The Dead Horse Theory

I don’t know the author of this text so I apologize for not mentioning it. Obviously, credit is due where it belongs. But I do like it as at this point in my life, having made a career in both the private and public sectors, I can definitely attest of the truth contained in most of what’s written. Times have changed and when that happens, sometimes it’s for the best but other times… not so much.

And it a world where political correctness, in order to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, is more important that having strong principles, with the popularity of social media (hiding behind a keyboard), times have evolved… in the wrong direction.

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

However, in modern business, education and government, a whole range of far more advanced strategies often employed, such as:

• Buying a stronger whip

• Changing riders

• Threatening the horse with termination

• Appointing a committee to study the horse

• Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses

• Lowering the standards to that dead horses can be included

• Reclassifying the dead horse as “living impaired”

• Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse

• Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed

• Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance

• Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance

• 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 some other horses

• Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses

• Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position of hiring another horse