The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, states that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, Modern Management practice has developed far more effective strategies, such as:
Buying a stronger whip, and flogging the horse until it shows signs of life.
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.
Hiring outside consultants to write a report on benchmarking dead horse performance.
Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
Re-classifying the dead horse as "living, impaired".
Hiring independent contractors to ride the dead horse.
Harnessing several dead horses together to increase their speed.
Providing additional funding for external training courses to improve the dead horse's performance.
Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would increase the dead horse's output.
Noting that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries less overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the organisation than do some other horses.
Promoting the dead horse to a senior management position.
Offer the horse career counselling, and the option of a transfer to a less stressful position of equivalent status.
Check with IT support to see if the whole horse network is down or just this horse.
