Sunday, 13 September 2015

Dead Horse Theory

Going through my old files of various teaching materials I came across this text:



Dead horse theory

Dakota Native American tribal wisdom, passed on from generation to generation, says:
"When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse."
However, in educative, corporate and governmental organisations , more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that the dead horse can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as 'living impaired'.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and / or training to increase dead horses' performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course ...
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position!

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