How Government / Corporate Management Works

I ran across this elsewhere. It is one of those things that are so perfectly logical and so precisely describes both government and mahogany row in corporations. (Mahogany is the wood related aspect.)

"
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed from generation to generation, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in modern business, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including some of the following:

01. Buy a bigger whip.
02. Change riders.
03. Threaten the horse with termination.
04. Appoint a committee to study the horse.
05. Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
06. Lower the standards so that dead horses can be included.
07. Reclassify the dead horse as "living impaired".
08. Hire an outside contractor to ride the dead horse.
09. Harness several dead horses together to increase speed.
10. Provide additional funding to increase the dead horse's performance.
11. Conduct a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's
performance.
12. Declare that the dead horse carries lower overhead, and therefore performs better
than some other horses.
13. Rewrite the expected performance parameters for all horses to accommodate the dead one.
14. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

"

Sack the jockey
Give the dead horse a performance bonus

Seek second opinions on the dead horse.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rrich

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed from generation to generation, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in modern business, other strategies are often tried with dead horses.

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From where I sit at work, I can clearly see that the horse is not only dead but it smells. Many others can see this too, but many cannot. I still continue to ride this dead horse because:

1. Higher middle management believe that the horse is alive and well so they still keep authorizing payment for me to ride it.
2. My immediate superior believes the horse is a bit sick so he blames the horse rather than me for any performance issues. :2tsup:
3. I know that it is useless trying to flog a dead horse so I feel no pressure to achieve much and I still get paid well to put up with the stench. :oo:
4. My subordinates know I know that the horse is dead and I will not expect them to get any productivity out of flogging the dead horse. :D

Cheers

Doug

Move the dead horse's position offshore to India or China, making the dead horse redundant and offering generous severance.

How Government / Corporate Management Works

I heard a different version on this, about a young lad who asked his father to explain it. Result, it can't be printed in this section of the forum.
Will try to get a pass word to put it in the correct place:D
Kryn