive to Australia.
As soon as the new policy was introduced, the prisoner death rate immediately dropped to around 1%. Later, ship owners even equipped ships with doctors to improve survival rates.
03
**Story 3: Cleaning Standard for Toilets**
At a certain upscale Japanese hotel, the standard for checking whether a guest room toilet is clean is: the cleaner must scoop a cup of water from the toilet and drink it. One can imagine how clean such a toilet would be.
04
**Story 4: The Porridge Distribution System**
Seven people lived together and shared a large bucket of porridge every day. The problem was that the porridge was never enough. Initially, they drew lots to decide who would distribute the porridge, rotating daily. As a result, each week, they were only full on the day they distributed the porridge themselves. Later, they elected a person who claimed to be morally upright to distribute the porridge.
With absolute power and no checks, corruption ensued. Everyone began to scheme to please him, colluding with each other, making the whole group chaotic. Then they formed a three-person porridge distribution committee and a four-person selection committee, but they argued and bickered, and by the time the porridge reached their mouths, it was cold.
Finally, they came up with a method: rotate the distribution, but the distributor must wait until everyone else has chosen their portion and take the last bowl. To avoid getting the least, everyone tried to divide the porridge evenly, and even if it wasn't even, they had to accept it.
They lived happily and harmoniously, and their lives improved day by day.
05
**Story 5: The Heaven of Mutual Help and Win-Win**
A charitable Christian, after death, asked God to show him both hell and heaven to see the difference.
In hell, he saw a huge dining table laden with sumptuous dishes.
He thought: Isn't life in hell good? After a while, at mealtime, he saw a group of skinny, dying people sitting around a fragrant meat pot. Because the handles of their spoons were too long, although they eagerly tried to feed themselves, they couldn't get the food into their mouths, feeling both greedy, anxious, and hungry. God said, this is hell.
They entered another room, which was identical to hell, with the same aroma of meat soup and the same extra-long spoons.
But here, everyone was ruddy and energetic.
It turned out that they were feeding each other with the long spoons.
God said, this is heaven.
**The same people, different systems, can produce different cultures and atmospheres, as well as vastly different results.**
**This is the power of systems!**
Source: Internet
Click **Read Original** to see more about the 4th FMCG + Internet Conference...
-END-


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671