The tribal wisdom of Dakota Indians passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in governments and large corporations, more advanced strategies, like the following, are often employed in such situations: 1. Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4. Visiting other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. 5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses 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 horse's 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 overhead, 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 Management position.
