Dealing With Dead Horses

Every leader sometimes finds himself or herself trying to resurrect something that is either dying or already dead. Here are a few choice insights on dealing with "dead horses" from our Hillcrest Church Children's Pastor, Susan Rutledge:

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in 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 horses.

6. Increasing the standards to ride 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 horses in today's environment.

10. Changing the requirements to specify that "Horses shall not die."

11. Hiring contractors to ride the dead horse.

12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.

13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to ride."

14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.

15. Doing a study to see if the horse can be ridden cheaper if outsourced.

16. Purchasing a product to revitalize the dead horse.

17. Declaring the dead horse is "better, faster and cheaper".

18. Forming a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.

19. Revisiting the performance requirements for horses.

20. Saying this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.

21. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Personally, I think the best way to deal with a "dead horse" is the same way Pastor Syvelle Phillips taught me to deal with a "sacred cow" … namely, you shoot it from as far away as possible with a high-powered rifle, then walk up wringing your hands over its untimely demise…! J!