Dealing With “Dead Horses”

I don’t know who came up with this, but I remember seeing it a few years ago.  Such simple wisdom often bears repeating…

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that,
“When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

However, we have all been witness to “more advanced strategies” often employed for dealing with “dead horses”.  We may have even used some of these ourselves, in our business, or in our personal lives.  See which ones you recognize.

These “dead horse strategies” include:

1. Buying a stronger whip, and keep “beating a dead horse”.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other businesses/countries to see how other businesses/cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed (my personal favorite!)
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course….

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

SO, take a look at all areas of your business AND your life, and see what your dead horses are.  Once discovered, by all means, disengage yourself from it–and see how your progress improves!

Lynnea (horse lover and former horse owner)