Dakota Indians’ tribal wisdom says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.
However in many large organizations (e.g. the civil service, government, local government and some companies), more advanced strategies are often employed.
These Include:
Buying a bigger stronger whip
Changing riders
Appointing a committee to study the horse.
Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.
Lowering the standards so that the dead horses can be accommodated.
Reclassifying the dead horse as living impaired.
Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance
Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders could improve the dead horse’s performance.
Declaring that because the dead horse does not have to be fed it is less costly and therefore contributes more substantially to the “bottom line” than do living horses.
Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course the favourite…
Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory or managerial position.