The wise men of the Dakota Indians reckoned that the optimal approach when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, is to dismount.
Phshaw! How unimaginative! I stumbled across some much better ideas and combined them with another raft of wisdom from a recent email:
- Invest in far more powerful whips.
- Change riders – find someone who is really serious about reaching this destination.
- Initiate disciplinary proceedings against both horse and rider for missing a clearly identified goal.
- Reclassify the dead horse as a "living-impaired equine."
- Restructure the horse's incentive scheme to contain a significant performance-related element.
- Encourage the horse to work late hours and perhaps a few weekends, until he has "caught up" with the shortfall.
- Appoint a committee to study the horse. [So obvious! How could the Native Americans have missed that one?]
- Arrange for the Tribal elders to visit other countries to see how other cultures overcome the issue of living-impaired equines.
- Revisit the targets and role standards so that living-impaired equines can be accommodated. [No dead horse left behind?]
- Appoint outside contractors to ride the dead horse – and set really clear milestones for the journey.
- Convene a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.
- Harness several living-impaired equines together to increase speed.
- Conduct a productivity study to see if lighter riders improve a living-impaired equine's performance.
- Note in the next quarterly conference call that, as the living-impaired equines do not have to be stabled, fed or watered, they are less costly, carry lower overhead and therefore contribute substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do the equines used by our competitors.
- Promote the living-impaired equine to a supervisory position, citing the historical precedent of Emperor Caligula ...
5 comments:
This is a stunningly perceptive post! Every VC/investor should have it on their wall.
Irrespective of the outcome, the numbers hardly lie and the statistics cannot be faulted. A quadripedal carbon-based equine of sound and intact musculo-skeletal disposition that is not expending energy must represent an extant storehouse of said energy, whereas the energy spend of a currently active biped must of necessity be on a downward curve and as such in active decline. A blind man on a galloping horse could see that in fact the horse is far more alive than those standing around kicking it, or am I way off the mark?
Anon - I wish I cold take credit for the idea ...
Nick - So true. Tis all about potential energy / earnings - I wish more CEOs could see this. I am reminded of the wise rocket scientist who stroked his beard and then said in a deeply considered tone, "Actually, pigs can fly ... If given sufficient thrust ... But it's not recommended ..."
What about skinning the dead horse, then draping the hide over a three-legged donkey to fool the investors?
You omitted...
Benchmark your living impaired equine against other living impaired equines performance and efficiency noting with pride that your performance is exactly at median in a field crowded with companies with many more years experience in the field of living impairedness.
Conclude that since you are at least as competent in managing living impaired equines as others that an opportunity exists to extend this proficiency into other, previously untapped living impaired markets such as living impaired small mammals, avians and others.
Promote the person who proposed this to President & CEO - Living Impaired Line Extension Division. Of course huge award of stock, bonuses, tax gross up, access to company jet, private apartment in NY, limo & driver, security... usual sparkly stuff.
Always remembering the mission and vision statement
Phase I - Identify and enter new untapped living impaired markets
Phase III - PROFIT
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