The Wisdom of the Dakota Indians – how to Ride a Dead Horse

The Dakota Indians say that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business, education, government, and in the home, a range of far more advanced strategies are being deployed. So, when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to:

• Buy a stronger whip.
• Change riders.
• Threaten to fire the horse.
• Harness several dead horses together to increase speed.
• Appoint a committee to study the horse.
• Proclaim: “This is the way we’ve always ridden this horse.”
• Develop a training session to improve riding ability.
• Update the manual.
• Lower the standards of what defines a living horse, so that dead horses are included.
• Reclassify the horse as “living-impaired.”
• Reclassify the horse as “temporarily out of order.”
• Get more experts to investigate the dead horse. Fire those that claim the horse is dead.
• Proclaim that others ride exactly this type of horse successfully.
• Proclaim that riders that refuse to ride the dead horse are lazy, have no ambition and are not “all-in” – then replace them.
• Reminisce elaborately on all the good times you had while riding that horse.
• Hire consultants.
• Proclaim boldly: “This horse is not dead, but alive!”
• Hire more consultants.
• Increase funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
• Ride the dead horse “outside the box.”
• Make the dead horse shareholder. Threaten to cur the horse’s bonus.
• Get the horse a Web site and social media visibility.
• Kill all the other horses so the dead one doesn’t stand out.
• Pronounce that the dead horse doesn’t need food, water or care, carries lower overhead and is less costly, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line than other horses.
• Rewrite the performance requirements for all horses.
• Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
• Name the dead horse, “paradigm shift” and keep riding it.
• Ride the dead horse “smarter, not harder.”
• Call the dead horse “Innovate” and keep on riding it.
• Point out that the dead horse produces less manure and thus fewer climate damaging gasses. Keep on riding it.
• Declare “God told us to ride this horse.”
• Hire more consultants.

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