The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians

by | Apr 19, 2019 | Learning to lead

I think this story has been going round for ages because I’ve received it from several sources, this version being published in the Guardian online on 26 Nov 1999. If you are the original author of the story please accept my apologies for reproducing it without your permission but it’s too good not to share.

This piece of tribal wisdom from the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

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But in modern business, because heavy investment factors are taken into consideration, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including the following:

  1. Buying a stronger whip.
  2. Changing riders.
  3. Threatening the horse with termination.
  4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
  5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
  6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
  7. Reclassifying the dead horse as “living-impaired”. .
  8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. .
  9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
  10. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
  11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
  12. Declaring that the dead horse carries lower overhead and therefore contributes more to the bottom line than some other horses.
  13. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
  14. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Lots of food for thought eh?

Have a peaceful, safe and reflective Easter in the best way it means to you!