Teaching Reading: A Fable

A young teacher teaches a fourth grade class in an American service school in Korea, teaching the children of American soldiers and their non-military support staff. One day she comes across a number of old McGuffey Readers, primers used to teach reading to young grade school children in the 19th and early 20th Century. She uses them as the class readers. At the end of the year her class is tested with all the other classes in the school system and her class performs extraordinarily well in reading, much better than any other class. When questioned as to her teaching technique, she reveals her reliance on the McGuffey Reader. She is told never to use them again but to stick to the prescribed protocol.

Moral: Organizations are defined--and define themselves--through structure and processes; both are more important than the end-point or result.