Bianque was a famous physician in ancient China. One day the King of Wei asked him, "You and your two brothers are all skilled in medicine, which of you is the best?"

　　Bianque answered, "My eldest1 brother is the best, the next is my second brother , and the last is me."

　　The King asked again, "Then how is it that you are the most famous?"

　　Bianque replied, "My eldest brother treats a disease when it is just beginning to show symptoms. What he does is to remove the pathogen--members of my family can all see that but other people cannot. That's why he doesn't enjoy wide recognition. My second brother cures a disease in its early stages. People thus mistake him as only capable of treating minor2 illnesses. So he is merely known within this locality and its neighborhood. As for me, I treat a disease when it is already well developed and very serious. People observe me perform bloodletting by injecting tubes into vessels3 or applying medical ointment4 on the skin, and thus look upon me as well versed5 in medicine. So I have become well known all over the country."

　　The King was quite satisfied and said, "You've given a cogent6 explanation."

　　What we can learn from the story is this: Prevention is better than control, which in turn is better than remedy after the event. It's a pity that many enterprise managers fail to see this and try to seek remedies after wrong decisions have incurred7 great losses, which, they will find, may be too late to make up for.

　　魏文王問名醫(yī)扁鵲說：“你們家兄弟三人，都精于醫(yī)術(shù)，到底哪一位最好呢？”

　　扁鵲答道：“長兄最好，中兄次之，我最差。”

　　文王再問：“那么為什么你最出名呢？”

　　扁鵲答道：“我長兄治病，是治病于病情發(fā)作之前。由于一般人不知道他事先能鏟除病因，所以他的名氣無法傳出去，只有我們家的人才知道。我中兄治病，是治病于病情初起之時。一般人以為他只能治輕微的小病，所以他的名氣只及于本鄉(xiāng)里。而我扁鵲治病，是治病于病情嚴(yán)重之時。一般人都看到我在經(jīng)脈上穿針管來放血、在皮膚上敷藥等大手術(shù)，所以以為我的醫(yī)術(shù)高明，名氣因此響遍全國。”

　　文王說：“你說得好極了。”　

　　事后控制不如事中控制，事中控制不如事前控制?？上Т蠖鄶?shù)的事業(yè)經(jīng)營者均未能認(rèn)識到這一點，等到錯誤的決策造成了重大的損失才尋求彌補(bǔ)，有時是亡羊補(bǔ)牢，為時已晚。