Dead Horse Theory

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, in government, education, corporate management and health care, more advanced strategies are often employed in such situations, such as:

Buying a bigger whip.

Changing riders.

Appointing a committee to study the horse.

Checking the internet for information on various means of riding dead horses.

Lowering standards so that dead horses can be included.

Reclassifying the dead horse as living impaired.

Hiring an outside contractor to ride the dead horse.

Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the performance of the dead horse.

Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the performance of the dead horse.

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 of the economy than do other horses.

Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

Promoting the dead horse to supervision as an incentive.

Doing a needs assessment on the dead horse and then establishing best practice findings to address the needs.... of the dead horse.

This year let's consider that tribal wisdom and simply dismount.
Happy 2009!