缘木求鱼

Pronunciation: yuán mù qiú yú Literal meaning: Climb tree seek fish

Origin & Usage

Mencius said it to King Xuan of Qi, who wanted to extend his territory by force and expected contentment to follow. To pursue what you want by those means, Mencius told him, is to climb a tree (缘木) to look for fish (求鱼) — and worse, because climbing a tree and finding no fish does you no harm, whereas the king's method would end in ruin. The complaint is not that the effort is insufficient. It is that the effort is being made in the wrong medium altogether. The phrase stays useful wherever energy is being spent generously on a method that could not work however hard it were pushed.

Examples

English: "The company sought manufacturing efficiency by hiring more managers instead of upgrading equipment"

Chinese: 公司试图通过雇佣更多管理人员而不是升级设备来提高制造效率