The majority of my working career has been in Middle Management positions with three companies. If nothing else, I have learned that our Native Americans were very smart.

The wisdom of the Indians, passed on from generation to generation, states that,

“When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

However, sometimes in modern days, a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often used, such as:

 

Buying a stronger whip.

Changing riders.

Appointing a committee to study the horse.

Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

Lowering the standards so 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 performance of the dead horse.

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.

 

All these strategies have been tried by Upper Management in the companies for which I worked. What a ride! Trust me on this, when Upper Management bets on dead horses to Win, Place or Show….use your own judgement. You may be very wise to go with the wisdom of the Indian and simply……

Dismount.