I had a Sommelier Guild of Atlanta wine tasting tonight at Vinocity, a wine bar/restaurant in midtown Atlanta. We drank lots of Zinfandel and the food was incredible. Unfortunately, I do not have the menu or the wines we drank, but, as a fallback I have the Dead Horse Policy that is used by TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name), and many other American companies.
Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead
horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in managing any
business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the
following:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this
horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat." (This is my personal favorite.)
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it
cheaper.
16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Aha! That's how my manager got to where he is.
If I did not not know better, I would sware that you are talking about where I work. My manager got to where she is by sleeping with her bosses.
Posted by: Hugh Harper on January 14, 2004 06:26 AMWhat! The dead horse didn't get to travel & meet clients?
Posted by: Emma on January 14, 2004 12:40 PMYa know, I'm really unsure as to which avenue we should persue.
Why don't we have a meeting next Tuesday, and we'll bring it up then?
(...I've been a manager, excuse me DIRECTOR, before.)
Posted by: Key on January 14, 2004 02:20 PM(...you'd think I'd know how to spell, wouldn't you?)
Posted by: Key on January 14, 2004 02:22 PMGOC - I gotta ask. Do you really think this stuff up? If so, your after-retirement future is secure!!! LOL ;)
Posted by: Indigo on January 14, 2004 04:03 PMI love it. One of my 'peers' is the Corporate dead horse jockey. She is riding her way to the top literally.
Posted by: Anthony on January 14, 2004 04:31 PMIndigo - I wish I could think up stuff like that. It was sent to me by a coworker or a friend. I don't remember which.
Posted by: Denny Wilson on January 14, 2004 08:46 PMFrom what I've seen, this is the standard policy with most corporations in America.
Posted by: Ray on January 17, 2004 01:53 AMUsually the rank and file employees can smell the thing rotting way ahead of time, but nobody listens to them.
The employee who brings up the topic of the smelly, rotten dead horse during a meeting gets whipped.
Better to keep their mouths shut and shout 'Giddyup!' once in awhile to make it look good.
Posted by: lauraw on January 17, 2004 09:20 AMLauraw - Yep! If you point out to management that the horse is dead you now have an "attitude problem".
Posted by: Denny Wilson on January 17, 2004 09:52 AMYou MUST see the movie Office Space! Right on point.
Posted by: on January 17, 2004 10:48 AM22. Eliminate wasteful redundancy in the dead horse function by reducing hoofcount. (i.e. chop off a leg a quarter until the dead horse meets budgetary targets)
Posted by: Greg on January 18, 2004 12:02 PMRelated thoughts: