Wisdom developed for the corporate world

The Dakota Indians of North America passed on this piece of wisdom from generation by word of mouth: “If you are riding a dead horse the best thing to do is dismount”.

However, in the corporate world today, because of the heavy investment factor other things need to be tried:

• Buy a stronger whip.
• Change riders.
• Threaten the horse with termination.
• Appoint a committee to study the horse.
• Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
• Lower the standards so dead horses can be included.
• Appoint an intervention team to reanimate the horse.
• Create a training session to increase the riders load share.
• Reclassify the horse as `living impaired’.
• Change the form so it reads “This horse is not dead”.
• Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
• Harness several dead horses together for increased speed and efficiency.
• Donate the dead horse to a recognised charity therefore deducting its full original cost.
• Provide additional funding to increase horse’s performance.
• Carry out a time management study to see if lighter riders would improve productivity.
• Purchase an after market product that makes dead horses run faster.
• Declare the dead horse has lower overheads and is therefore more cost effective.
• Form a quality focus group to find profitable uses for dead horses.
• Rewrite the performance requirements for horses.
• And, finally if all else fails, promote the dead horse into a supervisory (management) position.